Nautilus, Flea, Folio

Each file manager opens a folder of 5000 empty files in its list view, and the Down key is held for 12 seconds on a virtual keyboard: the compositor passes on the one press and the file manager repeats it, about 480 files. On every machine of the lab, in Omarchy's session, under Hypoland and under stock Hyprland 0.57.1. Every cell is Hypoland / Hyprland: green where Hypoland is at least 5% better, red where it is at least 5% worse; a dash where the file manager does not run or there is nothing to count.

File managerVersionWhat it is
Nautilus51.1GNOME's file manager, GTK 4: drawn with Vulkan or OpenGL into GPU buffers, on the X200 with cairo into shared memory.
Flea0.4.1A keyboard-first file manager for Omarchy, written in Rust with GPUI (the Zed editor's UI toolkit) and drawn on the GPU through wgpu.
Folio0.1.1 (0.2.0 on aarch64)Omarchy's own file manager, written in C++ with Qt Quick.

Medians of 13 to 17 fresh sessions of each compositor per machine, alternating from 2026-11-11 17:04 to 11-12 08:59, Hypoland master r966 (after 0.3.0) against Hyprland 0.57.1-2. Folio 0.1.1 and 0.2.0 do not scroll the list to the cursor on Down (folio#18): the cursor walks off the bottom and the view stays, so for Folio the scrolling tables measure the cursor and the details pane redrawn, and do not compare with the other two. Flea opens no window on the X200 (it needs more than OpenGL 2.1) and is not installed on the Mac mini M1, Folio is not installed on the Samsung. Under Hyprland Nautilus opened no window on the X200 in that night. On the X200 Hyprland runs with Omarchy's GLES 3 override (omarchy#14764), which the file managers get too. The Mac mini 2014 had no monitor that night and ran on a headless output; the Mac mini M1's display driver reports no page flips, so it has no frames on the screen. Raw data, every session's values and the scripts.

Scrolling: the compositor's CPU

Hypoland / Hyprland 0.57.1NautilusFleaFolio
Lenovo ThinkPad X2004.0% / no window–5.0% / 5.2%
Desktop, AMD A8-6600K APU2.8% / 3.4%3.4% / 4.2%4.0% / 4.9%
Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP730U3E)4.3% / 3.9%2.6% / 3.5%–
Apple Mac mini Late 2014 (headless)3.7% / 4.6%3.3% / 4.3%4.0% / 5.5%
Dell Chromebook 11 31205.7% / 6.7%3.4% / 5.0%6.6% / 9.4%
Lenovo ThinkPad T5503.7% / 4.3%3.8% / 4.6%4.7% / 5.8%
Dell XPS 13 93433.6% / 5.3%4.3% / 5.6%5.0% / 8.1%
Lenovo ThinkPad T460s3.5% / 4.0%3.3% / 4.1%4.4% / 5.2%
Lenovo ThinkPad T4902.7% / 3.0%3.1% / 3.3%3.9% / 4.0%
Apple Mac mini M11.7% / 2.5%–1.6% / 2.5%
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14"2.5% / 3.1%2.2% / 2.4%2.9% / 3.4%

Percent of one core over the 12 s of scrolling: the compositor alone, all its threads.

Scrolling: the compositor's CPU per frame

Hypoland / Hyprland 0.57.1NautilusFleaFolio
Lenovo ThinkPad X2001.06 ms / no window–0.86 ms / 1.22 ms
Desktop, AMD A8-6600K APU0.69 ms / 0.83 ms0.72 ms / 0.88 ms0.69 ms / 0.86 ms
Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP730U3E)1.06 ms / 1.31 ms0.94 ms / 1.46 ms–
Apple Mac mini Late 2014 (headless)0.91 ms / 1.12 ms0.80 ms / 1.06 ms0.70 ms / 0.95 ms
Dell Chromebook 11 31201.52 ms / 1.90 ms1.30 ms / 1.80 ms1.14 ms / 1.65 ms
Lenovo ThinkPad T5500.91 ms / 1.07 ms0.94 ms / 1.14 ms0.80 ms / 1.01 ms
Dell XPS 13 93430.89 ms / 1.30 ms1.05 ms / 1.43 ms0.86 ms / 1.42 ms
Lenovo ThinkPad T460s0.86 ms / 0.98 ms0.82 ms / 1.00 ms0.76 ms / 0.89 ms
Lenovo ThinkPad T4900.66 ms / 0.75 ms0.75 ms / 0.82 ms0.68 ms / 0.69 ms
Apple Mac mini M1–––
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14"0.55 ms / 0.69 ms0.53 ms / 0.58 ms0.38 ms / 0.44 ms

The same per frame the compositor put on the screen, so a compositor that shows more frames is not read as one that costs more.

Scrolling: frames on the screen

Hypoland / Hyprland 0.57.1NautilusFleaFolio
Lenovo ThinkPad X20038 fps / no window–58 fps / 42 fps
Desktop, AMD A8-6600K APU41 fps / 41 fps47 fps / 47 fps57 fps / 57 fps
Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP730U3E)41 fps / 30 fps28 fps / 24 fps–
Apple Mac mini Late 2014 (headless)41 fps / 41 fps41 fps / 40 fps57 fps / 57 fps
Dell Chromebook 11 312037 fps / 35 fps26 fps / 28 fps58 fps / 57 fps
Lenovo ThinkPad T55041 fps / 41 fps41 fps / 41 fps58 fps / 58 fps
Dell XPS 13 934341 fps / 40 fps41 fps / 39 fps57 fps / 58 fps
Lenovo ThinkPad T460s41 fps / 41 fps41 fps / 41 fps58 fps / 58 fps
Lenovo ThinkPad T49041 fps / 41 fps41 fps / 41 fps58 fps / 58 fps
Apple Mac mini M1–––
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14"44 fps / 44 fps41 fps / 41 fps76 fps / 76 fps

The compositor's page flips a second. The file manager moves its cursor 40 times a second (the key repeat of Omarchy's session), so about 40 is all there is to show; Folio redraws more often than that.

Icons and paging: the compositor's CPU per frame

Hypoland / Hyprland 0.57.1NautilusFleaFolio
Lenovo ThinkPad X2001.63 ms / no window–1.05 ms / 2.67 ms
Desktop, AMD A8-6600K APU0.70 ms / 1.49 ms0.92 ms / 1.04 ms0.74 ms / 1.63 ms
Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP730U3E)1.09 ms / 2.32 ms1.20 ms / 1.53 ms–
Apple Mac mini Late 2014 (headless)1.18 ms / 1.92 ms1.10 ms / 1.32 ms0.92 ms / 1.81 ms
Dell Chromebook 11 31201.58 ms / 2.59 ms1.68 ms / 2.11 ms1.37 ms / 2.64 ms
Lenovo ThinkPad T5500.95 ms / 1.59 ms1.14 ms / 1.32 ms0.89 ms / 1.55 ms
Dell XPS 13 93431.34 ms / 2.34 ms1.26 ms / 1.41 ms1.13 ms / 2.47 ms
Lenovo ThinkPad T460s0.80 ms / 1.49 ms1.00 ms / 1.16 ms0.79 ms / 1.56 ms
Lenovo ThinkPad T4900.73 ms / 1.13 ms0.88 ms / 0.96 ms0.75 ms / 1.20 ms
Apple Mac mini M1–––
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14"0.65 ms / 0.70 ms1.15 ms / 0.96 ms0.65 ms / 0.60 ms

Nautilus and Folio show a folder of icons in their grid with the window's fullscreen toggled twice a second, Flea pages through 25000 files with four keys a second. The compositor's CPU per frame on the screen.

Icons and paging: frames on the screen

Hypoland / Hyprland 0.57.1NautilusFleaFolio
Lenovo ThinkPad X20022 fps / no window–18 fps / 13 fps
Desktop, AMD A8-6600K APU19 fps / 20 fps6 fps / 6 fps19 fps / 20 fps
Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP730U3E)28 fps / 26 fps4 fps / 4 fps–
Apple Mac mini Late 2014 (headless)19 fps / 20 fps5 fps / 5 fps19 fps / 20 fps
Dell Chromebook 11 312026 fps / 24 fps4 fps / 4 fps18 fps / 19 fps
Lenovo ThinkPad T55025 fps / 26 fps5 fps / 5 fps19 fps / 20 fps
Dell XPS 13 934323 fps / 24 fps5 fps / 5 fps18 fps / 19 fps
Lenovo ThinkPad T460s27 fps / 28 fps4 fps / 4 fps19 fps / 20 fps
Lenovo ThinkPad T49025 fps / 25 fps5 fps / 5 fps19 fps / 20 fps
Apple Mac mini M1–––
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14"52 fps / 53 fps6 fps / 6 fps45 fps / 46 fps

The compositor's page flips a second: each fullscreen toggle animates the window, a page of Flea is a frame or two.

The file manager's memory

Hypoland / Hyprland 0.57.1NautilusFleaFolio
Lenovo ThinkPad X200119 MiB / no window–89 MiB / 89 MiB
Desktop, AMD A8-6600K APU132 MiB / 132 MiB100 MiB / 100 MiB91 MiB / 90 MiB
Samsung Series 7 Ultra (NP730U3E)118 MiB / 117 MiB71 MiB / 70 MiB–
Apple Mac mini Late 2014 (headless)117 MiB / 117 MiB71 MiB / 72 MiB92 MiB / 91 MiB
Dell Chromebook 11 3120112 MiB / 111 MiB69 MiB / 69 MiB89 MiB / 87 MiB
Lenovo ThinkPad T550111 MiB / 110 MiB53 MiB / 53 MiB88 MiB / 87 MiB
Dell XPS 13 9343111 MiB / 111 MiB53 MiB / 53 MiB89 MiB / 89 MiB
Lenovo ThinkPad T460s118 MiB / 118 MiB59 MiB / 59 MiB89 MiB / 89 MiB
Lenovo ThinkPad T490118 MiB / 118 MiB59 MiB / 59 MiB89 MiB / 88 MiB
Apple Mac mini M1123 MiB / 122 MiB–89 MiB / 88 MiB
Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge 14"162 MiB / 162 MiB67 MiB / 66 MiB116 MiB / 115 MiB

Pss of the file manager's processes at the end of the scrolling, with the 5000 files listed and the window open. The file manager's own memory, which the compositor hardly changes: it tells the three apart.