KDE Memory consumption

[piorunz]

how do you guys calculate kde ram usage ?

 systemctl --user status plasma-plasmashell.service
● plasma-plasmashell.service - KDE Plasma Workspace
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/plasma-plasmashell.service; disabled; p
reset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2026-07-15 16:50:33 EEST; 21h ago
 Invocation: cb7ba4f61923451eb5f268091c068ea2
   Main PID: 1255 (plasmashell)
      Tasks: 17 (limit: 57521)
     Memory: 688.6M (peak: 1G)
        CPU: 1min 59.503s
     CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/[email protected]/session.slice/plasma-plasmashell.service
             ├─  1255 /usr/bin/plasmashell --no-respawn
             └─441300 /usr/lib/kf6/kioworker /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/kio/desktop.so desktop "" local:/run/user/1000/plasmashellvQMttS.145.kioworker.socket

❯ ps -eo size,pid,user,command --sort -size | grep -E "plasma|kwin|krunner|kscreen" | awk '{hr=$1/1024; printf "%10.2f Mb ", hr; for (i=4; i<=NF; i++) printf "%s ", $i; printf "\n"}'
    795.98 Mb /usr/bin/plasmashell --no-respawn
    347.71 Mb /usr/bin/kwin_wayland --wayland-fd 7 --socket wayland-0 --xwayland-fd 8 --xwayland-fd 9 --xwayland-display :1 --xwayland-xauthority /run/user/1000/xauth_xWScqb --xwayland
    178.80 Mb /usr/bin/plasma-browser-integration-host chrome-extension://cimiefiiaegbelhefglklhhakcgmhkai/
     28.30 Mb /usr/lib/kf6/kioworker /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/kf6/kio/desktop.so desktop local:/run/user/1000/plasmashellvQMttS.145.kioworker.socket
     16.26 Mb /usr/bin/startplasma-wayland
      9.20 Mb /usr/bin/kwin_wayland_wrapper --xwayland
      1.73 Mb /usr/lib/sddm/sddm-helper --socket /tmp/sddm-auth-1a9a7e1d-551f-4a53-8802-51ae7803818b --id 1 --start /usr/lib/plasma-dbus-run-session-if-needed /usr/bin/startplasma-wayland --user vile
      0.53 Mb grep -E plasma|kwin|krunner|kscreen

thats my ram usage.

That's not how you measure desktop environment RAM usage.

 

[//////]

this is my ram usage after reboot.

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

KDE system monitor tools, in my Poor Man's Conky.
Don't know of much else as I just have Wayland-only.

 

[kibasnowpaw]

Personally, I do not see a difference of a few hundred megabytes in idle RAM usage as a major issue on a normal modern PC. I understand why it matters on something with very limited memory, such as a Raspberry Pi or an older low-spec laptop, but on a machine with 16 GB, 32 GB or more, the practical effect is usually small unless the system is actually running out of memory or swapping heavily.

My own computer rarely drops below 6 GB of total RAM usage because I always have several services and programs running. Right now, it is using about 7.6 GB. That does not mean KDE itself is using all of that. It is the complete system, including background services, applications, drivers, filesystem cache and everything else running in my session.

That is also why comparing 1.1 GB on Kubuntu with 1.7 GB on Fedora does not automatically tell us how much KDE itself uses. The distribution, enabled services, software centre, update tools, drivers, filesystem cache and the exact measurement method can all affect the result. Linux will also use otherwise unused RAM for caching and normally release it when applications need it, so a larger “used” number is not automatically evidence of a problem.

For me, the more important questions are whether the system remains responsive, whether it starts swapping under my normal workload, and whether its resource usage is still comfortably below what I experienced on Windows. If those conditions are met, I am not particularly concerned about whether the idle figure is 1.2 GB, 1.7 GB or even several gigabytes on my own heavily used setup.

I am also still using X11. I know Wayland works well for many people, but in my own experience, too many small things have broken or behaved differently. After finding a fix for the fullscreen problem I had with games on X11, I have not had any other major gaming-related reason to switch. With Wayland, it has often felt like I fix one problem and then encounter another.

That is only my personal experience, not a claim that X11 is technically better for everybody. I simply prefer using the setup that currently works reliably for my games and the rest of my software.