30 open-source projects similar to alexays/waybar, ranked by shared indexed features. Tags may describe platforms or build tools rather than the same primary purpose. Check each project’s use case, license, and deployment requirements before treating it as a replacement.
Polybar is a customizable X11 status bar and Linux desktop panel. It serves as a system information dashboard and window manager integration tool, rendering real-time hardware metrics, system status, and window state for Linux desktops. The project features an inter-process communication system that allows separate processes to trigger dynamic updates or execute actions across the environment. It also includes a system for building hierarchical interactive menus that use this messaging to launch applications and system settings. Capabilities cover system monitoring for network connectivity a
This project is a QML desktop shell designed for desktop environment orchestration and interface customization. It functions as a system status dashboard and a declarative user interface for managing system hardware, window metadata, and user sessions. The shell features a dynamic theme generator that extracts dominant colors from wallpapers to automatically synchronize the global visual color palette. It utilizes an inter-process communication system to orchestrate shell functions and a hierarchical JSON configuration framework to manage global and per-monitor interface layouts. The system
Eww is a declarative framework for creating custom graphical desktop widgets and status bars on Linux. It functions as a desktop widget toolkit that operates independently of the window manager, allowing users to define interface elements through a dedicated configuration language and style them using a cascading stylesheet system. The project utilizes a client-server daemon architecture to manage the lifecycle of these components, ensuring that state is maintained across the desktop environment. By leveraging a reactive state binding system, the interface updates automatically in response to
YASB is a customizable status bar framework and desktop shell component for Windows. It provides a toolkit for building personalized information bars using a modular class-based widget architecture and CSS-based styling. The framework distinguishes itself through deep integration with Windows tiling window managers, allowing users to display active workspaces, tiling layouts, and window focus states. It also features automated visual consistency by generating system color schemes based on the current desktop wallpaper. The project covers a wide range of capabilities, including real-time syst
SketchyBar is a shell-scriptable system user interface and status bar replacement for macOS. It replaces the native menu bar with a customizable overlay that uses scriptable widgets and dynamic visual blocks to display real-time data. The tool is distinguished by its use of external shell scripts to update visual elements and state. It supports a declarative configuration system that allows for the creation of multi-instance bars and the execution of batched commands to minimize flickering during startup. The system provides capabilities for dynamic system monitoring through graphs and visua
This project is a command-line utility and development framework designed to modify, extend, and customize the Spotify desktop client. It functions as a binary patching engine that injects custom scripts, stylesheets, and interface components directly into the host application, enabling users to alter visual themes and add new functionality. The tool distinguishes itself by providing a comprehensive development environment for building modular extensions and custom applications. It includes a hot-reloading pipeline for rapid iteration, a declarative library for constructing interactive UI pan
Polybar is a customizable status bar for X11 window managers that functions as a desktop shell interface for displaying real-time system metrics and application status. It serves as a shell script runner and system resource monitor, rendering a persistent graphical overlay on the desktop to track CPU load, memory usage, battery levels, and network connection details. The project distinguishes itself by acting as a system tray host to manage background application icons and as a window manager interface that communicates via protocol messages to show active workspace indicators and window titl
Tasmota is a universal firmware platform for ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontrollers, designed to provide local control and management of smart home hardware. It functions as an event-driven automation controller that replaces proprietary factory firmware, allowing users to manage relays, sensors, and lighting systems without relying on external cloud services. The system is built on a modular driver architecture that enables dynamic hardware configuration and peripheral support through a web-based management interface. The platform distinguishes itself through a template-driven hardware mapping s
Niri is a Wayland compositor and tiling window manager designed for Linux systems. It functions as a display server that organizes application windows into a scrollable, column-based layout, providing a structured environment for managing graphical sessions, input routing, and hardware output. The project distinguishes itself through a declarative configuration engine that enables live-reloading of settings, allowing users to modify window rules, input bindings, and visual appearance without restarting the session. It features a physics-based animation system that uses spring-based curves to
Hammerspoon is a programmable automation engine for macOS that enables deep system-level control through a Lua scripting environment. By bridging high-level scripts with native Objective-C APIs, it allows users to interact with the operating system's accessibility tree, intercept hardware input streams, and manage the lifecycle of running applications. The project distinguishes itself through an event-driven architecture that registers asynchronous hooks for system notifications and hardware events. This allows for real-time automation, such as remapping keyboard and mouse inputs, managing wi
Firefox is a cross-platform web browser engine designed to render web content, execute JavaScript, and manage secure browsing sessions. It utilizes a multi-process isolation architecture that distributes browser tasks across independent operating system processes to ensure stability and prevent site-specific failures from impacting the entire application. The engine incorporates a sandboxed execution environment to restrict web content and untrusted scripts to isolated memory compartments, enforcing security policies that prevent unauthorized access to system resources. The project distinguis
Glazewm is a tiling window manager and desktop automation framework designed to organize application windows into non-overlapping layouts. It functions as a keyboard-driven controller, allowing users to manage window focus, workspace navigation, and layout configurations entirely through custom keybindings. By intercepting system-level events, the software overrides default window placement and behavior to maximize screen space and maintain a structured workspace. The project distinguishes itself through a highly configurable environment that supports complex multi-monitor setups and dynamic
tmux-powerline is a shell-based status generator and plugin for the tmux terminal multiplexer. It provides a visually segmented status line that displays real-time system metrics, session information, and version control status. The project allows for high extensibility through a modular segment architecture, enabling users to define custom information blocks via shell scripts. Visual arrangements and color schemes are managed through external theme files and environment variables. The system monitors a broad range of hardware and network metrics, including CPU load, memory usage, battery le
Open-Shell-Menu is a Windows shell extension and UI restorer designed to replace modern system interfaces with traditional styles. It functions as a start menu replacement and a customization tool for the Windows file manager and other system applications. The project restores legacy hierarchical navigation to the start menu and reinstates classic visual elements, such as traditional title bars and copy dialogs. It specifically targets the restoration of legacy toolbars and status bars within the file manager and introduces traditional interface elements to web browser windows.
systray is a Go library used to create and manage icons and menus within the operating system notification area. It functions as a cross-platform GUI library that provides a persistent application entry point and a notification area menu manager. The library enables the creation of hierarchical menus and custom tray icons across different desktop operating systems. It supports the use of nested submenus and allows for the styling of individual menu entries with custom images. The toolset covers a range of interaction capabilities, including the management of menu item states through checked
Zed is a terminal-based code editor built in Rust that provides a full-featured editing experience with familiar keybindings, mouse support, and multiple cursors. It runs entirely in the terminal while offering capabilities typically found in graphical editors, including split panes, a command palette, and integrated language server protocol support for real-time diagnostics, completions, go-to-definition, and code actions across multiple languages. The editor distinguishes itself through a plugin system that runs sandboxed TypeScript plugins in a QuickJS runtime, with an asynchronous bridge
boring.notch is a macOS notch interface extension that provides a customizable software overlay for the hardware notch area. It functions as a productivity widget hub and a custom system HUD overlay, allowing users to replace standard system heads-up displays for volume and brightness with custom visual indicators. The project includes an interface gesture controller to map touch and mouse interactions to specific system actions and application controls. It also features a temporary file shelf that serves as a workspace for staging files intended for quick transfer via wireless sharing protoc
Cinnamon is a desktop environment interface for Linux operating systems. It provides a visual layout and user interface for managing windows and applications, focusing on desktop workflow management. The project enables Linux GUI customization, allowing the look and feel of the environment to be modified. It includes a window management system to handle the placement and behavior of application windows within the workspace. The environment utilizes a JavaScript-based shell and a modular applet architecture for extensibility, while using CSS for component styling. The interface is built with
This project is a CSS theme for the Firefox web browser designed to integrate its user interface with the GNOME desktop environment. It implements a visual layer that aligns browser elements with the typography, spacing, and overall design language of the GTK system. The theme provides multiple color palettes, including standard dark mode and high-contrast OLED black variants. It also includes system icon integration, allowing the browser to replace internal images with system-level icons to match the host operating system's aesthetics. Beyond color and iconography, the project covers interf
vim-airline is a customizable status and tab line plugin for Vim that displays editor state and plugin metadata in real time. It serves as a visual interface extension and buffer manager, providing an enhanced UI through a dynamic status line and a top tab bar for navigating open files. The plugin features a theme-based styling system that supports predefined color schemes and specialized font icons. Users can configure the visual aesthetic by modifying colors and reordering individual status line sections to control which information is visible. The system manages editor state visualization
ExplorerPatcher is a system utility designed to modify the behavior of the Windows shell by injecting custom code into core operating system processes. It functions as a background patching tool that intercepts internal function calls and replaces modern interface components with legacy alternatives, allowing for the restoration of traditional taskbar, menu, and task switcher behaviors. The project distinguishes itself through its use of dynamic link library injection and side-by-side binary replacement to alter the desktop environment at runtime. By redirecting execution flow within the syst
GitHub-Dark is a browser extension theme and collection of user style sheets designed to provide a comprehensive dark mode aesthetic for the GitHub interface. It functions by injecting custom style rules directly into the browser to override default website colors, fonts, and layout properties, aiming to improve visual comfort and readability during extended use. The project distinguishes itself through its focus on deep integration and visual consistency. It includes specialized support for syntax highlighting across various programming languages and notebook environments, ensuring that code
This is a framework for building desktop applications that reside in the system tray using Electron. It functions as a system tray integration library and window manager, providing the necessary components to handle native tray icons, tooltips, and the associated window lifecycles for menubar applications. The framework coordinates native system tray interactions with web-based user interfaces. It maps application commands to the operating system's native menu system and orchestrates the visibility and positioning of child windows relative to tray icon click events. The project covers native
Rofi is a keyboard-driven application launcher and window switcher for X11 desktops. It functions as a scriptable command palette and a compatible emulator for dmenu, capable of reading options from standard input and returning a user selection to standard output. The project is distinguished by a customizable window interface using a CSS-like theming system and a flexible box-model widget hierarchy. It features a recursive theme inheritance system and responsive styling that adapts based on screen dimensions and monitor identifiers. The tool provides advanced text filtering using fuzzy, reg
Pywal is an image-based theme engine and dynamic color scheme generator that extracts dominant colors from images to create coordinated system-wide color palettes. It functions as a cross-application theme synchronizer and terminal color palette manager, updating interface colors and environment configurations in real-time. The system synchronizes generated palettes across third-party software, window managers, and supported hardware, including RGB backlight controllers for keyboards and laptops. It integrates wallpaper management by applying a source image as the system background while simu
This project is a keyboard-driven menu framework and application launcher for X11 and Wayland desktop environments. It serves as a customizable system control interface for building themed popup menus and applets. The framework allows for extensive visual style customization and the creation of themed launchers through configuration files and style presets. It enables the construction of personalized Linux desktop interfaces by separating functional applets into a modular script architecture. The system covers broad management capabilities, including hardware control for audio and brightness
Bazzite is an immutable, atomic-image-based operating system designed for gaming performance and handheld hardware. It utilizes a read-only root filesystem and versioned images to provide atomic updates and instant system rollbacks, ensuring a stable core environment. The system is distinguished by its deep optimization for portable gaming devices, featuring dedicated handheld hardware management for CPU undervolting, fan control, and display refresh rate overclocking. It includes a specialized gaming mode that boots directly into a console-like interface with integrated input mapping and a t
This project is a modular, terminal-based dashboard framework designed to aggregate and display real-time information within a grid-aligned interface. It functions as a centralized monitoring tool that translates data from local system resources, infrastructure services, and external web APIs into a unified, text-based display. The dashboard is distinguished by its plugin-based architecture, which allows users to encapsulate distinct data sources and display logic into isolated, independently managed modules. Users define their workspace through declarative configuration files or an interacti
This project is an open-source 3D game engine designed for building high-fidelity games, simulations, and cinematic environments. It functions as a robotics simulation platform with native integration for ROS 2 to model robot controllers and sensors. The engine features a multi-threaded Forward+ physically based renderer that supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and global illumination. The system is built on a modular extension architecture using Gems to add or replace features without modifying core binaries. It includes a native SDK for AWS cloud integration, enabling IAM authenticati
Tippy.js is a JavaScript tooltip library and interactive popup framework used to create tooltips, popovers, and dropdowns. It functions as a floating UI component toolkit that renders content relative to a reference element with support for automatic positioning, flip-positioning, and offsets. The library acts as an accessible overlay manager, using ARIA attributes and focus management to ensure screen reader compatibility. It also serves as a CSS animation tool, providing utilities for transitions, spring physics, and themes to manage the visual entry and exit of floating interface elements.