I’ve personally tried both but I like KDE better, only problem, its so glitchy, at least for me. On the other hand, xfce is more stable but not as good. What’s your choice? Edit: I meant to put this in the chat group my bad😅
Anybody? 
It depends on what you like.
“What’s better?” is a subjective question, and there is no right/wrong answer.
Try them both and see what you like.
I’ll move this to open chat. 
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Well I already tried both many times but I just wanna see everybody’s opinions
Oh and I just joined this site like 5 min ago, however I’m not new to openSUSE btw
I tried xfce long time ago. It was light, which is good, but it had a lot of issues that I had to solve from kde. I don’t know how it is working now.
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yeah me too
I use both so i just was wondering what you think.
What you will basically get (I’ve seen this play out numerous times over the years) is everyone tells you their opinion; some like one, and some like the other. Some don’t like either of them. Some like both of them.
And then the discussion typically devolves into why someone’s opinion is more valid than someone else’s.
And ultimately someone (usually but not always a mod or an admin) has to step in and break up the inevitable fight that breaks out over why KDE is the GOAT and GNOME is a steaming pile of trash (or vice-versa) to point out exactly what I said - that it’s ultimately a decision based on what your needs are, what your system can support, and what aesthetic you like, and the only way really to figure out what is “the best” is to figure out what is “the best for your needs”.
Personally, I use GNOME, and I don’t care what anyone thinks about it. For me the choice of DE is really irrelevant, because it’s about the applications I run. So I want something generally visually non-distracting and that stays out of my way, but I like the aesthetic of GNOME. I also have a system with a lot of resources, so I don’t worry about performance or running out of memory with a heavier desktop.
Other people use KDE, xfce, icewm, twm, or whatever because it suits their needs. Some people say the customization of a particular desktop helps with their workflow. That’s a valid argument for them to have made their choice. It’s not a valid argument for me to change my choice, because I don’t use a computer the way they do.
So it really is all about figuring out what your needs are and then seeing for yourself which one meets those needs.
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Under a time constraint?
The best answer is, whatever fits your needs and requirements. One person wants a Mercedes, the next person wants a Jeep.
I tried both.
I used Gnome 2 for a while, but it started to become harder to configure. So I tried XFCE. What I didn’t like, is the way it would auto-mount any USB flash drive that I plugged in (and some partitions that I didn’t need mounting). So I tried KDE. It was better with device mounting, and it had a nice feature of disabling the touchpad if a mouse was plugged in. So I have stayed with KDE. I’ll admit that KDE has more complexity than I really need.
Use what works for you. Conversations about “Whats better” are pretty close to the most pointless wastes of bandwidth on the internet.
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I have used KDE since I started using Linux back in the Mandrake days with KDE 2. KDE 5 was so bad that I didn’t use it for over a year but it’s my favorite so far.
Plasma 6 is coming along pretty well. I can see the need for other lighter weight Desktops for older machines etc. But if you have a modern desktop you just can’t beat Plasma 6 which is easily customizable.
I add things to my context menu such as a menu for 4 different search programs and the ability to copy EXIF data from photos. When someone asks what setting I used for a particular photo, I can right click it and copy it quickly. They keep changing how context menus work and where they’re located, but I’ve been able to figure it out. I also have the old Root Actions menu working.
Customizing is one of KDE’s strengths and I hope they don’t keep removing that ability. We used to be able to use one theme for widgets and another for the desktop etc (v5). They have removed some options for customization while adding others.
That’s why I liked KDE but others will have plenty of reasons why they like other desktops. This is why we like Linux, choice.
From a technical standpoint Gnome and KDE, because both support Wayland. Xfce to my knowledge does no. X11 is a security nightmare.
But personally I prefer Xfce, I like the simplicitly. I don’t like what KDE has become and I don’t like the minimalism of Gnome Shell either.
Opinion is not important. What matters is what does the job for your usecase and preference.
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The last of KDE5 was pretty stable. But KDE6 has arrived at the same time as efforts to get Wayland out the door, along with GPU driver changes for Wayland. This has probably created the most unstable experience I’ve had in the past few years - down to both KDE6 and GPU drivers. It’s not unworkable, I have twin bootable tumbleweed OS partitions, one I keep stable, one is latest, I can swap to the stable one if I necessary (the stable one updates via rsync from latest when I think things are OK - maybe every week or two).
KDE6 seems has removed some customizability, that’s disappointing, not what I expected from KDE.
I do now feel spoilt by KDE5 and wonder if I should switch to a distribution that still ships with it. But I will push on with what I have for a while longer and see if everything shakes out.
I think I’m seeing some issues because I’ve stuck with X11. It looks like I might have to shift to Wayland, the KDE6 developers are de-prioritizing X11.
I’m a little surprised by Wayland. It seems a little weird. For example, it lacks the ability for an application to precisely place it’s own windows (apps that need that have to run in XWayland).
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Thank You so much for you opinion, much appreciated
The latest xfce has some wayland support. And kinda still a little bit rough. xfwm4 is still not ready it is still in x11. Here, I am using wayfire when using xfce wayland.
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From the day I started using Linux exclusively, back in 2012, xfce4 had always been my choice. The only exception was back in 2018 when xfce4 had certain problems with some plugins and I decided to use KDE until they fixed those buggy plugins.
The main reason why I prefer xfce4 is that it doesn’t require hardware acceleration and as a result it has a much better compatibility with most video adapters, especially older ones. I think it still uses Xrender but I haven’t checked. There were certain cases on an older computer, where KDE was unusable because of the artifacts that were filling up the screen when moving windows or dragging and dropping file icons for example. The same computer with the same video adapter was working perfectly with xfce4.
Another factor that played a major role was that videos played through a browser, from youtube for example, were playing much better on xfce4 than on either KDE or Gnome because both of them were always heavier on the systems and the videos were choppy. Media players like vlc or mpv for example, had no issues because they were using hardware acceleration and the performance was always excellent. In order to play them with such media players though, one had to download the videos first or play them through the media player instead of the browser. Now that the systems are much stronger and faster though, video playback is much different.
The main reasons why I keep using xfce4 now are:
- Very easy system configuration.
- Very useful plugins that help me get information about almost everything onscreen.
- More colorful desktop. I was always getting the impression that KDE was more heavy, more boring to watch 24/7 maybe, I can’t find the correct word at this moment. But this is 100% personal.
- No unnecessary effects that make the system heavier. The shadow xfce4 compositor places on the windows is just fine for me. But I’m quite old now and I’ve become bored of watching stuff that were really very cool 10 years ago.
- It’s faster than both KDE and Gnome.
- This may seem strange but I really hate the KDE sound mixer in its settings. The
pulseaudiomixer xfce4 uses is exactly what I need to handle sound however I want. - It’s very easy to configure custom actions for
thunarso that they appear on the menu that pops up whenever one right-clicks on files, folders, or empty space inside thethunarwindow. Doing this fordolphinthough… uuummm… yeah, is quite different.
As for the auto-mounting xfce4 does, it’s true that it’s enabled by default but it’s completely configurable in the Removable Drives and Media section in the Settings Manager where you can disable everything if you wish.
Well, that’s about it. I hope some of the info above are helpful to you.
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Well said. You didn’t mention the right and middle mouse button function that is so cool. Long time xfce here for years also.