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Window Managers 32-bit Memory Usage
How much memory does your window manager use? You can check yourself with
the command ps -ao comm,size,rss,vsize
. I have tried to note
where the window manager has other applications it runs. Memory management
in Linux is quite complex, and I don't feel competent to explain the exact
nature of "size," "rss," and "vsize." Suffice to say that some of them
include not only all the memory used by the app, but also memory used by
all libraries used by the app - which means that if the WM has subordinate
apps, a library that's loaded once may be counted several times. Read up
on it. You can also check how many libraries your WM uses with ldd
$WMexecutable
. Sizes listed are in KiB.
Click on the column header to sort the table by the data in that column.
Window Manager | Version | Executable(s) | size 32-bit |
rss 32-bit |
vsize 32-bit |
Number of Libraries |
Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
9wm | 1.2-8 | 9wm | 244 | 1112 | 2852 | 8 | |
aewm | 1.3.12-2 | aewm | 380 | 2780 | 6468 | 15 | |
aewm++ | 1.1.2-4.1 | aewm++ | 272 | 1668 | 4028 | 11 | |
AfterStep | 2.2.7-2 | afterstep | 8864 | 14444 | 22776 | 45 | Starts several other processes with names like "Wharf" and "Pager" and fairly high memory usage. |
AntiWM | 0.0.2 | antiwm | 252 | 860 | 2704 | 7 | |
awesome | 2.0.final-1 | awesome | 572 | 3392 | 7256 | 26 | |
awesome | 2.3.4-1 | awesome | 1584 | 6148 | 11420 | 35 | |
Blackbox | 0.70.1 | blackbox | 540 | 3756 | 6464 | 19 | Blackbox makes little sense without bbkeys for keybindings: it has similar memory usage measures. |
clfswm | 2007-03-02 | clisp | 5588 | 6244 | 11412 | 3 | The library count is on clisp, the interpreter, because the WM is a script. This probably doesn't count the required libraries properly. |
compiz Fusion | 0.7.6-7 | compiz.real | 15920 | 21364 | 28916 | 27 | Running in Knoppix 6.0.1. |
CTWM | 3.7-3 | ctwm | 572 | 2640 | 5676 | 17 | |
dvtm | 0.4.1 | dvtm | 544 | 1172 | 2452 | 6 | This is a TEXT-based WM, it doesn't require X - more for interest than direct comparison. |
dwemo | 0.0.2 | dwemo | 252 | 1168 | 2864 | 11 | This version was totally unstable in use. |
dwm | 4.7-3 | dwm | 244 | 1356 | 4072 | 7 | |
Enlightenment | 1:0.16.7.2-5 | enlightenment | 1592 | 4500 | 8776 | 18 | |
evilwm | 1.0.0-1 | evilwm | 256 | 1280 | 3000 | 11 | |
firebox | 0.3 | firebox | 412 | 3372 | 6268 | 19 | |
Fluxbox | 1.0.0+deb1-5 | fluxbox | 1220 | 4792 | 8588 | 23 | |
flwm | 1.02 | flwm | 424 | 3352 | 6112 | 20 | |
fvwm2 | 2.5.24-1 | fvwm2 | 1444 | 5684 | 12072 | 46 | |
fvwm-crystal | 3.0.3.dfsg1-0.1 | fvwm-crystal | 2240 | 7280 | 14228 | 46 | The main binary is actually fvwm2. fvwm-crystal also requires trayer (472 4900 14256, 46 libraries). |
i3 | 3.e_bf2 | i3 | 400 | 1632 | 5212 | 19 | |
Icewm | 1.2.30 | icewm | 644 | 3980 | 6788 | 26 | |
Ion 2 | 20040729-2.1 | ion2 | 656 | 2304 | 3732 | 13 | |
Ion 3 | 20080207-2 | ion3 | 1316 | 3384 | 6116 | 16 | Hardy Heron package with an install declaration that it's unsupported by the author. |
JWM | 1.5 | jwm | 416 | 2656 | 4736 | 19 | |
Karmen | 0.11 | karmen | 256 | 1200 | 2812 | 9 | |
LarsWM | 7.5.3 | larswm | 260 | 1184 | 2784 | 8 | |
Lucca WM | 0.1.2 | luccawm | 3320 | 9016 | 17336 | 41 | |
lwm | 1.2.1 | lwm | 388 | 1360 | 3308 | 10 | |
Matchbox | 1.1 | matchbox-window-manager | 644 | 3040 | 5652 | 22 | A Matchbox session runs not only "matchbox-window-manager" (numbers shown here), but also matchbox-panel (660, 2928, 5528), mb-applet-menu-launcher (588, 2844, 5460), mb-applet-clock (536, 2736, 5400), and the largest, matchbox-desktop (6212, 8572, 11136). Matchbox is intended for low resource environments. What am I missing? |
olvwm | 4.4.3.2p1.4 | olvwm | 628 | 2080 | 4960 | 10 | |
olwm | 3.2p1.4-21.1 | olwm | 392 | 1684 | 4504 | 9 | olwm runs olwmslave, which has slightly greater memory requirements than olwm itself - including 11 libraries. |
OpenBox | 3.4.2 | openbox | 3312 | 7780 | 11676 | 31 | |
PekWM | 0.1.10-1 | pekwm | 3100 | 6824 | 10368 | 24 | |
PWM | 1.0.20010309 | pwm | 384 | 1276 | 3016 | 8 | |
PWM2 (Ion2) | 2-20040729 | pwm2 | 780 | 2376 | 3808 | 13 | |
quark | 101 20061208-1 | quark | 252 | 1220 | 2700 | 7 | |
qlwm | 4.1 | qlwm | 944 | 8372 | 17740 | ? | Tested a while back, didn't record the number of libraries. Also runs biff and dclock, which have slightly lesser memory requirements. |
QVWM | 1.1.12 | qvwm | 544 | 2616 | 5892 | 22 | Runs xbiff, xeyes, and xload on start, each of which is approximately 270, 1700, 3800. |
ratpoison | 1.4.1 | ratpoison | 260 | 1500 | 3132 | 12 | |
Rio | 1.0 | rio | 260 | 1264 | 2968 | 11 | |
SithWM | 1.2b1 | sithwm | 248 | 940 | 2564 | 7 | |
StumpWM | 1:20060930-3 | sbcl | 508508 | 56100 | 536136 | 6 | The information is for sbcl, a lisp "compiler and runtime system" which this version of Stump runs inside of. |
StumpWM | 0.9.6 (20090803) | stumpwm | 6984 | 7632 | 15208 | 1 | The information is for stumpwm compiled against clisp. If size concerns you, override the default (sbcl) and use clisp. |
StumpWM | 0.9.6 (20090803) | stumpwm | 496104 | 26140 | 536308 | 1 | The information is for stumpwm compiled against sbcl. If size concerns you, override the default (sbcl) and use clisp. |
TAL/wm | 0.0.2 | talwm | 248 | 1352 | 3072 | 9 | |
TinyWM | 1.3 | tinywm | 252 | 752 | 2552 | 7 | |
TreeWM | 0.4.4 | treewm | 408 | 1880 | 4272 | 12 | |
Twindy | 0.45-beta | twindy | 10136 | 3884 | 16136 | 15 | |
twm | 1:1.0.4-1 | twm | 944 | 2296 | 5436 | 12 | |
UDE | 0.2.9b-2.2 | uwm | 404 | 1716 | 3960 | 14 | |
w9wm | 0.4.2-5 | w9wm | 252 | 1196 | 2968 | 9 | |
WeeWM | 0.0.2 | weewm | 252 | 1164 | 2672 | 7 | |
WindowLab | 1.33 | windowlab | 404 | 2400 | 4316 | 15 | |
WindowMaker | 0.92.0-6.1 | WindowMaker | 1108 | 4588 | 6940 | 23 | Runs two copies of the process: the one not shown consumes about 20% less memory. |
wmii | 3.5.1 | wmiiwm | 4856 | 6180 | 8068 | 8 | |
wmii | 3.6+debian-4 | wmii | 416 | 1748 | 4788 | 9 | |
wmii | 3.9.2+debian-2 | wmii | 436 | 2100 | 6356 | 18 | It was also running another wmii process and eight (smaller) wmiirc processes. |
WM2 | 4-10 | wm2 | 280 | 1600 | 4172 | 12 | |
WMX | 6 | wmx | 404 | 1892 | 4108 | 12 | |
XFCE | 4.4.0 | xfwm4 | 1332 | 7508 | 13720 | 40 | The stats here are for xfwm4, XFCE's window manager. XFCE also runs several other processes: xfce4-session (440, 4652, 11908), xfce4-panel (1848, 8636, 22248), Thunar (416, 4392, 12072), thunar-tpa (772, 5576, 20580), xfce4-menu-plugin (2496, 10868, 25012), and the largest, xfdesktop (34508, 9604, 56540 - and it has 51 libraries). |
xmonad | 0.2 | xmonad | 1432 | 2656 | 5608 | 4 | Written in Haskell. Usually runs dzen2 as well. |
xmonad | 0.3 | xmonad | 1288 | 2576 | 5632 | 12 | |
xmonad | 0.4 | xmonad | 1424 | 3092 | 5892 | 12 | |
xterm | 234-1 | xterm | 3008 | 5200 | 9268 | 22 | xterm can act as a WM (although not very well). But it's mostly here for comparison. |