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Top 23 X11 Open-Source Projects
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Docker-OSX
Run macOS VM in a Docker! Run near native OSX-KVM in Docker! X11 Forwarding! CI/CD for OS X Security Research! Docker mac Containers.
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SaaSHub
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Rofi to launch things
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I've been using Omarchy as my main setup since June 26, 2025, the day DHH released the first version. Before that I had my own custom Opinionated Linux, mclovin-ARCHived: an Arch + i3wm installer set up exactly the way I liked. It was total control over the OS: me deciding what goes in, keeping every piece (i3wm, polybar, picom, kitty, dotfiles) up to date and making sure they all talked to each other for the whole OS to keep working. It did the job, but it was costly to keep up to date: always digging into some new TUI to solve a small issue, and changing CPU or laptop meant checking compatibility for everything and tweaking for each machine.
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I've been using Omarchy as my main setup since June 26, 2025, the day DHH released the first version. Before that I had my own custom Opinionated Linux, mclovin-ARCHived: an Arch + i3wm installer set up exactly the way I liked. It was total control over the OS: me deciding what goes in, keeping every piece (i3wm, polybar, picom, kitty, dotfiles) up to date and making sure they all talked to each other for the whole OS to keep working. It did the job, but it was costly to keep up to date: always digging into some new TUI to solve a small issue, and changing CPU or laptop meant checking compatibility for everything and tweaking for each machine.
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Project mention: Microsoft is open sourcing Windows 11's UI framework | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-08-02
No, it implements its own functionality. As an example consider one of the most basic controls which is available pretty much everywhere (i.e. no need for polyfill), the push button: the source code[0] for QPushButton clearly implements the behavior itself, it does not rely on any native button.
Compare with wxWidgets' equivalent to QPushButton, wxButton, where there is a backend-specific header[1] and implementation[2] where 99% of the wxButton functionality is there (there is a `btncmn.cpp` under `common` that is shared across backends but that has very little code itself).
[0] https://github.com/qt/qtbase/blob/dev/src/widgets/widgets/qp...
[1] https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/include/w...
[2] https://github.com/wxWidgets/wxWidgets/blob/master/src/msw/b...
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Project mention: Run GUI applications and desktops in Docker and Podman containers | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-23
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The architecture is fundamentally broken when you are using multiple window managers / desktop environments https://github.com/dunst-project/dunst/issues/363
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I remap Caps Lock to Ctrl when held and to Esc when pressed - the best of both worlds. https://github.com/rvaiya/keyd works really well for me on Linux, but there is a similar software on MacOS.
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I've been using Omarchy as my main setup since June 26, 2025, the day DHH released the first version. Before that I had my own custom Opinionated Linux, mclovin-ARCHived: an Arch + i3wm installer set up exactly the way I liked. It was total control over the OS: me deciding what goes in, keeping every piece (i3wm, polybar, picom, kitty, dotfiles) up to date and making sure they all talked to each other for the whole OS to keep working. It did the job, but it was costly to keep up to date: always digging into some new TUI to solve a small issue, and changing CPU or laptop meant checking compatibility for everything and tweaking for each machine.
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Project mention: A Small Change to Improve Browsers for Keyboard Navigation | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-08-25
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Project mention: Ksnip the cross-platform screenshot and annotation tool | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-30
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autorandr
Auto-detect the connected display hardware and load the appropriate X11 setup using xrandr
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Sorry, but this line is wildly inaccurate:
> that doesn't require long time abandoned C code
https://github.com/NsCDE/NsCDE
Not so Common Desktop Environment (NsCDE) 2.3 Latest
on Jun 16, 2023
https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/files/
src 2025-11-25
CDE is still in active development. NsCDE is effectively abandoned.
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NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
X11 discussion
X11 related posts
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Why I traded my custom "Opinionated Linux" for Omarchy
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[PT-BR] Por que troquei meu "Opinionated Linux" autoral (DIY) pelo Omarchy
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Enhanced Motif Window Manager
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DECwindows Motif
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Run GUI applications and desktops in Docker and Podman containers
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XFCE Is Great
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IRIX Introduction
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 7 Jun 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source X11 projects? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Docker-OSX | 52,562 |
| 2 | WindTerm | 31,224 |
| 3 | rofi | 16,159 |
| 4 | polybar | 15,268 |
| 5 | FreeRDP | 13,247 |
| 6 | i3 | 10,474 |
| 7 | Weylus | 9,264 |
| 8 | wxWidgets | 7,160 |
| 9 | x11docker | 6,279 |
| 10 | winit | 5,995 |
| 11 | dunst | 5,504 |
| 12 | keyd | 5,432 |
| 13 | picom | 4,734 |
| 14 | xmonad | 3,576 |
| 15 | warpd | 3,512 |
| 16 | ksnip | 3,228 |
| 17 | leftwm | 3,052 |
| 18 | autorandr | 2,689 |
| 19 | quickshell | 2,519 |
| 20 | NsCDE | 2,229 |
| 21 | xremap | 2,106 |
| 22 | feh | 1,872 |
| 23 | RGFW | 1,798 |
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