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Evince vs Zathura
January 18, 2025
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Evince is a document viewer for multiple document formats. The goal of evince is to replace the multiple document viewers that exist on the GNOME Desktop with a single simple application.
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zathura is a highly customizable and functional ereader. It provides a minimalistic and space saving interface as well as an easy usage that mainly focuses on keyboard interaction. zathura now uses a plugin based system for supported document types which makes it possible for you to choose which file formats you want your version of zathura to support. This also makes it possible to use different backends for the same document type: For instance we provide a plugin for PDF documents using either the poppler or the mupdf library.
Evince and Zathura, like two siblings raised in different boarding schools, share an undeniable kinship. Both excel at the noble art of displaying PDFs, PostScript files and other such tedious human inventions, doing so with the kind of efficiency that makes you wonder why printers still exist. They are open-source, which means a community of benevolent tinkerers keeps them alive and they’ve mastered the party tricks of text search, bookmarks and annotations. Whether you’re on Linux or elsewhere, these two document wizards integrate into your digital life like old friends who know just when to call.
Evince, however, seems to have graduated from the "School of General Usefulness," proudly waving its GNOME banner. It boasts compatibility with formats you didn’t even know existed—ePub, DjVu and TIFF, to name a few. Its design philosophy can be summed up as, "Let’s not scare the humans," making it the choice for those who just want to click, scroll and occasionally nod appreciatively. Hailing from the United States as part of GNOME’s mission, it brings a polished, user-friendly interface, perfect for people who like their software to smile at them gently.
Zathura, on the other hand, appears to have been engineered in a German laboratory by minimalist perfectionists who believe mice are an unnecessary luxury. Keyboard navigation reigns supreme and file format support is doled out like a rationed resource via modular plugins. Customizable and unapologetically sparse, it’s for users who enjoy a challenge, a script or just the quiet thrill of knowing they’ve mastered their tools. It stands tall in its niche, offering no frills and certainly no handholding, a document viewer for those who scoff at graphical menus and prefer their software with a dash of spartan charm.
Evince, however, seems to have graduated from the "School of General Usefulness," proudly waving its GNOME banner. It boasts compatibility with formats you didn’t even know existed—ePub, DjVu and TIFF, to name a few. Its design philosophy can be summed up as, "Let’s not scare the humans," making it the choice for those who just want to click, scroll and occasionally nod appreciatively. Hailing from the United States as part of GNOME’s mission, it brings a polished, user-friendly interface, perfect for people who like their software to smile at them gently.
Zathura, on the other hand, appears to have been engineered in a German laboratory by minimalist perfectionists who believe mice are an unnecessary luxury. Keyboard navigation reigns supreme and file format support is doled out like a rationed resource via modular plugins. Customizable and unapologetically sparse, it’s for users who enjoy a challenge, a script or just the quiet thrill of knowing they’ve mastered their tools. It stands tall in its niche, offering no frills and certainly no handholding, a document viewer for those who scoff at graphical menus and prefer their software with a dash of spartan charm.
