What's the best Rainmeter alternative for Windows 11?

It depends on what you used Rainmeter for. For a clock and the weather, BeWidgets. For a whole new desktop, Seelen UI. For animated backgrounds, Lively Wallpaper or Wallpaper Engine. For stats, Sidebar Diagnostics. For a drag-and-drop dashboard on monitors and touchscreens, EdgeOS.

Is there a free Rainmeter alternative?

Yes: EdgeOS, Seelen UI, Lively Wallpaper, BeWidgets and Sidebar Diagnostics are all free. Seelen UI, Lively and Sidebar Diagnostics are open source like Rainmeter.

Can I keep my Rainmeter skins?

In EdgeOS Premium, yes: add .rmskin skins under Widgets and place them like any widget. Skins that rely on Lua scripts or their own plugins may not work fully yet.

Does Rainmeter still work on Windows 11?

Yes. Rainmeter 4.5.28, from October 2026, runs on Windows 7 and later, Windows 11 included.

Is the Windows 11 Widgets board a Rainmeter alternative?

Not really. It's a panel of news, weather and app widgets that you open from the taskbar or with Win + W, not widgets that stay on your desktop.

Windows 11 and 10

Rainmeter alternatives for Windows

There's no one replacement: Rainmeter is free, open source and endlessly flexible, and if you enjoy writing skins it's still the one to beat. Each alternative trades some of that for ease: BeWidgets for a few simple widgets, Seelen UI to remake the whole shell, Lively or Wallpaper Engine for animated backgrounds, Sidebar Diagnostics for stats, and EdgeOS for a drag-and-drop dashboard made for touchscreens.

EdgeOS is ours. Every fact about the others is from their own pages or reviews, checked 26 Oct 2026.

Side by side

	Price	Open source	What it is	System monitor	Made for touch
Rainmeter	Free	Yes (GPL v2)	Skins you write or download as text (INI) files	Yes, through skins	No: mouse actions
EdgeOS	Free; Premium $19.99 once	No	A widget dashboard with a drag-and-drop editor	Built in: CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, sensors	Yes
Seelen UI	Free	Yes	A new shell: toolbar, dock, tiling windows and a launcher, plus widgets	A system monitor widget	Not listed
Lively Wallpaper	Free	Yes (GPL-3.0)	Animated, video and web wallpapers	Only in wallpapers built with its API	Not listed
BeWidgets	Free	Not listed	A few desktop widgets: time, date, photos, shortcuts, finance, weather	No	Not listed
Sidebar Diagnostics	Free	Yes	A sidebar of hardware stats	It's all it does	Not listed
Windows Widgets board	Built in	No	Microsoft's panel of news, weather and app widgets, opened with Win + W	No	Not listed
Wallpaper Engine	Paid, on Steam	No	Animated wallpapers, with an editor and the Steam Workshop	Only in community wallpapers	Not listed

“Not listed” means the maker doesn't say; it may still be there.

Who each one suits

Rainmeter: you like to tinker

Free, light and as deep as you want: thousands of community skins, and anything you can write in a skin file. Version 4.5.28 runs on Windows 7 and later; 5.0 is at release candidate.

EdgeOS: you want it laid out in minutes

Ours

Drag widgets onto a monitor or a touchscreen such as the XENEON EDGE, with a settings panel for each one. It's free with 46 free widgets, and Premium can run your .rmskin skins too.

Seelen UI: you want a different desktop altogether

It replaces the taskbar with its own toolbar and dock, tiles your windows and adds a launcher, with media, clock and system monitor widgets. Pick the modules you want.

Lively Wallpaper: you want a moving background

Free and open source, from the Microsoft Store. Wallpapers can be videos, web pages or interactive scenes; ready-made stats widgets aren't its focus.

BeWidgets: you only want a clock and the weather

A free Microsoft Store app with a handful of simple, customizable widgets on your desktop. Nothing to learn, and not much to outgrow.

Sidebar Diagnostics: you only want stats

A free, open-source sidebar with CPU, RAM, GPU, drive and network readings down one edge of a screen. Updates come only now and then.

Windows Widgets: you don't want to install anything

Already in Windows 11. It's a panel you open from the taskbar, not widgets on your desktop.

Wallpaper Engine: the background is the point

The biggest library of animated wallpapers, on the Steam Workshop. It pairs with a widget app rather than replacing one.

The skin library

Years of community skins: clocks, visualizers, launchers and whole themes. Nothing else has as many.

Total control

A skin can show almost anything and look exactly how you write it. Visual editors trade some of that for speed.

A way to keep some of it

EdgeOS Premium adds .rmskin skins under Widgets and places them like its own widgets. Skins that rely on Lua scripts or their own plugins may not work fully yet.

Common questions

What's the best Rainmeter alternative for Windows 11?: It depends on what you used Rainmeter for. For a clock and the weather, BeWidgets. For a whole new desktop, Seelen UI. For animated backgrounds, Lively Wallpaper or Wallpaper Engine. For stats, Sidebar Diagnostics. For a drag-and-drop dashboard on monitors and touchscreens, EdgeOS.
Is there a free Rainmeter alternative?: Yes: EdgeOS, Seelen UI, Lively Wallpaper, BeWidgets and Sidebar Diagnostics are all free. Seelen UI, Lively and Sidebar Diagnostics are open source like Rainmeter.
Can I keep my Rainmeter skins?: In EdgeOS Premium, yes: add .rmskin skins under Widgets and place them like any widget. Skins that rely on Lua scripts or their own plugins may not work fully yet.
Does Rainmeter still work on Windows 11?: Yes. Rainmeter 4.5.28, from October 2026, runs on Windows 7 and later, Windows 11 included.
Is the Windows 11 Widgets board a Rainmeter alternative?: Not really. It's a panel of news, weather and app widgets that you open from the taskbar or with Win + W, not widgets that stay on your desktop.