# swaywm/sway

i3-compatible Wayland compositor

Repository: https://github.com/swaywm/sway
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/swaywm-sway
Homepage: https://swaywm.org
Language: C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: compositor, wayland
Last push: 2026-07-31T11:47:08+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 84/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 95, release rhythm 61, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4047, "days_push": 33, "days_rel": 100, "gap_med": 133, "n_releases_24m": 4}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 17273, forks 1289 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:17.901996+00:00)

## What it is
Sway is an i3-compatible tiling Wayland compositor that works as a drop-in replacement for the i3 window manager on X11. It arranges windows into a logical grid, supports existing i3 configurations out of the box, and is built on the modular wlroots library.

## Use cases
- replace i3 with a Wayland-native window manager
- run a keyboard-driven tiling desktop on Linux
- reuse my existing i3 config on Wayland
- get a lightweight compositor for a minimal Linux setup
- manage windows in a grid layout efficiently
- set up a Wayland session from a TTY or display manager

## When to choose
- you want i3 features and config compatibility on Wayland
- you need a lightweight, keyboard-centric tiling compositor on Linux
- you want to build a custom Wayland desktop on top of wlroots

## When to avoid
- you need a full desktop environment with batteries included like GNOME or KDE
- you rely on X11-only tooling or NVIDIA setups with poor Wayland support
- you prefer floating window management out of the box

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: stable
- function: gui, graphics
- domain: operating-systems, desktop-applications, developer-tools
- platform: cross-platform
- tags: wayland-compositor, tiling-window-manager, i3-compatible, x11-replacement, desktop-environment, linux

## Member repositories
- swaywm/sway (main) score 84

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:17.901996+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:03:26.441139+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/swaywm/sway (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:17.901996+00:00, sha 867f1e6e7677)
  - homepage: https://swaywm.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:01:17.390623+00:00, sha eb331a9c03e2)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.