niri-wm/niriPublic

What is niri?

A highly opinionated Wayland compositor featuring a unique scrollable-tiling interface and infinite horizontal workspace organization.

What does niri do?

Niri is a Wayland compositor that introduces a distinct 'scrollable-tiling' paradigm to Linux window management. Instead of constraining application windows to a rigid grid or requiring complex manual tiling layouts, it arranges windows horizontally in a continuous, infinite ribbon that can be smoothly paged left or right. Built entirely from scratch for modern Wayland environments, it focuses heavily on high-refresh-rate animations, dynamic window resizing, and intuitive keyboard navigation. It provides a polished, visually cohesive desktop experience that drastically diverges from traditional dynamic tiling window managers.

Who is niri for?

Linux power users, developers, and desktop customization enthusiasts seeking a modern, animated, and distinctly alternative window management paradigm on Wayland.

How do I get started with niri?

Install niri via your distribution's package manager (e.g., dnf install niri or pacman -S niri).

How popular is niri on GitHub?

niri-wm/niri has 28,119 stars and 1,173 forks on GitHub, and gained 178 stars in the last 7 days.

What license does niri use?

niri-wm/niri is released under the GPL-3.0 license.

• Oct 4, 2026Previously tracked as YaLTeR/niri; its 1 daily snapshot and 1 trending appearance were merged into this profile. Stars: 26,442 on 2026-07-28 under the old name, 28,119 on 2026-10-02 (+1,677).

• Widely adopted

  28,119 stars

• Community-driven

  ~216 contributors

Niri is a Wayland compositor that introduces a distinct 'scrollable-tiling' paradigm to Linux window management. Instead of constraining application windows to a rigid grid or requiring complex manual tiling layouts, it arranges windows horizontally in a continuous, infinite ribbon that can be smoothly paged left or right. Built entirely from scratch for modern Wayland environments, it focuses heavily on high-refresh-rate animations, dynamic window resizing, and intuitive keyboard navigation. It provides a polished, visually cohesive desktop experience that drastically diverges from traditional dynamic tiling window managers.

Linux power users, developers, and desktop customization enthusiasts seeking a modern, animated, and distinctly alternative window management paradigm on Wayland.

• Scrollable tiling paradigm: Arranges application windows horizontally in an infinite, easily scrollable ribbon rather than forcing them into a fixed grid.
• Wayland native architecture: Built specifically from the ground up as a Wayland compositor, fully leveraging modern display server protocols and efficiencies.
• Smooth UI animations: Features deeply integrated, high-refresh-rate animations for window creation, movement, workspace switching, and scrolling.
• Dynamic layout adjustments: Automatically and fluidly adjusts window sizes and ribbon positions as new applications are opened or closed.
• Extensive configuration options: Offers highly detailed configuration for keybindings, specific application layout rules, and visual aesthetics via a dedicated config file.

Getting started: Install niri via your distribution's package manager (e.g., dnf install niri or pacman -S niri).

1. v26.04v26.04Apr 25, 20265.9K downloads

   Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. As you may have noticed, niri now lives in a [GitHub org](https://github.com/niri-wm) rather than my (@YaLTeR) personal account. The primary reason was the ability to give out issue triage permissions: I'd like to give a **massive thanks** to @Sempyos for triaging *all* of our issues and pull requests, answering many, many questions, and helping people diagnose their problems with niri. We've also moved a few niri-adjacent projects to the GitHub org, like the [awesome-niri](https://github.com/niri-wm/awesome-niri) list of related projects maintained by @Vortriz and a new [artwork](https://github.com/niri-wm/artwork) repo by @bluelinden and @HumpityDumpityDumber—two of the creators of our project logo. In the artwork repo, you can find a badge and several [wallpapers](https://github.com/niri-wm/artwork/tree/main/wallpapers), including two stunning 3D works created by @Duncan-Rose in Blender: | pool | cut | | --- | --- | | ![](https://github.com/niri-wm/artwork/blob/main/wallpapers/Niri%20p

2. v25.11v25.11Nov 29, 20254K downloads

   Two weeks ago, Cloudflare had a major outage that took down a good half of the internet. Their [postmortem](https://blog.cloudflare.com/18-november-2025-outage/) included a snippet of Rust code with an `unwrap()`, causing much internet discourse. Now it is my turn to release Rust software with a healthy dose of `unwrap()`s, `assert!`s, and checked arithmetic enabled in release builds. Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. Here are the improvements from the last release. > [!NOTE] > Packagers: niri now supports libdisplay-info 0.3. Most niri packages updated this dependency back in September using a patch—this patch is no longer necessary. ## Alt-Tab After multiple major iterations and a lot of work by @rustn00b, we have an Alt-Tab recent windows switcher! https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4996d0be-638f-403b-b111-89a343d50c00 It's got live window previews, window titles that fade if they're too long, and supports [windows blocked out from screencasts](https://yalter.github.io/niri/Screencasting.html#block-out-

3. v25.08v25.08Aug 30, 20252.1K downloads

   Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. A month ago, on July 31st, we hit 10,000 stars on GitHub! Thanks everyone for your support. 😄 Also, on August 10, niri turned two years old since the [initial commit](https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/commit/ad3c3f8cefd38d2bf26b466d8e34eccde3bca443). With introductions out of the way, here are the improvements from the last release. > [!NOTE] > Packagers: > > - Niri still requires libdisplay-info 0.2 (not 0.3). When libdisplay-info-rs [updates its requirement](https://github.com/Smithay/libdisplay-info-rs/issues/15), you will likely be able to bump it in niri with no other changes. > - Some tests now require surfaceless EGL to be available at test time. If this is problematic, you can ignore them with `cargo test -- --skip=::egl`. > - The wiki contents have moved from `wiki/` to `docs/wiki/`. > - We have a new [Integrating niri](https://yalter.github.io/niri/Integrating-niri.html) wiki page with information on integrating niri into distributions, which you may find helpful. ## A logo

4. v25.05.1v25.05.1May 25, 20251.4K downloads

   This is a hotfix release for [niri v25.05](https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/releases/tag/v25.05). * Fixed handling of layer surfaces unmapped through a null buffer commit: they will now receive an initial configure as necessary (thanks @alex-huff). This makes the [kitty quick access terminal](https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/quick-access-terminal/) work. * Fixed unmapped layer surfaces preventing popups from appearing (thanks @alex-huff). * Fixed brief hover events when the cursor is [hidden](https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/wiki/Configuration:-Miscellaneous#hide-when-typing) (thanks @Duncaen). Also fixed brief cursor hovers when a hidden cursor warps (i.e. with `warp-mouse-to-focus` or with `focus-monitor-right` etc.). * Renamed `un/set/toggle-urgent` to `un/set/toggle-window-urgent`, their intended name. This was my oversight. This change is not config-breaking because these actions aren't bindable, but it does mean you need to change the name when calling `niri msg action`. I went ahead with this break because I don't believe these actions are used anywhere yet (and others confirmed that). * Fixed screen not always redrawing on `niri msg set-window-urgent` and other ur

5. v25.05v25.05May 17, 2025231 downloads

   Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. Here are the improvements from the last release. > [!NOTE] > Packagers: the niri default config now spawns [waybar](https://github.com/Alexays/Waybar) at startup so as not to start with a blank desktop. Please consider adding Waybar as a recommended dependency (or changing it to some other bar). ## The Overview The big new thing in niri v25.05 is the Overview. It zooms out your workspaces and windows to let you see what's going on at a glance, navigate, and drag windows around, all without having to touch the keyboard. https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/379a5d1f-acdb-4c11-b36c-e85fd91f0995 You can open it with the `toggle-overview` bind, via the new top-left hot corner, or using a touchpad four-finger swipe. While in the overview, all keyboard shortcuts keep working, while pointing devices get easier: - Mouse: left click and drag windows to move them, right click and drag to scroll workspaces left/right, scroll to switch workspaces (no holding Mod required). - Touchpad: t

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