Why hackers moved from Wayland to X11
1 hacker described this switch in public comments. Their words, with links to the originals.
What hackers said about the move
“I switched from the default Wayland back to X11 because of various bugs (hangs, stutters, resume failures), in X11 they don't happen, seems to work flawlessly.”fulafel, 2026-03-20original comment ↗
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Wayland vs X11
| Wayland | X11 | |
|---|---|---|
| Hackers who recommend | 3 | 2 |
| Hackers who criticize | 3 | 0 |
| Moved away from it | 1 | 1 |
| Moved to it | 1 | 1 |
Counts are distinct hackers in the sampled comments, not market share.
Criticism of Wayland
“Ever since I switched from X11 to Wayland (on GNOME) I've had the bug that when I'm drawing with my Wacom tablet, there's two mouse cursors”wimiso, 2026-07-29original comment ↗
“It's that Wayland's design, implementation, their attitude, and everything else about it is terrible.”orbital-decay, 2026-06-03original comment ↗
Praise for X11
“I personally use X11 as I am on exwm and exwm does not support wayland and no alternative to it does AFAIK”kodoman, 2026-08-28original comment ↗