Both put your windows on an endless horizontal strip. The difference is what sits underneath — and that decides which one fits you. If you're on a Mac, neither runs; skip to the Mac section.
Same scrolling-strip idea, different foundations. Niri is a standalone Wayland compositor written in Rust — minimal, fast, you log into it. PaperWM is a GNOME Shell extension — you keep the whole GNOME desktop. Neither runs on macOS; on a Mac the equivalents are ChainYourMac, OmniWM (macOS 26+) and PaperWM.spoon.
Try it right here — this is a working model of ChainYourMac, not a video.
A working model of ChainYourMac, not a video. Drag a title bar to reorder, click a Dock icon to open an app, close a window with its red button. In the real app you hold ⌃⌥ with each key. The demo answers to both.
Both are scrolling window managers. Windows sit side by side on a strip that continues past the edges of your screen. Opening a window adds a column next to the focused one; nothing else resizes. You move through your work by scrolling the strip, not by rearranging a grid. If you like one, the other will feel familiar within minutes.
| Niri | PaperWM | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Standalone Wayland compositor | GNOME Shell extension |
| Written in | Rust | JavaScript (GNOME Shell) |
| First appeared | 2023 (v0.1.0 in January 2024) | 2017 |
| Latest release (Oct 2026) | v26.04 (April 2026) | v50.0.1 (April 2026) |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Multiple monitors | A separate strip per monitor; windows never overflow | Per-monitor workspaces, inside GNOME's shared coordinate space |
| Workspaces | Dynamic, stacked vertically per monitor | GNOME workspaces, navigated as a stack |
| Touchpad | 3-finger swipes scroll / switch workspaces; 4-finger opens Overview | Gestures on Wayland (3-finger swipes) |
| Extras | Tabbed columns, Overview, floating windows, screenshot UI, shaders/blur | Scratch windows for floating, plus all of GNOME's own tools |
| Desktop around it | None — bring your own bar, launcher, notifications | All of GNOME |
| Configuration | Text config file | GNOME extension preferences |
| Setup | Install, pick the Niri session at login | Enable the extension |
| Depends on | Nothing but itself | Your GNOME version being supported |
| Runs on macOS | No | No |
Because Niri is the display server, it draws every frame itself, and that also lets it give each monitor a truly separate strip. Its README names that as one reason it was written instead of contributing to PaperWM. That's why people describe it as smooth and tight — there's no host environment to negotiate with. The cost is that you assemble the rest of the desktop yourself.
PaperWM lives inside GNOME Shell. You get GNOME's settings, app grid, notifications and extensions for free, and PaperWM rearranges the windows. The cost is coupling: when GNOME ships a new major version, PaperWM has to catch up.
Niri is configured in a KDL text file (~/.config/niri/config.kdl) that reloads live, which suits people who keep dotfiles in git. PaperWM exposes its options through GNOME's extension preferences, which suits people who'd rather click than edit. If you're bringing a Niri config to a Mac, see niri config on macOS and niri keybindings on Mac.
Neither Linux original will ever run on macOS — Apple's compositor can't be replaced and there's no GNOME. What you can install are Mac implementations of the same model:
| ChainYourMac | OmniWM | PaperWM.spoon | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Native app (SwiftUI + Rust engine) | Native app, open source | Lua script for Hammerspoon |
| macOS | 13 Ventura and later | 26 Tahoe and later | Any version Hammerspoon supports |
| Closest to | Niri's strip, stacks and tabbed columns | Niri (plus a Dwindle layout) | PaperWM |
| Configuration | GUI, applies instantly | GUI + TOML | init.lua |
| Price | $19.99 one time | Free | Free |
If you liked PaperWM and enjoy scripting, PaperWM.spoon is the faithful free recreation. If you liked Niri's calm strip and want it to feel built into macOS — GUI settings, a trackpad swipe that follows your fingers, stacks, tabbed columns — that's what ChainYourMac is for, and it runs back to macOS 13. On macOS 26 Tahoe, OmniWM is a strong free alternative. The full Mac rundown lives at Niri for Mac.
Neither is strictly better — they share the scrolling model. Niri is a standalone Wayland compositor, so it controls every frame and doesn't need a desktop environment. PaperWM runs inside GNOME, so you keep GNOME's apps, settings and extensions. Pick Niri for a minimal, fast, standalone setup; pick PaperWM if you want to stay on GNOME.
Niri's README says it is "heavily inspired by PaperWM". One reason its author gives for writing a separate compositor is separating monitors properly: as a GNOME Shell extension, PaperWM has to work against the Shell's global window coordinate space to stop windows overflowing onto another monitor. Niri rebuilt the idea as a standalone compositor written in Rust.
No. Niri is a Wayland compositor and PaperWM is a GNOME Shell extension — both need Linux. On macOS you use a Mac implementation of the same model: ChainYourMac, OmniWM (macOS 26+) or PaperWM.spoon.
No. PaperWM.spoon is a separate project: a Lua recreation of PaperWM's layout for Hammerspoon on macOS, not a port of the GNOME extension. The strip model is faithful; the environment is completely different.
PaperWM. Its GitHub repository dates from September 2017; Niri's from August 2023, with its first release in November 2023.
PaperWM, if you already run GNOME — it's an extension you enable. Niri means installing and logging into a new session and writing its config file. On a Mac, the easiest is a native app you drag to Applications.