suckless applications and why they’re goddamn awesome

2026-04-21

author’s note: This post is a work-in-progress. Instead of chipping away at it for ages before publishing, I’ve decided to fight my perfectionism and experiment with the “living document” approach. I’ll add content as it strikes me and over time, this post will grow and fill out. Seems like a neat idea. Could just be really dumb. I guess we’ll find out together, pal.

everything suck[s]-less

OK. Suckless applications. Maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe you haven’t. If you’re the latter, I invite you to immediately press the pause button on this post and go check them out: https://suckless.org/.

Suckless software describes itself as “quality software with a focus on simplicity, clarity, and frugality”. I find this to be a not only appealing but accurate description. If you have perused the man page of this fine textual establishment called mariko.foo, you will undoubtedly have read of my love for technological simplicity and leanness. Suckless software and I are quite the match, if I do say so myself. We’re like PB&J, Elizabeth and Darcy, Sid and Nancy. Hm. Maybe not that last one.

I’m a values-driven individual, if you weren’t aware. I don’t mind sacrificing some convenience if I’m bought into the value behind the thing. In fact, I frequently welcome the added friction as I enjoy the challenge and really enjoy learning. Imagine my sheer joy when after years of hearing the name “suckless” I finally took the five goddamn minutes it takes to look it up and see those glorious words “quality”, “simplicity”, “clarity”, and “frugality”. Right there on the front page, even! Friends, on those four values, suckless software delivers.

how to suck less

We’ve covered why I’m a big fan of this software collection but we haven’t touched on how it actually works. What makes these applications so configurable yet frugal? Well, quite a lot actually. I’m not going to even try to cover everything; I’ll leave that to the philosophy page on the suckless site. What I will do is talk about the specific aspects I enjoy the most.

  1. No config files. Yes. Finally. Dotfile hell is over. OK, not really but this is serious progress for me! Configuraiton of suckless applications happens by modifying the code of the application itself not by reading some external resource or file. This means all configuraitons and changes are built directly into the software. The end result is a dependency-less standalone application that I’ve customized to my liking. I no longer have to worry about managing config files. I no longer have to worry about reproducability. If I have the source files, I have my changes. If I want to share specific subsets of those changes, I can easily create and share a patch others can apply to their own source.

  2. Portable. As a result of the previous item, each application is ideally built from source. No relying on package managers, no being trapped under upstream updates. I have total control of the software. Additionally, due to the design of these applications to be configured by hacking on them, there is a thriving patch scene. Users write and share their own patches with each other allowing an organic approach to sharing and growing configuraitons and features. The lack of external config sources means all I need to have my completely customized window manager fully configured and ready to use, is git. I can clone my repo, build the application, and I’m in business. Hooray for reproducibility!

  3. C. I may be showing my age here but there’s simply no denying it. I love C. I work in C for a living and I truly love it. It’s small, simple, powerful, and stable. This is a small but significant aspect. If I’m going to be spending time manually editing the application’s code, I want to be enjoying the process. I have already seen the effects of enjoying configuring these applications. My creativity spins up more, I get excited to experiment, I want to think of new things to add or existing features to tweak. Instead of configuraiton being a chore it’s become a catalyst for creativity and source of inspiration.

wrap it up, brother

So my sweet turtles, if upon reading this delightfully eloquent exegesis you find yourself becoming flushed, your pulse quickening, blood pounding in your ears, and your fingers longing to use software that is stable, flexible, and high-quality, while also being simple and lean, I humbly invite you to dip your tootsies into the waters of software that truly sucks less.

bonus reading

If you would like to take a gander at my own personal repo of suckless software which I use daily (even to write this very post!) and how I’ve hacked and slashed it to my own tastes, scoot on over and rub your eyeballs all over them: suckless.