Niri 26.04: Scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor

nickjj

Niri is so good. I've switched to using it about 5 months ago and it was legit the best computing decision I can remember making in recent history to move away from Windows. I have a huge amount of gratitude towards the author of niri. My dotfiles have always included an install script for setting everything up around command line tools, theme switching and more but it fully supports niri now too on Arch based distros https://github.com/nickjj/dotfiles in case anyone is shopping around for a new desktop environment and wants to get going quickly. I run it on both my main desktop and a travel laptop.

incanus77

Niri introduced scroll-based window management to me and it instantly clicked. I'm very happy to see a full-on Niri per-workspace emulation mode in OmniWM[1] for the Mac, recently and thankfully made compatible with Sequoia. It immediately became my main window manager. [1] https://github.com/BarutSRB/OmniWM

phren0logy

If you are on a Mac, check out OmniWM, which has a Niri layout, in addition to one that's more like Hyprland. It has made my work on MacOS much more pleasant. https://github.com/BarutSRB/OmniWM I posted about it a bit ago when I just started using it, and it's been really great. Highly recommended.

beepbooptheory

A few releases back when niri got "proper" Alt-Tab behavior like one expects from more mainline WMs made it pretty much perfect for me. Could not dream of wanting anything more than what it already has.

dyates

I switched to Niri at the end of last year after over a decade on i3.[1] Having horizontal scroll unbounded by my monitor size and workspace count unbound by the number of shortcut keys I have configured has been very freeing, and the graphical stuff is nice too. My only remaining pain point is that its X compatibility layer, xwayland-satellite, does not yet support drag and drop between X and Wayland programs.[2] [1]: https://davidyat.es/2026/01/28/niri/ [2]: https://github.com/Supreeeme/xwayland-satellite/issues/133

mindslight

This sounds very interesting. I'm currently in the middle of revisiting my desktop setup and interaction style. Landed on Qtile/Wayland but now I'm starting to notice lag. > Every monitor has its own separate window strip. Windows can never "overflow" onto an adjacent monitor I'm someone who was very content with the constraint of a laptop (one single screen, generally running one maximized window per workspace and switching with F-keys), but has never really become comfortable with multi-monitors. Can anyone explain why window managers always default to treating individual monitors as completely separate entities rather than one larger screen that works together? Like I would have thought the default here would be to have two monitors operate on the same horizontally-scrolling set of windows. Either tied together, or as independent viewports. But everybody always seems to reach towards treating each monitor as having disjoint windows. Which I guess I can get used to, it just seems odd?

ifloop

I'm on hyprland (which also has a scrolling layout). How do you guys navigate between your workspaces? I'm accomodated to super+<num>, which jumps to workspace #<num> with a mostly fixed purpose. If I opened something ad-hoc, I usually know where I placed it. I found it difficult to operate in a setting which more resembles the state of my desk (if it weren't random access).

foltik

I’ve gotten so used to the tiling WM workflow of quick-switching between a bunch of different dedicated fullscreen workspaces and managing windows with pure keyboard. Each workspace typically has a single app, or terminal with tmux, but occasionally I’ll split two apps side by side. Would love to hear the perspective of anyone who switched from a similar workflow to Niri. How does the mental model shift?

mplanchard

I recently switched to niri after bouncing off it about a year ago, and this time it stuck. One thing I learned in the process was that the custom wayland desktop world has the concept of a "desktop shell," which provides most or all of the additional components you might want on top of your compositor, rather than having to separately install a top bar, manage suspend/hibernate, figure out notifications, etc. You can of course still do all of that, but you can also just install niri and something like the "dank material shell"[0] and be off to the races. I first discovered this via awesome-niri[1]. The combination of niri and the shell means that the extent of my custom NixOS configuration for the two is entirely limited to keybindings and some custom window rules for zoom. [0]: https://danklinux.com/ [1]: https://github.com/niri-wm/awesome-niri

rjzzleep

I use mangowm on the wl-only branch(which is based on wlroots 0.20). It uses a lot less resources, has more layouts and I have fewer problems with it. Although niri seems to have more eye candy. It's definitely worth giving a try. If you want HDR, you have to wait though. https://github.com/mangowm/mango

nolist_policy

Slightly off topic: Does anyone know a window manager where you can map virtual desktops to real monitors? E.g. When I'm on the move I cycle through my virtual desktops on my laptop screen, but when connecting a monitor I want to cycle between my virtual desktops independently on either screen. While both screens share the same set of virtual desktops.

ChrisLTD

I’ve been using the PaperWM extension for Gnome (that I believe Niri took inspiration from?), and it’s definitely an interesting way to work. I’m not sure that I love it, I feel like it’s a bit cumbersome when I have more than 3 windows in a single workspace. But I’m giving it a real shot, and the nice thing about it being a Gnome extension is that the rest of the Gnome DE is right there without a ton of config.

varun_ch

I used Niri on a Framework laptop a few months ago, and it was Okay. I don’t think it clicked with me/I’m not sure if I was using it right, but it was giving me a headache to mentally deal with spatially mapping all of my windows (I came from MacOS where I just knew which windows I had open and cmd+tab into the right one when needed).. I think I would’ve adjusted best if I could somehow just watch someone do their daily work on Niri, to learn how to use it right. Curious if people who like Niri came from tiling WMs or standard DEs.

OtomotO

Using Niri for over a year now. Before that I was on sway for 6 years, before that on i3, before that on KDE, Gnome, ... I'll never look back. Niri is the best window manager I ever used, it just instantly clicked with me.

PreHistoricPunk

Niri is really good. Very customizable. I do not think in terms of monitors anymore, just workspaces that are virtually infinite.

mostlyk

If anyone wants to try the NNN (Niri-Nix-Noctalia) dots. Feel free to use my flake, https://github.com/MostlyKIGuess/nix-flake-public .

vatsachak

Turns out a Russian prodigy can build something better than 100 million dollars worth of Claude tokens Totally not mass psychosis guys pump the SPY

dang

Related: The dank case for scrolling window managers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46820468 - Jan 2026 (61 comments) Niri 25.11 released with alt-tab and other improvements - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46097051 - Nov 2025 (1 comment) Niri – A scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45461500 - Oct 2025 (229 comments) The Future Is Niri - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43342178 - March 2025 (216 comments) Niri: A scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37367687 - Sept 2023 (37 comments)

jrm4

Slightly offtopic and it's odd because I'm asking for something that feels like should exist though, like, I get that I have no right to it. This, for X, but not under Gnome or KDE? Even better, perhaps as just a script or something under Openbox? (might be time to get into the vibecoding...)

hmokiguess

Give me Niri on macOS pleaaaaaase. I tried the variants but it’s not there yet, I want native trackpad gesture integration, either no animations or buttery smooth ones with full control, blur please, and everything else.