KDE

Last reviewed on 2026-05-13 Reference
In short
  • KDE is an international free-software community that produces a desktop environment (Plasma), a large set of libraries (Frameworks) and a wide application portfolio (Gear).
  • KDE's software is built on the Qt toolkit.
  • The community is one of the largest in the free-software world, with thousands of contributors across many countries.
  • KDE Plasma is the default desktop on a number of distributions and is offered as an option on most others.

About the community

KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, originally with the goal of creating a free, integrated desktop environment for Unix systems. The name has stuck even as what it refers to has broadened. Today, "KDE" most accurately describes the community itself rather than any single product. The community is supported by KDE e.V., a German non-profit that owns the trademark and provides legal, financial and infrastructure support.

KDE software is produced by a mix of volunteers, employees of Linux distributions, and people working at companies and other organisations that depend on the software. The community is known for its strong focus on internationalisation, accessibility and adaptability to many form factors — including, in recent years, mobile devices (KDE Plasma Mobile).

What KDE produces

KDE's output is usually grouped into three release "products" with different cadences:

KDE Plasma

The desktop environment. Includes the shell, window manager, panel, system settings and the user-facing pieces most people think of when they say "KDE".

KDE Frameworks

A modular collection of libraries built on Qt. Provides building blocks for KDE applications and is consumed by many third-party Qt applications too.

KDE Gear

The application portfolio: Dolphin (file manager), Konsole (terminal), Kate (text editor), Okular (document viewer), KDevelop (IDE), Krita (digital painting), Kdenlive (video editing) and many more.

Standalone projects

Some KDE applications — Krita, Kdenlive and a handful of others — release independently of the Gear cadence because their user communities and release rhythms are distinct.

Plasma, Frameworks and Gear each have their own release schedules. Plasma releases on a roughly six-month major-version cadence with frequent point releases in between; Frameworks releases every month; Gear typically releases three times a year.

Plasma's design

KDE Plasma sits at the opposite end of the configuration spectrum from GNOME. Where GNOME prioritises a small number of carefully chosen defaults, Plasma exposes most of its behaviour as a setting. Panels, widgets, window-manager behaviour, keyboard shortcuts and theming are all configurable through the Settings application without resorting to extensions or text-file editing.

This makes Plasma appealing to users coming from Windows-style environments (and Plasma's default layout is broadly Windows-like), as well as to users who want a desktop they can fully shape to their preferences. The trade-off is a more complex Settings application; it takes longer to find your way around than the GNOME equivalent.

Plasma ships both Wayland and X11 sessions on most distributions and now defaults to Wayland on recent releases. If you're deciding which one to use at the login screen, the Wayland vs X11 reference covers the day-to-day differences.

Qt and the relationship with The Qt Company

KDE software is built on Qt, a cross-platform application framework originally developed by Trolltech and now maintained by The Qt Company. Qt is dual-licensed: it's available under commercial and open-source (LGPL and GPL) licences. KDE applications use the open-source licensing.

The KDE community and The Qt Company maintain a long-standing agreement (the KDE Free Qt Foundation) that ensures Qt remains available under a free licence for the foreseeable future. The two communities collaborate closely but are organisationally distinct: KDE's roadmap is independent of The Qt Company's commercial roadmap.

Where KDE Plasma ships by default

KDE Plasma is the default desktop on several distributions:

  • KDE neon — produced by the KDE community itself; an Ubuntu LTS base shipping the latest KDE software.
  • Kubuntu — the official KDE Plasma flavour of Ubuntu.
  • Fedora KDE Plasma Edition — the KDE spin of Fedora; recently promoted to a full edition.
  • openSUSE — KDE Plasma is the most popular desktop choice during install.
  • Manjaro KDE and various Arch-derivative distributions.
  • Steam Deck (SteamOS) — the desktop mode is KDE Plasma.

Most other distributions package Plasma in their repositories and let you install it alongside or instead of the default desktop.

Following the project

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