Conky vs Eww
Conky
conky.ccEww
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Conky | Eww |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Desktop Widget Software | 7.8 (#9) | 7.6 (#13) |
| Build requirements | The compiling guide lists X11, Cairo, Lua, Imlib2, librsvg, ncurses, and libxml2 as examples of native libraries needed from the system package manager. | Building Eww requires Rust and Cargo, plus dynamic libraries including GTK3, Pango, Cairo, and GLib. |
| Configuration | The default configuration file is located at ~/.config/conky/conky.conf or ${sysconfdir}/conky/conky.conf. | Widgets, window geometry, behavior, state, and data are configured with Eww’s Yuck language. |
| License | The project states that Conky is licensed under GPLv3. | The GitHub repository identifies the project as MIT licensed. |
| Purpose | Conky is a free, lightweight system monitor that displays information on a desktop or in other output formats. | Eww is a standalone widget system written in Rust for creating custom widgets in any window manager. |
Plans
In their own words
Eww
Eww is a free, MIT-licensed widget system for Linux. It lets you build desktop widgets that work with any window manager, without depending on that manager. You define widget structure, window geometry, behavior, state, and data in the Yuck language. Styling uses CSS or SCSS through GTK’s CSS engine, whose web-CSS support is incomplete for some animations and layout properties. Built-in variables can expose CPU, RAM, disk, battery, network, and time information. Polling variables rerun shell scripts repeatedly, while listening variables update when script output produces a new line. Available widgets include labels, buttons, images, inputs, progress displays, calendars, graphs, tooltips, overlays, stacks, and layout containers. Documentation shows xprop and playerctl integrations. Separate build commands cover X11 and Wayland. Building requires Rust, Cargo, GTK3, Pango, Cairo, and GLib. Window arguments remain constant after opening.