Niri 26.04 releases a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor where windows live on an infinite horizontal strip and never resize on new window open.
Key Takeaways
Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip; opening a new window never forces existing windows to resize or reflow.
Scrollable-tiling is a distinct model from traditional tiling WMs like i3/sway: focus shifts by scrolling the strip, not by splitting panes.
Niri targets Wayland-only and is packaged for Arch-based distros; configuration covers theming, keybindings, and workspace behavior.
The project has prior releases (25.11 with alt-tab support) and an active changelog cadence, signaling ongoing production readiness.
Hacker News Comment Review
Strong convert sentiment from Windows and sway users; the scrollable model is described as immediately intuitive, with several commenters calling it the best workflow switch in recent memory.
Mac users are bridging the gap via OmniWM, which ships a Niri-layout emulation mode compatible with Sequoia, broadening reach beyond Linux.
Practical friction points raised: window cropping when scrolling focus, no native scratchpad support, and HDR not yet available; sway/i3 migrants report an adjustment period for the mental model shift away from dedicated fullscreen workspaces.
Notable Comments
@_rousbound: Details specific i3/sway migration blockers: window cropping at scroll edges and missing scratchpad support with only partial workarounds available.
@foltik: Asks how the mental model shifts for users coming from dedicated fullscreen workspace workflows, a real onboarding question for tiling-WM power users.
@rjzzleep: Flags mangowm as a lower-resource wlroots-0.20 alternative with more layouts, useful for anyone benchmarking compositor overhead.
