Evince vs Zathura
May 13, 2026 | Author: Maria Lin
Evince and Zathura are both free and open source PDF viewers for Linux. They support text navigation and search, hotkeys, work with tabs or multiple windows and support page zooming. Both are minimalist in terms of computer resource requirements.
But Evince is part of the GNOME ecosystem and has a full-featured GTK graphical interface, which is more friendly for beginners. The program supports annotations and forms, integrates well with file managers and has a full-screen presentation mode.
Zathura is more old-school application. Its interface is inspired by the Vim text editor and is controlled primarily via keyboard. However, it is very lightweight and fast, with a minimalist interface without unnecessary elements. The program supports flexible configuration via a configuration file and can use various PDF backend libraries.
But Evince is part of the GNOME ecosystem and has a full-featured GTK graphical interface, which is more friendly for beginners. The program supports annotations and forms, integrates well with file managers and has a full-screen presentation mode.
Zathura is more old-school application. Its interface is inspired by the Vim text editor and is controlled primarily via keyboard. However, it is very lightweight and fast, with a minimalist interface without unnecessary elements. The program supports flexible configuration via a configuration file and can use various PDF backend libraries.
