A comparison of four window managers
April 26, 2008
Judging from the search engine terms that show up in my WordPress dashboard, a lot of the visitors to this blog are searching for a comparison between either Fluxbox and Openbox, Openbox and Pekwm, or Pekwm and Openbox (search terms such as Pekwm vs. Openbox, or Openbox vs. Fluxbox are rather common).
To satisfy the desires of my dear readers, and to help those who want to know more about some window managers, I have therefore created the following table comparing four very popular window managers (or three very popular ones and one that I happen to like a lot :-)): Icewm, Fluxbox, Openbox and Pekwm.
Icewm, Fluxbox and Openbox have a wide user basis, and a very loyal following. Pekwm is a lesser known window manager that deserves more attention. I mainly use Openbox and Pekwm, and occasionally Icewm.
Please note that this table is not an indication of the most versatile, most developed or ‘best’ window manager. If a window manager lacks a feature, it may have some different strengths. Openbox, for example, does not support pixmap themes, but its theme options are the most complex and elaborate theme options of these four window managers (which makes creating themes for Openbox so much more fun!). Some features may also be primitively implemented: Pekwm supports dockapps, for instance, but its harbour is not very well developed. Nor does this chart provide an exhaustive list of features for these window manager. Icewm, for example, has a number of unique features that are not mentioned in this table (such as an email indicator and some system monitoring tools for the taskbar), and a lot of the basic features of window managers are left out.
I created the table so you could easily find out what each window manager can or cannot do. Choose whichever window manager you like best. Using one over the other doesn’t make you superior. 
There is a reasonable possibility that this table contains some errors. If you find any, please let me know. If I can think of more categories, I’ll add those later.
| Icewm | Fluxbox | Openbox | Pekwm | |
| First release | 1997 | 2001? | 2002 | 200? |
| Last stable release | 1.2.34 (27-12-2007) |
1.0.0 (08-10-2007) |
3.4.7 (17-04-2008 ) |
0.1.6 (28-05-2007) |
| Language | C++ | C++ | C | C++ |
| Based on | – | Blackbox | originally Blackbox | originally aewm++ |
| EWMH standards | partial | partial | yes | partial |
| Panel | yes | yes | no | no |
| Support for dockapps | no | yes (slit) | yes (dock) | yes (harbour) |
| Native wallpaper support | yes | yes | no | no |
| Alt-tab dialog | yes (vertically and horizontally!) | no | yes | yes |
| Command dialog | yes (in taskbar) | yes (fbrun) | no | yes |
| Xinerama support | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Native (fake) transparency | no | yes | no | no |
| Pixmap themes | yes | yes | no | yes |
| Multiple workspaces | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Viewports | no | no | no | yes |
| Add/remove workspaces | no | no | yes | no |
| Usable screen edges | no | no | no (in git version) | yes |
| Strut support | no | no | yes | no |
| Right-click desktop menu | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Configurable client menus | no | no | no | yes |
| Keyboard shortcuts in menus | yes | yes | yes | no |
| Dynamic menus | no | yes | yes (pipe-menus) | yes |
| Additional custom menus | no | yes | yes | yes |
| Icons in menus | yes | yes | only in client-list-menus | no (only in client-list-menu of git version) |
| Grouping/Tabbing of windows | no | yes | no | yes |
| Opaque moving/resizing | yes | yes | only resizing | yes |
| Minimize window to tray | yes | no | no | no |
| Hide windows | yes | no | no | no |
| Tiling | yes (vertically and horizontally) | no | no (GrowTo… actions) | no (’MaxFill’ actions) |
| Per-app settings | yes | only grouping | yes | yes |
| Configurable key bindings | yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Chainable keygrabber | no | yes | yes | yes |
| Configurable mouse behaviour | Some in the preferences file | yes (in keys file) | yes | yes |
| Session management/ Autostarting applications |
yes | yes | yes | yes |
| Confirm logout | yes | no | yes (3.4.7) | no |
| Shutdown/reboot control | no | no | yes (3.4.7) | no |
| Graphical configuration tools | plenty | Fluxconf, Fluxmenu | Obconf, Obmenu | no |
April 27, 2008 at 4:50 am
At the moment I’m using Openbox. There was short moment with Pekwm, but I got irritated when tasks didn’t disappear from Pypanel. eg. I have epiphany open (so it’s in Pypanel), then I bookmark something (bookmarking thing is pypanel), I check bookmarks (bookmarks is in Pypanel). And when I close those, they’re still there until I close also Epiphany. So there was quite a hassle going in Pypanel.
I’m not sure why, but I have no problems with Openbox :/ Maybe I should have checked other panels, how they work with Pekwm (though Pypanel has been so far definitely best for me of those panels I tested with Openbox), or just be without it, otherwise Pekwm is very interesting wm.
And thanks for the interesting post
April 27, 2008 at 10:17 am
Thank you, Hanna.
This pypanel issue is a known problem with Pekwm 0.1.6, which has been fixed in the git version. See here.
April 27, 2008 at 10:24 am
Thank you a lot. Maybe I’ll go back Pekwm then.
April 28, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Nice article, I prefer openbox myself, I like to use fbpanel’s with openbox but now that I finally got my menu’s setup i think I’ll slim down my panel’s some. Have you seen my article about how to get fbpanel’s to look like ubuntu’s? or similar i need to edit that.
good work!
May 2, 2008 at 9:28 am
Great article indeed.
If ever anyone asks me what the main difference/advantage is between e.g. fluxbox and openbox I’ll refer them to this page
May 3, 2008 at 2:39 pm
chris4585: If you want to make the panel slimmer, I suggest making its width smaller. If your widthtype is percent, I suggest between 60-80 as a value for it.
I, myself, use the xdream theme on OpenBox with a nice wallpaper from socwall and a transparent fbpanel (75%) with some launchers for PCManFM, urxvt, Firefox, and Vim.It stays out of my way and works like it should. The only real changes from the default: changed the clock colour, removed the menu, and made it transparent.
May 8, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Porównanie Icewm, Fluxbox, Openbox i Pekwm…
JednÄ… z podstawowych zalet Linuksa jest możliwość wyboru Å›rodowiska graficznego, menedżera okien oraz menedżera plików. Szeroki wybór pozwoli zaspokoić niemal wszystkie potrzeby i gusta, pozostaje tylko zainstalować, porównać i pozostaÄ[…..
June 4, 2008 at 10:51 am
Icewm have dymamic menu, and pipe menu too.
June 6, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Fluxbox HAS the option of adding/removing workspaces. By default, it has only 4, but the default “keys” file shows that the F keys are assigned to about 12 desktops. It’s pretty easy to add/remove them, something like middle click, add workspace.
June 7, 2008 at 8:04 am
Hai Uruk!
Actually, adding new workspaces in IceWM is as easy as opening the preferences file in your /home/you/.icewm folder (which I’m assuming you have), scrolling down until you find this line
WorkspaceNames= ” 1 “, ” 2 “, ” 3 “, ” 4 ”
And then just adding the new workspaces in the same format, thus:
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/992/200806070851561280×1024ya4.png
You can even use the same line to give your workspaces wacky names. Like this
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/1245/200806070853031280×1024oe7.png
June 7, 2008 at 4:05 pm
>>Choose whichever window manager you like best. Using one over the other doesn’t make you superior.
Very true! WM geeks need to put aside their differences, and remember that all that really matters is our shared superiority to users of Gnome and KDE.
(Insert Winky face here.)
June 16, 2008 at 8:06 pm
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