The Best 12 Real Desktop Alternatives

  • Fences icon

    Fences

    Fences is a one-of-a-kind program, allowing you to draw labeled shaded areas on your desktop, which become movable and resizable containers for your desktop icons.

    Commercial Windows

  • Compiz icon

    Compiz

    Compiz is a compositing manager adding fancy effects to your windows, from drop shadows to awesome desktop effects like the Desktop Cube or the Expo view.

    Free Open Source Linux

  • Preme for Windows icon

    Preme for Windows

    Preme is a free software for Windows which lets you add cool desktop features and enhances the desktop functionality.

    Free Windows

  • Mission Control icon

    Mission Control

    Mission Control, formerly Exposé, is a feature of the OS X operating system. Mission Control lets you view all open windows with a single keystroke: it...

    Commercial Mac OS X

  • Raskin icon

    Raskin

    Inspired by Jef Raskin, our zoomable user interface shows you all the stuff on your computer on a single surface. Using zoom and pan to view, arrange and open documents feels so right.

    Commercial Mac OS X

  • KWin icon

    KWin

    KWin is a window manager for the X Window System, and is in the process of becoming a Wayland compositor. It is an integral part, and the default window manager of the...

    Free Open Source Linux BSD

  • Shock Desktop 3D icon

    Shock Desktop 3D

    Free application Shock Desktop 3D turns your Windows desktop into a 3D environment where you can interact with your documents in a physical space.

    Free Windows

  • Gala icon

    Gala

    Gala is a window manager / compositing manager and an integral part of Pantheon, the desktop environment of elementary OS.

    Free Open Source Linux

  • Sawfish icon

    Sawfish

    Sawfish is an extensible window manager using a Lisp-based scripting language. Its policy is very minimal compared to most window managers. Its aim is simply to manage...

    Free Open Source Linux

  • Anim Desktop icon

    Anim Desktop

    With AnimDesktop 2 you can create amazing animated wallpapers for your mac. More than 20 different backgrounds fully customizable.

    Commercial