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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Security
When you use X11, you allow any program running on your computer to access anything on your screen and clipboard, collect your keystrokes and type. It's trivial to implement a keylogger, for example. Do not buy into the whole "no viruses on Linux" thing, it's not true and likely to become even less and less true, as desktop Linux is becoming popular.
Wayland at least tries to put some barriers in place against this.
X11 is dead don't bother with it. The same people who wrote X11 are working on Wayland because X11 became to here maintain.
I don't think for tue average user it really matters much. If you've got multiple screens of different sizes or refresh rates, Wayland is the way to go. If you've got multiple identical screens that you want to treat as a single big screen, X11 is perfect for that.
I recently switched and I'm happy with how it runs. Even on Nvidia.
X11 has many features and some it will never have. Wayland has less features and it has compatibility issues for the ones it has. But if you need 4K or touchscreen then Wayland is the way to go. Default choice should probably be Wayland unless it doesn't support that one thing you care about.
X11 is still server-first and needs workarounds to run locally (like startx, sx), while Wayland can just be run. Unlike X, it isolates every processes access to other windows, but with slow adoption of protocols for things like screen-sharing, video conferences, accessibility tools. The tooling is not yet there imo.
That's the main difference nowadays. Some people have issues with tearing or wrong-monitor with either of them.
Honestly, Wayland vs. X (and Flatpak) fit this perfectly: 
If you use a feature complete Wayland compositor and compare it to equivalents (RIP velox), then Wayland basically offers more consistent pen and multitouch support and stuff, while being faster.
There's no 2D acceleration in Wayland and that's by design, it's made for new GPUs that don't have 2D anyway anymore. Programs either draw pixels or start up 3D.
XLibre is trying the opposite and is actually merging various 2D drivers for old and niche hardware, like ct65550 as found in the Toshiba Libretto 50ct among others. Most of these originate from distribution forks (NetBSD in this case). T2 Linux also maintains a patch to bring back lots of more ancient 2D drivers that were removed in 2012.
As some general advice: If you don't know the specifics, just go with your Linux distribution's defaults. They probably have this figured out for you. Wayland is the more modern approach. We had a long transitioning period and some things didn't work for a while or were missing. I'd say it's ready by now. And if your distro maintainers also think it's time to supersede the old X server, it probably is.
Wayland is more secure than x11 by design and more concise in scope. Notably it supports contemporary display technologies like display independent scaling, VRR, colour space (HDR) and several others.
Wayland is made by the x11 people.
Every time I setup my desktop up for Wayland I always go back to X11, I find Wayland sluggish compared to X11 and don’t have the time nor energy to troubleshoot applications that had no issues working on X11.
I did not have any problems with Wayland for 6 months on Arch (personal PC for hobby projects and gaming). I also don't want to troubleshoot, it just works. Most applications are installed via flatpak.
also don't want to troubleshoot, it just works. Most applications are installed via flatpak.
I’m not surprised Flatpaks work with Wayland without issue, however Flatpaks containerize the application which is something I don’t want to do for everything I download as it adds extra overhead for something that could’ve just been built and installed as a native package (.deb, .rpm).
To each their own though.
Yes. This is still an important point, you make!
Wayland has been the default for awhile, but open source software is maintained by volunteers.
Until each specific package has been updated by the original developers, it may not work well on Wayland.
So, for now, there's also a trade-off:
Some things still don't work on Wayland.
(Like screen sharing with Anydesk, as an example I ran into yesterday)
But at this point, I just replace the thing that still requires X11 with an alternative, or find a different solution.
X11 is dead tech. Wayland has its own issues, but it's better than X11 in almost every way now, actively maintained, and it's the current standard.
one thing i noticed in trying both is x11 using more cpu in the same scenario (playing a youtube video, same resolution) and even the DP adapter i am using getting warmer when on x11 compared to wayland. in this scenario the difference wasn't much despite being roughly double (~2.5W compared to ~4.5W in x11). idk how that scales in other scenarios.
By real user, do you mean a nontechnical user? If that's the case, the display server isn't a choice to be made by such user, but by the distro maintainers. Most people won't notice the difference, because it's mostly stuff that happens under the hood.
Is it even a debate at this point? x11 is on it's way out and wayland transition is pretty much complete within the gnu/linux ecosystem. Vast majority of distros and desktop environments ship with wayland as the default and keep developing with wayland in mind, with holdouts like debian and mint that still use x11, I think. X11 is basically dinosaur software for legacy. Vast majority of end users will just take what is the default and that is Wayland and they don't even notice.
On most distros Wayland is trouble free and x11 is a thing of the past. X11 made some things simpler like screen share with somebody , but Linux is growing large enough that Wayland (that is secure) is the best choice. You don't want your x11 screen duplicated on a malware attackers screen etc.
I'm a bit surprised you didn't find much searching the web, because this is one of the most hot topics in Linux and everyone has an opinion and discussions are endless.
I use Wayland for years by now and it improved vastly during that time. One of the advantages over X11 I appreciate is the better handling of multiple monitors, with different resolution, refreshrate and VRR in effect. This was simply not possible in X11 in this form. I like its more secure by design, in relation to keyboard input. X11 can read all keyboard input by any application at any time. Wayland works different here, but for the time being I enabled X11 compatibility for this in KDE, until a all applications support Wayland fully.
Think twice before abandoning X11. Wayland breaks everything! is more of an anti Wayland posting, but its good to have a view from all angles. So I post it here.
Have in mind that Wayland improved in recent years drastically. Searching the web is either full of Ai nonsense or old content about the old state of Wayland. Also it depends which desktop environment you are using, because some are better at Wayland than others; notably KDE is on the front regarding Wayland. So even if some Wayland features are already developed, does not mean that all desktop environments supports them already.
I’m a bit surprised you didn’t find much searching the web, because this is one of the most hot topics in Linux and everyone has an opinion and discussions are endless.
it's 2026. OP probably only found useless AI slop articles after a couple searches before getting discouraged and asking here
You can't imagine how sad your comment makes me feel.
Honestly, on a running system with average hardware, the average user won't notice any difference. Depending on your de/wm of choice on x11, you may have to swap to something similar but different, but there it. Depending on what you used, something will require different solutions, like screenshots, but 90+% of stuff, there is no difference.
I'd like to chime in on the "average hardware" claim.
The idea that Wayland is more demanding to run than X11 is a misconception.
Mutter (Gnome's compositor) and kwin (KDE's compositor) are more demanding than xorg plus a simple window manager. Usually that's what people used to compare when they said that Wayland is demanding, and now they just keep repeating it.
In actuality, the Wayland protocol is more efficient by nature. So a light Wayland compositor (e.g. labwc) will run better on limited hardware, than a light X11 window manager.
Tho, Wayland requires proper EGL support, which you might not have on some old exotic hardware (e.g. a Tegra 2/3/4 tablet).
The example I usually make is:
One thing that's annoying in Wayland is new window placement where app can't control it at all*. Wayland would place it on a screen it wants. This gets hugely annoying when you have more than one monitor and/or virtual desktops and you'd want to restore billion of browser windows, for example.
X11 is stable and maintained but not getting new features. It will generally work well for most people but over time it will and is drifting to obsolesence.
Wayland has some flaws but is not basically stable and feature rich enough for most people to use. It is not a complete drop in for X11 and won't necessairly ever will be but for the vast majorory of desktop users it is.
The problem with Wayland is that there are still issues for people with graphics drivers. Nvidia in particular has had serious issues with it although they are improving.
I personally still use X11 with my KDE set up because i still have problems woth Wayland. Thwyre not as bad as they were but its still not quite stable above for me.