rofi VS polybar

Compare rofi vs polybar and see what are their differences.

rofi

Rofi: A window switcher, application launcher and dmenu replacement (by davatorium)
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rofi polybar
152 279
12,296 13,426
2.0% 1.2%
8.6 7.9
3 days ago 4 days ago
C C++
GNU General Public License v3.0 or later MIT License
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.

rofi

Posts with mentions or reviews of rofi. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-06-27.

polybar

Posts with mentions or reviews of polybar. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-07-03.
  • Are there any tools to analyse/modify colours directly from a bash script?
    2 projects | /r/bash | 3 Jul 2023
    I am on Arch Linux and I am using pywal to generate a colour palette from my wallpaper, which I then use throughout my system. In particular, i have a bash script which grabs these colours and uses them for polybar. The problem is that sometimes these colours do not have enough contrast, and the bar is hard to read. Is there any tool that would allow me to check the readability of my colours, and modify them accordingly, directly from my script? If not, how should I be approaching this issue?
  • How do I use polybar with Hyprland?
    2 projects | /r/hyprland | 13 Apr 2023
    The short answer is you can't.
  • [bspwm] yine yeşillik ama biraz farklısından
    6 projects | /r/Linuxtr | 12 Mar 2023
    Çubuk: polybar
  • Looking for a waybar for i3
    2 projects | /r/i3wm | 25 Feb 2023
    It is treaky to show it on all monitors allowing hotpluggin them: https://github.com/polybar/polybar/issues/763
  • Tiny gaps between glyphs and modules
    2 projects | /r/Polybar | 28 Jan 2023
    ================= ; ; ; ██████╗ ██████╗ ██╗ ██╗ ██╗██████╗ █████╗ ██████╗ ; ██╔══██╗██╔═══██╗██║ ╚██╗ ██╔╝██╔══██╗██╔══██╗██╔══██╗ ; ██████╔╝██║ ██║██║ ╚████╔╝ ██████╔╝███████║██████╔╝ ; ██╔═══╝ ██║ ██║██║ ╚██╔╝ ██╔══██╗██╔══██║██╔══██╗ ; ██║ ╚██████╔╝███████╗██║ ██████╔╝██║ ██║██║ ██║ ; ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝╚═╝ ╚═╝ ; ; ; To learn more about how to configure Polybar ; go to https://github.com/polybar/polybar ; ; The README contains a lot of information ; ;========================================================== ; INCLUDING FILES include-file = ~/.config/polybar/glyphs.ini ; COLORS [colors] background = "#282c34" foreground = "#dcdfe4" shade1 = "#0d5189" shade2 = "#0e5a99" shade3 = "#1063a8" shade4 = "#116cb8" shade5 = "#1375c7" shade6 = "#147ed7" shade7 = "#1687e6" [widths] small = 3px med = 5px large = 6px huge = 10px [util] radius = 0 [bar/left] width = 100% height = 38px #offset-x = 12 #offset-y = 8 radius = ${util.radius} # colors background = ${colors.background} foreground = ${colors.foreground} # text font font-0 = "CaskaydiaCove Nerd Font Mono:size=11;3" # icon font font-1 = "CaskaydiaCove Nerd Font Mono:size=16;3" # microphone icon font-2 = "CaskaydiaCove Nerd Font Mono:size=12;3" # glyph font font-3 = "CaskaydiaCove Nerd Font Mono:style=Medium:size=26;5" modules-left = power left1 bspwm left2 modules-right = right7 ping right6 mic right5 pulseaudio right4 memory right3 cpu right2 date right1 noti cursor-click = pointer cursor-scroll = ns-resize enable-ipc = true wm-restack = bspwm # system tray tray-position = right tray-background = ${colors.shade1} [module/ping] type = custom/script interval=1 exec = echo `ping -c 1 8.8.8.8 -w 1 | tail -1 | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d '/' -f 2 | cut -d '.' -f 1`"ms" format = format-font = 1 format-padding = ${widths.large} format-background=${colors.shade7} [module/noti] type = custom/script interval = 1 exec = $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/dnd.sh label-padding = ${widths.large} format = format-font = 2 format-background = ${colors.shade1} click-left = $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/dnd.sh --toggle & [module/playing] type = custom/script interval = 2 exec = playerctl metadata --format ' {{trunc(title, 20)}}' | awk 'NR==1 {print; exit}' click-left = playerctl play-pause [module/power] type = custom/text content = "" content-font = 2 content-padding = ${widths.huge} click-left = $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/power.sh content-background=${colors.shade1} [module/mic] type = custom/script tail=true exec = $HOME/.config/polybar/scripts/microphone.sh label-padding = ${widths.large} format = format-font = 3 format-background = ${colors.shade6} click-left = pamixer --source 1 -t scroll-up = pamixer --source 1 -i 5 scroll-down = pamixer --source 1 -d 5 [module/pulseaudio] type = internal/pulseaudio label-volume = %percentage%% label-volume-padding = ${widths.large} label-volume-foreground = ${colors.foreground} label-volume-background= ${colors.shade5} label-muted = %percentage%% label-muted-padding = ${widths.large} label-muted-foreground = ${colors.foreground} label-muted-background= ${colors.shade5} format-muted-prefix = "婢" format-muted-prefix-font = 2 format-muted-prefix-padding= ${widths.large} format-muted-prefix-foreground= ${colors.foreground} format-muted-prefix-background= ${colors.shade5} format-volume-prefix = "墳" format-volume-prefix-font = 2 format-volume-prefix-padding= ${widths.large} format-volume-prefix-foreground = ${colors.foreground} format-volume-prefix-background= ${colors.shade5} click-right = pavucontrol & click-left= pamixer -t scroll-up = pamixer -i 5 scroll-down = pamixer -d 5 [module/wlan] type = internal/network interface = wlp21s0f0u5 interval = 3 format-connected = format-disconnected = label-connected = "YES" label-disconnected = "NO" [module/bspwm] type = internal/bspwm pin-workspaces = true enable-click = true enable-scroll = true reverse-scroll = false label-urgent="%name%" label-urgent-background = ${colors.shade2} label-empty-padding = 1 label-empty="%name%" label-empty-background = ${colors.shade2} label-occupied="" label-occupied-padding = 1 label-occupied-background = ${colors.shade2} label-focused-background = ${colors.shade2} label-focused-padding = 1 label-focused="" radius = 15.0 [module/memory] type = internal/memory interval = 2 label = %used:2% label-padding = ${widths.large} label-background = ${colors.shade4} format-prefix = "﬙" format-prefix-font = 2 format-prefix-padding= ${widths.large} format-prefix-background = ${colors.shade4} [module/cpu] type = internal/cpu interval = 2 label = %percentage%% label-padding = ${widths.large} label-background = ${colors.shade3} format-prefix = "" format-prefix-font = 2 format-prefix-padding= ${widths.large} format-prefix-background = ${colors.shade3} [module/date] type = internal/date interval = 1 date = %I:%M %p date-alt = %d %B • %A label = %date% label-padding = ${widths.large} label-background = ${colors.shade2} format-prefix = "" format-prefix-font = 2 format-prefix-padding= ${widths.large} format-prefix-background = ${colors.shade2} [global/wm] margin-top = 10 [settings] screenchange-reload = true pseudo-transparency = false
  • Top Bar
    4 projects | /r/neovim | 26 Jan 2023
    A common one is polybar, but there are quite a few so they can't be hard to tell just from how it looks
    4 projects | /r/neovim | 26 Jan 2023
    That is a status bar, often used with tiling window managers. A popular one would be https://github.com/polybar/polybar
  • nordic.nvim: A warmer and darker implementation of Nord
    5 projects | /r/neovim | 22 Jan 2023
    The bar outside of neovim is polybar and my configs can be found here.
  • Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong to compile polybar?
    3 projects | /r/linuxquestions | 16 Dec 2022
    So, Im following the instructions here: https://github.com/polybar/polybar/wiki/Compiling
  • [BSPWM] My first rice!
    15 projects | /r/linuxmasterrace | 31 Oct 2022
    OS: Arch Linux WM: Bspwm Compositor: Picom Launcher/Powermenu: Rofi Status Bar: Polybar Terminal: Alacritty Shell: Zsh Editor: Neovim Notification: Dunst File Manager: Lf PDF Viewer: Zathura Text fonts: JetBrains Mono Nerd Font DOTFILES: here

What are some alternatives?

When comparing rofi and polybar you can also consider the following projects:

albert - A fast and flexible keyboard launcher

polybar-themes - A huge collection of polybar themes with different styles, colors and variants.

tint2

i3blocks-contrib - Official repository for community contributed blocklets

nerd-fonts - Iconic font aggregator, collection, & patcher. 3,600+ icons, 50+ patched fonts: Hack, Source Code Pro, more. Glyph collections: Font Awesome, Material Design Icons, Octicons, & more

conky - Light-weight system monitor for X, Wayland, and other things, too

dmenu-rs - A pixel perfect port of dmenu, rewritten in Rust with extensive plugin support

Ulauncher - Feature rich application Launcher for Linux

wayfire - A modular and extensible wayland compositor

pywal - 🎨 Generate and change color-schemes on the fly.

dunst - Lightweight and customizable notification daemon