i3 VS Rectangle

Compare i3 vs Rectangle and see what are their differences.

i3

A tiling window manager for X11 (by i3)

Rectangle

Move and resize windows on macOS with keyboard shortcuts and snap areas (by rxhanson)
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i3 Rectangle
200 723
8,950 24,140
1.3% -
7.8 8.2
19 days ago about 1 month ago
C Swift
BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

i3

Posts with mentions or reviews of i3. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-19.
  • Show HN: Chrome Reaper
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 19 Dec 2023
    While I believe Memory Saver was a great improvement, it only works if the tab is hidden or the window minimized. I recently learned the required state is not triggered if the tab is open but on another virtual desktop. At least this is the case with many of not all Linux window managers. Some of the many discussion threads on the topic:

    https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/4353

  • Firefox 121 defaults to Wayland on Linux
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 19 Dec 2023
    > This is very true, and unfortunately there are very few people working on linux accessibility (including not me! I am part of the problem!).

    Accessibility work itself ironically suffers from an accessibility problem. I brought up i3wm above, the issue for that is pretty illuminating: https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/3393

    It's not that the devs are saying "this doesn't matter", the devs behind one of the most popular tiling window managers in the X11 ecosystem are saying, "this does matter, but we don't know how to fix it. We don't know what changes we'd need to make to get Orca working."

    It's a really fundamental breakdown that's kind of a tragedy because I honestly believe that if accessibility communities were more heavily baked into testing and development in Linux and if this wasn't treated like two separate worlds, it would be better for everyone -- fixing accessibility concerns very often improves interfaces across the board and makes them more powerful.

    But... how do you bridge that gap? I don't really know, I tried looking into Orca to see what would need to happen here and bounced off of it pretty hard, it's not a very approachable tech stack and there aren't tutorials or getting started guides. And on the other side of the issue I can preach about needing accessibility input during interface design, but I'm not in a position to give specific advice because I don't use screenreaders or alternate control schemes and I don't know what the biggest problems are.

    The people who need to be involved in that process can't get involved because there's a tech barrier in place even for technically inclined people, and because the underlying software locks them out from the start. i3wm isn't ever going to get someone who's intimately familiar with Orca to jump into the conversation because the people who need to use Orca can't use i3wm. So that leaves the people who can address that tech barrier, but they don't know what to do or how to approach the problem because of the lack of involvement and because the communities are isolated from each other. So it's a chicken-and-egg problem and I don't know how to solve it.

  • "We understand" ;)
    2 projects | /r/discordapp | 9 Dec 2023
    This is partially why i use tools like i3 (/ sway). i like the tool; it works extremely well for me; the design has stayed the same for 20 years; there's no profit motive to come along and fuck everything up. it just works. it is boring in the best way possible.
  • egui_overlay - A transparent Overlay window where you can only click the "egui parts"
    3 projects | /r/rust | 4 Jun 2023
    for example, take i3. https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/4478
  • How to start on a Linux desktop environment?
    2 projects | /r/osdev | 4 Jun 2023
  • What's the difference between Gnome and KDE? Do applications written for one work in the other?
    2 projects | /r/linux4noobs | 22 May 2023
    Some window managers are meant to be used as-is, and provide a minimalist yet functional environment that use very little resources or give power users an almost HUD-like interface. Examples of those window managers are OpenBox and i3wm for X, and Weston and Hyprland for Wayland
  • I created a side file tree picker workaround for Helix Editor in i3
    2 projects | /r/HelixEditor | 22 May 2023
    i3, https://i3wm.org
  • tiling window manager
    2 projects | /r/linux4noobs | 20 May 2023
    I did use i3 exclusively for a few years. The reasons I chose it were
  • i3 vertical dock
    2 projects | /r/i3wm | 10 May 2023
    I don't think you can with base i3. See this open issue on the subject: https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/1129
  • best lightweight linux distro for old laptop and gaming
    3 projects | /r/linuxquestions | 26 Apr 2023
    well, it depends. It was better experience than FreeBSD 7.2 that's for sure. :) It was running Xorg with https://i3wm.org, a web-server, XMPP-server, PostgreSQL, few bots and dovecot / postfix (e-mail server). It was doing fine routing internet for 2PCs and a WiFi router for 10 years until its HDD died. For gaming... erm... I was able to play something like Theme Hospital or Syndicate Wars in dosbox. You have to understand any OS is just software it doesn't make magic. With minimalistic Desktop Environment like Xfce, LXDE or even barebones i3wm you can put your hardware to use with Arch Linux.

Rectangle

Posts with mentions or reviews of Rectangle. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-02-24.
  • How I stay (more) focused with ADHD
    3 projects | dev.to | 24 Feb 2024
    Tip: I use Rectangle app to set up keyboard shortcuts to resize windows (I only have three shortcuts there: left/right half of the screen and full screen).
  • Ideal Monitor Rotation for Programmers
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Dec 2023
    But Raycast also has some functionality in that direction.

    [1] - https://rectangleapp.com/

  • Little macOS Apps That Make a Big Difference in 2024
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 20 Dec 2023
    Two more little utilities that I cannot live without on Mac:

    A tiling window manager like https://rectangleapp.com/

    Muzzle, which automatically silences desktop notifs when you're screensharing https://muzzleapp.com/

  • MacOS tools to make your life easier
    14 projects | /r/MacOS | 7 Dec 2023
    Rectangle
    14 projects | /r/MacOS | 7 Dec 2023
    Rectangle Mac - Move and resize windows in macOS using keyboard shortcuts or snap areas, similar to Windows.
  • Everything I install and set up on a new MacBook as a web developer
    6 projects | dev.to | 5 Dec 2023
    I was a Spectacle user for years, but I recently switched to using Rectangle for window management. Rectangle has a few more options than Spectacle; I’m still getting used to it but I have no strong feelings either way.
  • Yabai – A tiling window manager for macOS
    35 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 30 Nov 2023
    Has anyone transitioned from moom to magnet?

    Rectangle is another oss option: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle

    I bought Moom long before rectangle came out, both are pretty decent.

    35 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 30 Nov 2023
    I like rectangle [0]. It fits my needs well enough without requiring disabling SIP. I especially like the “repeated key presses resize a window on the same side” feature, so I can get cycle the size of the window on the right side of the screen from 1/2->1/3->2/3 easily. I miss i3 sometimes and this ain’t an identical replacement but it gets the job done! Turns out I don’t move my windows all that often anyways.

    [0]: https://rectangleapp.com/

    35 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 30 Nov 2023
    Why would you pay for magnet when you can use rectangle, which is the same but open source? https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
  • Am I missing out on something?
    6 projects | /r/macapps | 1 Nov 2023
    Currently installed apps: Alfred for searching applications/files and launching websites quickly i Stat menus to monitor my hardware Geo Gebra Classic 6 for school Rectangle for better window management Obsidian for note taking Resolve for video editing and all utilities that come with it Bitwarden as my go-to password manager Microsoft Word, Excel PowerPoint and Teams for school Dropover for moving or sending more files quickly Gestimer for work sessions iTerm as a better terminal than the built-in one Python and all things that come with the install Parallels Desktop and all stuff that comes with the install for running windows only applications Visual Studio Code for coding Blender for 3D Image Optim CurseForge for modded Minecraft Minecraft Find any file Mac Updater 3; would love to have the pro version

What are some alternatives?

When comparing i3 and Rectangle you can also consider the following projects:

Amethyst - Automatic tiling window manager for macOS à la xmonad.

sway - i3-compatible Wayland compositor

awesome - awesome window manager

yabai - A tiling window manager for macOS based on binary space partitioning

bspwm - A tiling window manager based on binary space partitioning

wslg - Enabling the Windows Subsystem for Linux to include support for Wayland and X server related scenarios

xmonad - The core of xmonad, a small but functional ICCCM-compliant tiling window manager

tmux - tmux source code

alt-tab-macos - Windows alt-tab on macOS

PlayCover - PlayCover is a project that allows you to sideload iOS apps on macOS (currently arm, Intel support will be tested)

dwm - LEV Linux's window manager (a fork of dwm)

exwm - Emacs X Window Manager