| Full environments | Full environments | Full environments | Full environments | Full environments | Full environments | Full environments | Shell (semi-environment) | |
| KDE Software Compilation | LXQt | GNOME | MATE | Xfce, LXDE and ROX Desktop | Étoilé | EDE | Enlightenment | |
| Main objective | Full desktop environment, graphical, easy to use, targeted at everyone. Focus on providing advanced features and configurability. | Lightweight desktop environment, modular, portable. | Full desktop environment, graphical, easy to use, targeted at everyone. Emphasis on ergonomics and workflow simplification. | Forked from GNOME. Emphasis on providing the traditional desktop metaphor eschewed by GNOME 3. | Lightweight desktop environment, modular, portable. | Lightweight desktop environment, modular, portable. | Lightweight desktop environment, modular, portable. | Advanced graphical libraries, tools and environments |
| Programming language | Mainly C++, as Qt is written in C++ | Mainly C++, as Qt is written in C++ | Mainly C, as GTK+ is written in C | Mainly C, as GTK+ is written in C | Mainly C, as GTK+ is written in C | Objective-C | C++ | C |
| Additional library dependencies | KDELibs, KDE Frameworks 5 | requires window manager | libgnome | libmate | libxfce* for Xfce. | libede | EFL | |
| Toolkit used | Qt | Qt | GTK+ | GTK+ | GTK+ | GNUstep | FLTK (previously eFLTK) | Elementary (provided by EFL) |
| Size (base system, X installed) | ~210 MB | ~20 MB | ~180 MB | ~180 MB | Xfce: ~15 MB, ROX: ~780 KB | EDE: ~3 MB | DR16: ~3 MB, DR17: ~15MB |
| KDE Software Compilation | GNOME | Mate | Xfce | LXDE | ROX Desktop | Étoilé | EDE | Enlightenment | |
| X window manager | KWin | Mutter | Marco | Xfwm4 | Openbox | OroboROX | Azalea | edewm | Enlightenment |
| X display manager | KDM, SDDM | GDM | LXDM | elma | Entrance | ||||
| File manager | Dolphin (Konqueror before SC 4) | Files | Caja | Thunar | PCManFM | ROX Filer | Efiler | EFM, Entropy | |
| Widget toolkit | Qt | GTK+ | GTK+ | GTK+ | GTK+ | GTK+ | GNUstep | FLTK (previously eFLTK) | Elementary |
| Terminal emulator | Konsole | GNOME Terminal | MATE Terminal | Terminal | LXTerminal | ROXTerm | aterm | Terminology | |
| Text editor | KWrite (Kate before SC 4) | gedit | Pluma | Mousepad, Leafpad | Leafpad | Edit | TextEdit | Eyesight, Ecrire | |
| Video player | Dragon Player (Kaffeine before SC 4) | Videos | Parole | lxine | mplayer-rox | Enna (media center), Eclair | |||
| Audio player | JuK, Amarok | Banshee, Rhythmbox | Parole | LXMusic | MusicBox | Melodie | Enjoy | ||
| CD burners | K3b | Brasero | Xfburn | RoxISO | |||||
| CD ripper | K3b, KAudioCreator | Sound Juicer | Ripper | Extrackt | |||||
| Image viewer | Gwenview | Eye of GNOME | Eye of MATE | Ristretto | GPicView | Picky | Eimage | Ephoto | |
| Office suite | Calligra Suite, KOffice | GnomeOffice | |||||||
| Web browser | Konqueror | Web | Midori | Eve | |||||
| E-mail client | Kmail | Evolution | GNUMail | ||||||
| Personal information manager | Kontact | Evolution | Contacts | ||||||
| Instant messenger | Kopete, KDE Telepathy | Empathy | Shotgun | ||||||
| Archive manager | Ark | File Roller | Engrampa | Xarchiver, Squeeze | Xarchiver | Archive | |||
| PDF viewer | Okular (KPDF before SC 4) | Evince | Atril | Vindaloo | Epdf | ||||
| IDE | KDevelop | Anjuta | Gorm, ProjectCenter | ||||||
| Widget engine | built-in – Plasma (SuperKaramba before SC 4) | gDesklets | Elementary | ||||||
| Licenses used | GPL, LGPL, BSD, others | GPL, LGPL | GPL, LGPL | GPL, LGPL, BSD | GPL, LGPL | GPL | GPL, BSD | GPL, LGPL | BSD, LGPL |
| KDE Software Compilation | GNOME | MATE | Xfce | LXDE | ROX Desktop | Étoilé | EDE | Enlightenment |