With the next release of sway (1.12) you should be able to share individual windows.
https://github.com/emersion/xdg-desktop-portal-wlr/issues/10...
https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/8170#issuecomment-3962...
In Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years?swaywm
sway
C2015–2026
swaywm / sway
sway
i3-compatible Wayland compositor
93Distinct people
106Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
17.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
i3-compatible Wayland compositor
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
I really love the syntax and performance of fish shell, I had a few bash scripts that were used to manage the system volume notifications and power/battery information, as I…
L0stLink used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- ammen99/wf-recorder · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- emersion/grim · linked in 2 of the same discussions
- swaywm/wlroots · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 5:04:57 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year106 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-08-16 19:36:44 UTC to 2026-03-20 13:37:33 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 16 | 1 | 15 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 21 | 2 | 19 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 13 | 1 | 12 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 5 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
sway
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sway is an i3-compatible Wayland compositor. Read the FAQ. Join the
IRC channel (#sway on irc.libera.chat).
Release Signatures
Releases are signed with E88F5E48 and published on GitHub.
Installation
From Packages
Sway is available in many distributions. Try installing the "sway" package for
yours.
Compiling from Source
Check out this wiki page if you want to build the HEAD of
sway and wlroots for testing or development.
Install dependencies:
meson *
wlroots
wayland
wayland-protocols *
pcre2
json-c
pango
cairo
gdk-pixbuf2 (optional: additional image formats for system tray)
swaybg (optional: wallpaper)
scdoc (optional: man pages) *
git (optional: version info) *
* Compile-time dep
Run these commands:
meson setup build/
ninja -C build/
sudo ninja -C build/ install
Configuration
If you already use i3, then copy your i3 config to ~/.config/sway/config and
it'll work out of the box. Otherwise, copy the sample configuration file to
~/.config/sway/config. It is usually located at /etc/sway/config.
Run man 5 sway for information on the configuration.
Running
Run sway from a TTY or from a display manager.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
106 sourcesSway is an i3-compatible Wayland compositor
1 points · Open discussionBeen using sway for many years before moving to niri last year.
Outside of the fundamental window management differences, I find that a lot of stuff with niri is easier to make work, or just happens to work out of the box. Screen sharing with sway was always a problem for me[1], whereas for niri it works great (incl. sharing individual windows only[2].) I also found that niri is much better at letting hardware go to sleep (which saves 10W on my GPU.)
[1]: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/7898 etc.
[2]: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/wlroots/wlroots/-/issues/3864
In Niri – A scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor> basically no good if you're any different from the people who hacked it together.
Why would you expect it any different? How can one implement things that they have no need or no hardware for? The entitlement is a bit jarring.
Also I think they merged something last year: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/pull/7681
In Hard numbers in the Wayland vs. X11 input latency discussionSome background here:
https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/Wayland/PrimarySelection
My understanding is that PrimarySelection is not supported by Wayland out of the box. It has to be implemented optionally by Wayland servers. See https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1012 .
Also IIRC you still can't copy-paste between VMs on wayland (although that could be outdated by now)
In Debian KDE: Right Linux distribution for professional digital painting in 2024It used to be called `-my-next-gpu-wont-be-nvidia `
https://github.com/swaywm/sway/blob/3334d11adc926c0f6d86afc4...
In Ubuntu 24.10 to Default to Wayland for Nvidia UsersSway is an i3-compatible Wayland compositor
1 points · Open discussionI also have crashes on sway, but there’s a rough workaround now which prevents the issue totally.
I believe there’s a design issue with Firefox and GTK handling input events; some Wayland compositors have workarounds but others do not.
https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/7645
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1743144
Firefox is my preferred browser and I hope we can keep its engine alive in this era of Chrome dominance.
In Firefox on the brink?There's a big difference between slow as molasses and one frame of 16ms (which you sacrifice in exchange for no screen tearing). Unless you're really into high rank competitive shooters, I doubt you can even tell that 1 frame delay is happening.
Also, make sure you use the right config - there are actual issues with some competitors which are not Wayland architecture issues. For example https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/4763
In Platform that enables Windows driver development in RustFor good, functionality-related reasons at the time[0], and everyone in the Wayland space had been using the mesa library except nvidia with their own proprietary libgl.
[0]: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/490#issuecomment-47174...
In So let’s talk about this Wayland thingSway is fast, minimal, and flexible. Their recommended tools/addons are worth a look: https://github.com/swaywm/sway/wiki/Useful-add-ons-for-sway
From that list I use greetd + tuigreet as my login manager, sway-launcher-desktop for FZF-powered app launching, and wob for lightweight brightness and volume display (send '50' to the wob socket and it'll show 50%; it doesn't get simpler).
In On Desktop GUI MinimalismShowing the 15 most recent of 106 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.