herbstluftwm vs spectrwm

herbstluftwm is a manual tiling window manager for the X window system. Each virtual desktop, called a tag, has a tiling layer and a floating layer, allowing windows to occupy split frames or be placed freely. Frames can be divided into further subframes or filled with windows, and keyboard controls move, resize, and focus tiled and floating windows. Configuration runs through herbstclient and can be changed while the manager is running without a restart. Screen space can be divided into virtual monitors that need not match physical displays; monitors share a common pool of tags. The project is licensed under the Simplified BSD License and is listed as free at free. The download page lists packages for Linux distributions and Mac OS X via MacPorts, and confirms operation on Cygwin. The project also offers released source tarballs and links to its current development version. Community help is available through IRC, Reddit, GitHub issues, and a mailing list.

spectrwm is a free tiling and reparenting window manager for X11. It arranges windows in configurable layouts, including layouts with a resizable master area, and also supports floating windows that users can move and resize. Windows can be moved between workspaces or within user-defined regions, while screens are navigable by keyboard or mouse. It supports dynamic RandR multi-head configurations and Extended Window Manager Hints. A customizable status bar, quick launch menu and user-defined key bindings provide ways to view status and launch applications. The software starts with defaults and can be configured without learning a programming language. It can be restarted without losing state. spectrwm is released under the ISC license, and the releases page lists version 3.7.0 as the latest release. Listed platforms are Linux, macOS and Windows, while its stated purpose is managing X11 windows. The project directs questions and feedback to its #spectrwm channel on OFTC IRC.