Ranking Linux Desktop Environments for 2023

hey everyone this is Nick and don't worry this is not going to be your average tier list video no sitting in front of cheer maker with my face the whole time because who wants to look at that for that long still keep in mind that this is my personal ranking based on my experiences with my personal preferences it's totally okay if you have completely different opinions and you can jump in the comments and let me know your own ranking for every single one of these desktops now what will definitely be as steel though is this segue to today's sponsor this video is sponsored by lenod lenode is the only solution I use to run my own nexcloud server and my only office server as well it's a super easy solution to deploy basically anything you want in one click they have a huge Marketplace of applications you can host from nextcloud WordPress Drupal gitlab or grafana to gaming servers for Minecraft RX CS go rust valheim and more they take care of all the configuration for you all you have to do is click the thing you want to deploy fill in a few details and your server is up and running and once everything is live it's still super easy to manage your servers to upgrade or downgrade them add some storage back them up and get help if you're stuck I've been using linode for years now and I can only recommend them if you want to give them a shot click the link in the description below and you'll get a hundred dollars of free credits to get started so let's begin with the rankings then they're gonna start at no way then no thanks then decent good and great let's start with no gnome is a desktop environment I've used for a long time it's currently the one I use on my laptop and my desktop both on Fedora but I also used it in the past on Ubuntu Manjaro and other distributions it's extendable with extensions it's customizable if you're okay with using d-conf editor instead of purely graphical settings and it's also themeable but that's getting more and more tricky now gnome has a desktop I find really nice to use but there are things that bug me and that means it will be in good and not in great first some really basic options aren't available by default and that's just stupid second extensions might be awesome but if you move to a new gnome release right after it's out then most of your extensions won't be updated yet and there's the 50 50 chance they won't work anymore still it has in my opinion the best application ecosystem on Linux and it looks amazing by default now that's highly subjective I mean some people think this looks good I don't see it Chrome also has the best touchpad gestures I used on any operating system Mac OS included and it's fast smooth and responsive so good but not great because some options should really really be there by default iPhone settings and startup applications and also because while I personally enjoy the default gnome layout it's very opinionated and if you like a minimize button a maximize button a dark or a notification tray you're gonna have to jump through hoops to get those now on to KDE the most powerful desktop you could ever have on any operating system period it has simple defaults super powerful options plenty of readily available customization and a large ecosystem of applications although not as good looking or up-to-date as gnomes I used KDE a ton I always have a laptop with it installed and it was my main desktop environment for a lot of the time I was running this YouTube channel now it used to have a lot of bugs and stability issues but in my experience that's not the case anymore but I'm certain the comment section will be a nice chorus of people telling me how buggy their experience with it was now for me personally it's not and a few big issues I had with it on laptops notably touchpad gestures are now fixed even though they're not as good as gnomes and still I'm going to put KD in the great category why because its problems are not problems for me the fact that it has tons of options and very crowded Settings app I don't care about that I know where to find things and I would rather have to search for a few seconds to find what I want to change then having to look it up online because the option doesn't exist and I'll need an extension or third-party app to change it and also every problem I have with KDE is generally fixed in the following bug fix release or major release and yes it absolutely means that I plan to switch my main desktop to KDE my laptop will stay on ground because it's better on laptops but on desktops KDE is coming when I get the time now budgie this one I used for a while on Manjaro as my main desktop environment at the time I would have put it in good nowadays it's a no thanks for me budgie is basically gnome plus a few add-ons like the side panel customization options and better notifications the thing is budgie has been kinda stuck in limbos since gnome announced they will use libid Vita the main budgie Dev left Solus the distro that was budgie's Flagship and said he would work on making a brand new version of all budgie apps using the enlightenment Foundation libraries and since then no real news that I could see and the current version of budgie doesn't seem to move at all that doesn't mean the experience is bad or anything but it's still not moving forward at all and hasn't for a full year at least and their decision to try and rewrite everything just because liberta exists makes no sense to me just make because the manager that bypasses lipid Vitae can be done it's been done now most of what you can do with budgie you can do in regular gnome with extensions and get a more up-to-date stack more frequent updates and Bug fixes and the same performance so yeah for me budgie is a no thanks let's move on to xfce and this one is a hard one because on the surface it looks very old and pretty ugly by default it doesn't really support most of the new technological Linux stack like Wayland it's not a complete desktop experience without its own app center for example and it generally seems stuck in the past on the other hand it's extremely fast and responsive it's very customizable with themes layouts panel applets and the like and this means it can use most other desktop environments apps to fill in the gaps xfc I'm going to put in decent because while I personally would not use it I can understand why people do and why they like it which I don't really see for anything that's ranked lower mate is another hard one I loved gnome 2 back in the day and mate is exactly that that layout was wonderful back then but nowadays It suffers from the same problems as xfce no Waylon support no one-to-one touchpad gestures not a complete experience without its own app store or design philosophy or guidelines mate isn't a desktop I use too much apart from the month I spent with it back when I made my mate experiment playlist don't watch it I was even worse back then at this than I am today mate is going in the decent category just like xfc I wouldn't use it personally apart from the novelty of going back to gnome 2 but I can understand why people like it especially if you have your eyes glued to the system monitor to make sure you don't go over 500 megabytes of RAM used at any time for some reason apparently some people do that just buy another stick of ram one gigabyte of RAM usage at idle is not high now cinnamon is what Linux Mint uses and it's pretty damn complete it has applications for basically everything out of the box you can do everything graphically without needing to turn to a third-party app whether it's managing software sources installing applications installing software packages changing every setting you name it bloat is in the eye of the beholder and what some call bloated I call freaking awesome cinnamon is also super customizable you can change the whole layout use different applets change all the themes the icons the cursors and all that out of the box without installing anything extra and it's reasonably fast as well but because there's always a but cinnamon lacks touchpad gesture something that is a huge negative for me and some parts of its interface are really dated notably how you change your panel layout the new look makes it quite fresh and modern in my opinion but it's still not on par with Breeze or advice and also they seem hell bent on not even starting to support Weyland which sucks because even if it's not a hundred percent ready right now it will be very soon and cinnamon taking two years to be as fluid and efficient as other desktops will definitely suck big time so cinnamon goes in the good category it's a really solid choice but next to Katie I can't put it on par with it deep in desktop is one that looks phenomenal on the surface but that I could never use day to day now sure it's beautiful and it has a design Flair and a fluidity that is quite remarkable but as soon as you try to install anything other than the default it all falls apart nothing looks like the default's deep in apps on your desktop becomes a disjointed mess the default apps are way too simple and can do in most cases even less than gnomes which are already pretty bare both the deep in app store is completely useless and even translations are quite hesitant they have that Charming Chinese style of using the subtly wrong word that almost means the thing that they think it means it's quite nice and fun actually especially coming from a non-native English speaker but I just can't see why you would pick deepen unless its default apps are enough for you it's a no thanks for me especially considering you can't get it on most distros and that to default deep in this row is kinda sucks now this one if you had asked me three years ago I would have put in great today I'll put it in no thanks if you're a long time viewer I will give you a little bit of time to pick your draw off of the floor yes the elementary Fanboy In Me Is Dead this is Pantheon Elementary Us's desktop and while I truly feel it had the edge over any other gtk based desktop two or three years ago it has lost every Advantage it had during this time period Pantheon was awesome because they had the best touchpad gestures the best design guidelines and the best app ecosystem they had the best app store and a very simple easy to use experience although not customizable in the slightest they had a rolling release model for apps and the desktop and it was a dream for me but unfortunately the team doesn't feel like it's big enough to tackle a distro a desktop and a suite of apps anymore Elementary us6 is the current release and while 7 should be out in the coming months it won't bring anything revolutionary it still uses X11 it's based on Ubuntu 22.04 almost a year old at that point and while there are a few style changes for icons there are no truly big features on the front or back end and to make things worse gnome now has lipid Vita which has spurred gtk devs that used to make Elementary apps to make gnome apps instead and gnome has better touchpad gestures than Elementary now and they also have a better app center now as well and Elementary OS also has zero support for Wayland right now which is also a big negative in my book The fact they don't ship flat Hub enabled out of the box is a distro decision not a desktop one so I won't knock them for it but it's still stupid so that's a no thanks for me there is no reason nowadays to big Pantheon over gnome because everything that Pantheon does can be replicated in Gnome with a few extensions and you'll get a better Modern stack better gestures better applications a better ecosystem I don't see why you would go for Elementary OS these days now Unity is having a Bible right now with features in the works a new t as it stands right now it's only decent for me back when it was the official default on Ubuntu I would have put it in the great category fight me nowadays it's only decent because it looks pretty dated the panel and its applets are straight from the gnome 2 era there isn't much customization to be had the dash isn't as useful as it once was because filters at the bottom isn't pretty ergonomic with a mouse and while it's a fun trip down memory lane for me it doesn't really appeal to me all that much it still has great stuff like the HUD or the global menu but these things are overshadowed by the general age and feel of unity but the new version 7.7 which will be the default on Ubuntu unity 23.04 in a few months will definitely fix a lot of those appearance related problems a lot of the issues with the dash and they even say they're gonna start working on well and support they say it's coming soon so maybe the next time I make this video if I do make another one it will jump up by one or two categories and finally there's cute fish the it was dead but apparently it's not that the devs are working on it but it still looks pretty dead to me sort of desktop and it's another one that looks great on screenshots but it's going to be a no way for me it is to the point that I had a few videos planned on that desktop environment that I never made because there would have been a single good thing to say about it the default apps can do anything third-party apps look completely out of place you can't change any setting at all it's quite laggy not to mention that the project still seems completely dead despite one of the devs announcing he would pick it back up it feels like a bad clone of Mac OS or iOS and it just serves no purpose there is no way I would use that thing ever just use gnome with extensions or KDE both can replicate that layout better and be more functional and more up-to-date and there are others I can't really rate I never used LX cute but looking at it quickly I would say it's decent Enlightenment I never use that all Lumina either and for me tiling window managers aren't desktops and you really don't want me to say where I would put them well I don't want to say because that would trigger a lot of people of course these are all my opinions based on my experience and my personal tastes so viewers might be totally different so don't hesitate to let me know what you think down in the comments just make your own tier list with the same rankings that I use and we'll discuss them just like I'll discuss today's sponsor tuxedo is a company based in Germany and they make laptops and desktops that ship with Linux out of the box now the reason why you would want that over any old Windows device that you would slap Linux on is that with tuxedo you know that it's gonna run Linux because the hardware has been picked specifically to run Linux and you're not limited in your choices either because they have a big big range from laptops to desktops Ultrabooks gaming station gaming laptops gaming Towers workstations whatever you want they have it they're all upgradable repairable and customizable up to your own logo laser etched on the lid of your laptop or your own custom keyboard layout etched on the keys of your laptop so if you need a new device don't go by your Windows laptop click the link in the description below and get yourself a device from tuxedo so thanks for watching the video I hope you enjoyed it if you did don't hesitate to like to subscribe to turn on notifications to write a comment and if you didn't like it well there's also the dislike button it still works but do tell me why in the comments I bet it's because you disagree on one of my rankings and if you want to support the channel there's a super thanks button underneath this YouTube video there's a PayPal Link in the description and there are links to my patreon memberships and YouTube memberships both get access to an exclusive weekly podcast and the right to vote on the next topics that I'll cover so check them out in the description below in the meantime thanks for watching and I guess you'll see me in bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Linux Experiment

Views: 143,502

Keywords: linux, open source, distribution, linux distro, linux help, linux tutorial, linux 2022, opensource, free software, linux tips, distro, linux for beginners 2022, linux tutorial 2022, linux vs windows, switch to linux, best linux desktop environment, best linux distro 2022, best linux os, best linux distro 2023, gnome vs kde, gnome vs kde vs xfce, gnome vs cinnamon, gnome vs plasma, gnome vs unity, deepin vs gnome, deepin vs kde, cinnamon vs xfce, cinnamon vs mate vs xfce

Id: 09cYQJBgKEs

Length: 18min 12sec (1092 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 03 2023