Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Compiz VS picom

Compare Compiz VS picom and see what are their differences

Compiz logo Compiz

Project information. Maintainer: PS Project Management Team. Driver: Compiz Maintainers. Licence: GNU GPL v2, GNU LGPL v2. 1, MIT / X / Expat Licence.

picom logo picom

A lightweight compositor for X11 (previously a compton fork).
  • Compiz Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-11-19
  • picom Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-26

Compiz features and specs

  • Enhanced Aesthetic Appeal
    Compiz provides a variety of visually appealing effects and animations, improving the overall look and feel of the user interface.
  • Customizability
    Users can extensively customize their desktop experience with various plugins and settings to tailor their environment to their personal preferences.
  • Improved Productivity
    Features such as the Exposé-like window overview, workspace switching animations, and enhanced window management help users stay organized and switch between tasks more efficiently.
  • Wide Range of Plugins
    Compiz offers a vast collection of plugins that extend its functionality, allowing users to add new features or enhance existing ones.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source project, Compiz invites community contributions and continuous improvements, fostering innovation and collaboration.

Possible disadvantages of Compiz

  • Performance Overhead
    Running Compiz may consume considerable system resources, potentially impacting performance on lower-end hardware.
  • Stability Issues
    Some users may encounter instability or crashes, especially when using certain plugins or running it on unsupported hardware configurations.
  • Complexity
    The extensive customization options and numerous plugins can be overwhelming for users unfamiliar with Compiz, making it challenging to set up and manage.
  • Compatibility
    Compiz may not be fully compatible with all desktop environments or applications, potentially leading to graphical glitches or reduced functionality in some cases.
  • Maintenance
    As Compiz is heavily driven by community contributions, the pace of maintenance and updates can vary, sometimes resulting in delayed support for new features or bug fixes.

picom features and specs

  • Customizability
    Picom offers a wide range of customization options, allowing users to configure window transparency, animations, shadows, and other graphical effects to fit their preferences.
  • Performance
    Designed to be lightweight, Picom provides minimal resource usage while offering compositing effects, making it suitable for systems with limited resources.
  • Modern Features
    Picom includes support for hybrid backends, experimental features like VSync, and improved performance over its predecessor, Compton, making it well-suited for modern Linux systems.
  • Active Development
    The project benefits from ongoing updates and enhancements, addressing issues and introducing new features based on community feedback.

Possible disadvantages of picom

  • Complexity
    Due to its extensive range of options and settings, Picom can be complex to configure, requiring users to invest time in understanding and editing configuration files.
  • Compatibility Issues
    Some users may experience compatibility issues with specific hardware or window managers, necessitating additional troubleshooting and configuration.
  • Documentation
    Despite being actively developed, the documentation can be sparse or outdated, requiring users to seek community support or refer to insider knowledge for certain configurations.
  • Experimental Features
    Some features may be in experimental stages and could lead to instability or unpredictable behavior on certain systems.

Compiz videos

Fedora 32 mate compiz install and review.

More videos:

  • Review - Linux Ubuntu 11.10 Kernel 3.0.0.12 compiz / review from a Windows guy
  • Review - VIDEO SATISFACTORIO, REVIEW DE MANJARO XFCE + COMPIZ

picom videos

ArcoLinux : 1481 Making sure compton/picom is working on LXQt

More videos:

  • Review - ArcoLinux : 1479 Changing from compton to picom - transparency in terminals

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Compiz and picom)
Window Manager
64 64%
36% 36
Mac
64 64%
36% 36
Note Taking
59 59%
41% 41
Linux
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Compiz and picom. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, picom seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 39 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Compiz mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Compiz yet. Tracking of Compiz recommendations started around Mar 2021.

picom mentions (39)

  • How to make Openbox look good with ease?
    Picom is also open source and you can find its code at its GitHub repo. The version of Picom used for this tutorial was the 10.2–1 version. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • [photo] installing Debian :)
    Also I took a census and zero founding members of NWA are "straight outta Picom". That's right, you heard it here first: Not even MC Ren is running Picom. Source: over 1 year ago
  • I have two Linux computers which I use for gaming.... somehow the one with slightly inferior hardware gets significantly better performance. I'm trying to figure out why... any ideas?
    If you have compositing you are likely using picom. You can check if it's running with ps -A | grep picom. I've never dealt with this issue as I don't really game on linux often, but I'm sure there's a solution somewhere in the github docs or issues. Worst case scenario you could always just kill the process with killall picom whenever you're about to game, and re-enable it with picom -b after. Do note though that... Source: over 1 year ago
  • Picom crashes with 'I3_FLOATING_WINDOW' in a rule
    Somewhat recently in official picom, a field called corner-radius-rules was added. I would like all my floating windows to have rounded corners. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Linux Mint XFCE4. I felt like having simpler looking rice. More in reply
    • Compositor: Picom - https://github.com/yshui/picom - used it to just get shadow, under rofi. Source: almost 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Compiz and picom, you can also consider the following products

Witch - Welcome to the world of W. i. t. c. h.

Xcompmgr - Xcompmgr is a simple composite manager capable of rendering drop shadows and primitive window transparency. Designed solely as a proof-of-concept, Xcompmgr is a lightweight alternative to Compiz and similar composite managers.

Hyperswitch - HyperSwitch provides a compelling alternative to HyperDock for keyboard junkies. What's New

Contexts - Switch between application windows effortlessly — with Fast Search, a better Command-Tab, a Sidebar or even a quick gesture. Free trial available.

pekwm - pekwm is a window manager that once up on a time was based on the aewm++ window manager, but it has...

KWin - KWin is a window manager for the X Window System, and is in the process of becoming a Wayland...