ironbar Alternatives

ironbar is described as 'Customisable Wayland gtk bar written in Rust' and is an app. There are more than 10 alternatives to ironbar for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Wayland, BSD, FreeBSD and X11 apps. The best ironbar alternative is Eww, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like ironbar are Quickshell, YASB Reborn, Ewwii and Ignis (widget framework).

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ironbar alternatives page was last updated Sep 16, 2025

Polybar
2 likes
Status bar for Unix-like systems.
23 Polybar alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Platforms
Linux
BSD
FreeBSD
X11
Is Polybar a good alternative to ironbar?
Waybar
2 likes
Highly customizable Wayland bar for Sway and Wlroots based compositors.
23 Waybar alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Origin
France
EU
Platforms
Linux
Sway
Wayland
Is Waybar a good alternative to ironbar?
ADeskBar
2 likes
a lightweight application launcher for Openbox, written in Python and GTK.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Platforms
Linux
Is ADeskBar a good alternative to ironbar?
BMPanel
2 likes
BMPanel (bitmap panel) is a lightweight, NETWM compliant panel for X11 Window System, which contains a desktop switcher, taskbar, system tray and clock. The application is inspired by simplicity of fspanel. BMPanel has a modern look and feel, while keeping itself tiny and small.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Platforms
Linux
BSD
Is BMPanel a good alternative to ironbar?
dwlb
Like
Feature-Complete Bar for DWL.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Origin
International
Platforms
Wayland
Linux
Is dwlb a good alternative to ironbar?
Oatbar
Like
The motivation for creation of oatbar was to extend on the idea of Unix-way for toolbars. Inspired by i3bar which consumes a JSON stream that controls it's appearance, we take this idea much further without becoming a DIY widget toolkit.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (Apache-2.0)
Platforms
Linux
BSD
Is Oatbar a good alternative to ironbar?
rootbar
Like
Root Bar is a bar for wlroots based wayland compositors such as sway and was designed to address the lack of good bars for wayland.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-3.0)
Platforms
Linux
Wayland
+1
Is rootbar a good alternative to ironbar?
xmobar
Like
Xmobar is a minimalistic status bar. It was originally designed and implemented to work with xmonad, but it is actually usable with any window manager in X11 and also (via its text output mode) Wayland.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source
Platforms
Linux
Haskell
FreeBSD
openSUSE
Gentoo
X11
Wayland
Is xmobar a good alternative to ironbar?
lemonbar
Like
lemonbar (formerly known as bar) is a lightweight statusbar based on XCB. Provides full UTF-8 support, basic formatting, RandR and Xinerama support and EWMH compliance without wasting your precious memory.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Platforms
Linux
FreeBSD
NetBSD
openSUSE
Is lemonbar a good alternative to ironbar?
i3status-rust
Like
i3status-rs is a feature-rich and resource-friendly replacement for i3status, written in pure Rust. It provides a way to display "blocks" of system information (time, battery status, volume, etc) on bars that support the i3bar protocol.
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-3.0)
Platforms
i3
Linux
+2
Is i3status-rust a good alternative to ironbar?
wf-shell
Like
wf-shell is a repository which contains the various components needed to built a fully functional DE based around wayfire. Currently it has only a GTK-based panel and background client.
20 wf-shell alternatives
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (MIT)
Platforms
Wayland
Linux
Is wf-shell a good alternative to ironbar?
sfwbar
Like
SFWBar (S* Floating Window Bar) is a flexible taskbar application for wayland compositors, designed with a stacking layout in mind. Originally developed for Sway, SFWBar will work with any wayland compositor supporting layer shell protocol, the taskbar and window switcher...
Cost / License
Free
Open Source (GPL-3.0)
Platforms
Linux
Wayland
Is sfwbar a good alternative to ironbar?