"Which window manager is the best? Which one is fastest?
Which one is prettiest? Those questions are sure to start religious
wars if asked on irc, and probably rank up there with "which
distribution is best" as a cause of flame wars..."
"First off, let's tackle the speed issue. Any window manager
will be faster if it is not used in conjunction with KDE or GNOME.
This isn't meant as a flame towards either GNOME or KDE, it's just
a fact. Both of these projects are much more than just a window
manager - they are an environment. They offer drag 'n' drop
capabilities, an integrated application set, the ability to set
desktop icons to launch programs, and many other functions that
would take several separate articles to detail. So yes, they are
going to be slower than just a window manager, but not terribly
slower on a fairly recent system, and you get a lot of features in
exchange."