Polybar Alternatives

Apps similar to Polybar include wayle, which is free and open source. Other options are Eww, YASB Reborn, Ewwii and Quickshell. There's no shortage of Desktop Customization Tools like Polybar, with more than 25 alternatives for Linux, Windows and Mac.

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Polybar alternatives page was last updated Oct 21, 2025

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Yambar
1 like
Modular status panel for X11 and Wayland, inspired by polybar.
24 Yambar alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Alerts
Discontinued
Platforms
Wayland
Linux
Y
Good alternative?Is Yambar a good alternative to Polybar?
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Waybar
4 likes
Highly customizable Wayland bar for Sway and Wlroots based compositors.
25 Waybar alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Origin
France
EU
Platforms
Linux
Sway
Wayland
France
EU
W
Good alternative?Is Waybar a good alternative to Polybar?
nwg-panel
1 like
Nwg-panel is a GTK3-based panel for sway and Hyprland Wayland compositors. The panel is equipped with a graphical configuration program that frees the user from the need to manually edit configuration files.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Origin
Poland
EU
Platforms
Linux
Wayland
Poland
EU
Good alternative?Is nwg-panel a good alternative to Polybar?
slstatus
1 like
slstatus is a status monitor for window managers that use WM_NAME or stdin to fill the status bar.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Origin
Germany
EU
Platforms
Linux
Good alternative?Is slstatus a good alternative to Polybar?
ADeskBar
2 likes
a lightweight application launcher for Openbox, written in Python and GTK.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Platforms
Linux
Good alternative?Is ADeskBar a good alternative to Polybar?
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BMPanel
2 likes
BMPanel (bitmap panel) is a lightweight, NETWM compliant panel for X11 Window System, which contains a desktop switcher, taskbar, system tray and clock. The application is inspired by simplicity of fspanel. BMPanel has a modern look and feel, while keeping itself tiny and small.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Platforms
Linux
BSD
B
Good alternative?Is BMPanel a good alternative to Polybar?
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S
sfwbar
Like
SFWBar (S* Floating Window Bar) is a flexible taskbar application for wayland compositors, designed with a stacking layout in mind. Originally developed for Sway, SFWBar will work with any wayland compositor supporting layer shell protocol, the taskbar and window switcher...
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-3.0)
Platforms
Linux
Wayland
S
Good alternative?Is sfwbar a good alternative to Polybar?
wf-shell
Like
wf-shell is a repository which contains the various components needed to built a fully functional DE based around wayfire. Currently it has only a GTK-based panel and background client.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Platforms
Wayland
Linux
Good alternative?Is wf-shell a good alternative to Polybar?
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R
rootbar
Like
Root Bar is a bar for wlroots based wayland compositors such as sway and was designed to address the lack of good bars for wayland.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-3.0)
Platforms
Linux
Wayland
+1
R
Good alternative?Is rootbar a good alternative to Polybar?
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Oatbar
Like
The motivation for creation of oatbar was to extend on the idea of Unix-way for toolbars. Inspired by i3bar which consumes a JSON stream that controls it's appearance, we take this idea much further without becoming a DIY widget toolkit.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (Apache-2.0)
Platforms
Linux
BSD
O
Good alternative?Is Oatbar a good alternative to Polybar?
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L
lemonbar
Like
lemonbar (formerly known as bar) is a lightweight statusbar based on XCB. Provides full UTF-8 support, basic formatting, RandR and Xinerama support and EWMH compliance without wasting your precious memory.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Platforms
Linux
FreeBSD
NetBSD
openSUSE
L
Good alternative?Is lemonbar a good alternative to Polybar?
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X
xmobar
Like
Xmobar is a minimalistic status bar. It was originally designed and implemented to work with xmonad, but it is actually usable with any window manager in X11 and also (via its text output mode) Wayland.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Platforms
Linux
Haskell
FreeBSD
openSUSE
Gentoo
X11
Wayland
X
Good alternative?Is xmobar a good alternative to Polybar?