The Budgie project has begun development on Budgie 11, transitioning to a Qt 6-based architecture following the release of Budgie 10.10. This new version aims for greater modularity and Wayland exclusivity, addressing limitations from the previous series.
The Budgie desktop environment, popular among Linux users for its modern interface, marked the end of its Budgie 10 series with the release of version 10.10 on January 10, 2026. This update completes the migration from X11 to Wayland and shifts the project into maintenance mode for the 10.x line.
Development of Budgie 11 kicked off earlier in January 2026, as announced by developer Joshua Strobl. The upcoming release will be built using Qt 6 and KDE Frameworks, including Kirigami for adaptive user interfaces. Key components, such as Budgie Desktop Services—which already handles Wayland output management and persistent configuration in Budgie 10.10—have been rewritten in Qt 6. Plans also include developing the Budgie Display Configurator using Qt 6 and Kirigami.
The shift emphasizes modularity to allow users and distributions more freedom in configuring the desktop. Budgie 11 will consist of two layers: Budgie Core, providing foundational libraries and services via interfaces like DBus, and Budgie Desktop, the graphical environment for traditional systems. This design supports diverse devices, including TVs, phones, tablets, VR, and AR, while enabling easier porting of projects to Qt and Wayland.
Versioning for Budgie 11 ties the major number to Qt's major releases, starting with Qt 6, with semi-annual feature updates and patches. The team aims to avoid Budgie 10's issues, such as tightly coupled components relying on libpeas for plugins and fragmented session management that underutilized systemd. Instead, Budgie 11 prioritizes extensibility, centralized extension discovery, advanced multitasking, and approachable workflows for newcomers.
No release date has been set, but developers hope for an initial preview in 2026.
