The best DE is the one you like the most
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2026
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You are absolutely right.
I like Plasma best, followed by Xfce and Cinnamon. I can't stand Mate or Gnome.
Trinity
XFCE4 🐭🐭🐭
🐀🐀🐀
Cute rat, must boop lil rat nosie.
👉🐭
Plasma. Or at least it is for me, your opinion may differ.
Yeah same here, I'm a tinkerer so Plasma is perfect for me. No shade to anyone who uses GNOME or whatever else though, I like that we have options for everyone.
I've messed around with the main stars, and I like KDE plasma the best. it's pretty and customizeable. XFCE hits harder than I thought it would, and Cinnamon is pretty good out of the box. I think I hate MATE, but GNOME is good. I also tried something called "Awesome" and it looked deranged in a way that I'm pretty sure would make sense if I spent more time with it... but it was kinda ugly.
For me vanilla gnome is the best DE because of the thoughtful design it has. I rarely use any extensions because I like the way its workflow is designed out of the box (though sometimes I’ll use blur my shell to feel stylish).
Not to soud rude, but how is your "best DE" thread different from thousands of other "best DE" threads where everyone already gave their opinion? There's plenty of "opinions" on "best DE" online.
ez nuts
Objectively, with the question asked as it was; there isn't one.
However, for my use case and preference, I'm gonna roll with KDE. KDE offers everything I need. It has an weasy to use task bar, a menu, tray icons for lingering apps and controls, its dark mode out of the box is good, it support hi refresh rate, even HDR if you want it it can be as simple or as complex as you want. I can stick with how it comes stock basically and rock and roll. The discover store is fine when needed but I use CLI to install and update most things.
I have tried GNOME,XFCE, Cinnamon, Hyprland, Cosmic, Mate, and more but none of them fit my workflow exactly how I see fit.
Your mileage may vary.
Not Gnome
I like plasma the most. I mostly like the defaults and KDE tools but in some cases enjoy the vast customization options. I haven't tried any others in five years or so, so my opinion is a bit off. Could never get used to Gnome.
I had a quick look at the mint one when installing Linux for other people and it seemed decent as well.
The one you build yourself around a WM
xfce, mate, lxde, tde, pick your choice
i prefer wms like fvwm/wmaker/blackbox/e16/ctwm tho
Not a popular opinion for Linux shillers, but I love GNOME. It's quite simplified but does most what a normal person could want. And Gnome extensions can do basically anything a power use could want.
I think its main criticisms largely stem from saying it's not very "Windows"y.
Cinnamon
tmux
That's... not a DE.
idk... i think we can, at least, declare it a WM. tmux is quite possibly my favorite thing ever.
I use tmux for ssh sessions. Still have a DE on the main system, though. Running tmux with tmux would be wild.
I suppose as terminal Cool Stuff goes, it is pretty neat. And tbf, you probably don't need a more full featured WM or DE if you're just going to use it to open and tile a few terminal emulator windows anyway.
Let me guess, you're a massive terminal junkie?
That's... a joke.
None. I use openbox on bunsenlabs Linux.
Less bloat than a full de, but very usable.
Wow no one's said emacs yet
clearly that is because emacs is an OS and not a DE…
KDE if you have enough resources, ratpoison if you like a minimalist tiling WM.
PS: KDE does Quick Tiling
@alexei_1917
Of course there is only one that can be considered "the best", it's the one that works best for you. Everyone should try a different UI from time to time; who knows, you may find somethin better'n the best. You may also learn that people who use "that one" ain't as dumb as they look. 😆
...oh, and the correct answer is #e16 🤘
I got stuck with COSMIC for now after someone made a thread on @libre@hexbear.net how COSMIC is bullying Gnome.
GNOME