DeskDash vs Rainmeter: what each one can reach on your PC

DeskDash and Rainmeter both put live widgets on the wallpaper of a Windows desktop. Rainmeter is free under GPL v2, a skin is a plain-text INI file from DeviantArt or a forum, and a skin can run any program. DeskDash is a one-time purchase: sandboxed web widgets and/or taskbars from an in-app marketplace, each granted its capabilities before it runs. Which fits depends on what you want from the desktop.

Rainmeter and DeskDash side by side

What is each one?

Rainmeter is open source software, free of charge under the GNU GPL v2. A skin is a plain-text INI file with exactly three kinds of line, and the manual's minimal skin is four sections that print CPU use as text.

DeskDash is a Windows app that turns the desktop background into a live dashboard. Widgets stay behind your normal windows and are click-through except where they are interactive. The same app can replace the Windows taskbar, and every widget is a plain web page built on a documented SDK. Both belong to the wider field of desktop widget tools for Windows.

Where do the widgets come from?

Rainmeter's own Discover page sends you to four places: DeviantArt, which it calls "one of the largest online repositories of Rainmeter resources", the r/Rainmeter subreddit, the Rainmeter forums and a Lifehacker desktop pool. The manual's list adds GitHub and Flickr, notes that DeviantArt needs an account, and names no first-party catalogue and no in-app store. XDA describes the result: a web search for skins "returns a series of unofficial websites".

The famous suites are in mixed shape. Enigma was last pushed on 18 May 2024. The Monstercat visualizer, at 962 stars, was last pushed on 17 June 2023. Droptop Four was last pushed on 29 April 2026, shipped five releases that month, and updates by a download from its own site.

Long-time users say the same. One four-star AlternativeTo reviewer writes that "many old Rainmeter downloads are now forever lost, because sites like Customize.org are long dead" and that the community is looking for "another place to upload and archive their work". A five-star reviewer says "the template/layouts haven't been updated in a while" and "you have to trust sites like Deviant Art".

Rainmeter's manual is candid about those sites: "most sites have no policy of verifying either the identity of the uploader or the integrity of the files". It tells you never to download an .exe posing as a skin installer and to read the comments for malware reports. The Discover page repeats the caution for anything not from rainmeter.net.

DeskDash has one place: a built-in marketplace with Widgets and Taskbars sections, each with Installed, Browse and Updates tabs. For now it only holds 30 first-party widgets and 3 taskbars, all free, but more are promised to be added each day. From clocks and system stats to weather, music, notes and games. Every listing is browsable on the website without the app, a "Request a widget" form sits in the store footer, and anyone can submit. Submissions are validated and reviewed before they publish.

How do you install and configure one?

A Rainmeter skin arrives as a .rmskin package. You double-click it, the Skin Installer shows its options, and you click Install; one package can carry skins, layouts and plugins.

To change one, you right-click the skin, choose Edit skin, and the .ini opens in Notepad or your default text editor. You find the Variables section, change values, save and refresh. A graphical settings screen exists only if the skin's author built one, which the manual calls "more the exception than the rule". The manual's own ladder: editing a skin "may be scary if you are not a programmer", and writing one sits at HTML or JavaScript difficulty. XDA calls that config-file editing "intimidating for beginners".

DeskDash installs a widget in one click from the marketplace. Edit mode drags, resizes, restyles, stacks and overlaps widgets on a grid, and every widget has its own settings with live preview. If you can make a web page, you can write a widget: HTML, CSS and JavaScript, no build step, with a scaffolder and typed SDK autocomplete in developer mode.

What can a widget do to your PC?

Rainmeter's RunCommand plugin "executes an external command or program in Windows" and hands the output back to the skin. It defaults to cmd.exe, the Parameter option is the whole command line, and the State option "attempts to hide the program's window". The RunCommand page carries no security warning and describes no prompt to you before a skin runs a command.

Skins also run Lua 5.1 scripts on load, on update or on command. The manual names five unavailable functions; the io and os libraries are not on that list. The older !Execute bang, which ran external applications, is now "optional. Do not use it in new skins".

Third-party plugin .dll files ship inside skin packages and install with the skin. The install docs mention no signature or integrity check on a .rmskin.

DeskDash answers that at the widget level. Each widget runs in a sandbox, isolated, with no direct reach into files, the network or other widgets; all system access flows through the SDK. Before a widget runs you see exactly what it can access and grant each capability per widget, and taskbars ask the same way. A misbehaving widget only affects itself; the app and the other widgets keep running. API keys live in Windows Credential Manager, never in a widget, and every marketplace submission is validated and reviewed before it publishes.

Does DeskDash read hardware sensors the way Rainmeter does?

DeskDash samples the machine once a second and hands the reading to every widget you granted system access: CPU, RAM, GPU, disk and network, plus drive space, battery and wifi. Which of them a tile shows is a setting on that tile, so two copies of the same widget can watch different things. Examples are System Vitals or System Rings. But indeed, stuff like temperatures, voltages and fan speeds are not in that set today, though they are planned for the future.

Rainmeter reads those from a second application. The CoreTemp plugin reports per-core temperature, TjMax, VID, TDP and power draw, and the CoreTemp app "must be running in the background". The SpeedFan plugin gives temperature, fan speed and voltage on the same terms. HWiNFO is read another way again: version 7.02 or later writes its sensors to the Windows Registry, and a Registry measure picks them up after a five-step setup and a reg query for each sensor's index.

How do they handle several monitors, scaling and the taskbar?

In Rainmeter a skin's position is set per skin, relative to the primary screen by default, or with an @N index from 1 to 32 for a given screen, or 0 for the virtual desktop. You drag skins with the mouse, positions are remembered across restarts, and with the monitor-boundary setting on a skin jumps whole onto the other monitor. The position and arrangement pages document no DPI or display-scaling handling, so scaling is the skin author's job. On the taskbar Rainmeter is explicit: it "cannot change the appearance of your taskbar, Start button, desktop icons, file explorer, or other built-in Windows components", and it is "not a window manager".

In DeskDash every display gets its own layout. Layouts remember their display and come back when it reconnects, and a display with no widgets renders nothing. For 4K and ultrawide screens, Settings shrinks the widgets on one display to 67%, 50% or 33%, and layout presets save whole arrangements.

How do updates and upkeep work?

Rainmeter's current release is 4.5.26, published 20 May 2026. The last three years brought one release in 2023, two in 2024, three in 2025 and three in 2026, in clusters with two gaps of 12 and 13 months. The source repository received commits on 2 September 2026.

Rainmeter's global settings update the application only. Rainmeter documents no way for an installed skin to update itself; Droptop Four ships its own download-based updates instead.

DeskDash auto-updates and shows release notes in the app, publishes a changelog, and the marketplace Updates tab handles widgets and taskbars.

What does each one cost, and what does it run on?

Rainmeter costs nothing, with no paid tier and no licence key. It runs on Windows 7 or above, and its deep sensor routes need CoreTemp, SpeedFan or HWiNFO installed and running.

DeskDash is a one-time purchase, and every widget and taskbar is included. The current price is 10 EUR plus tax, on the download page. It runs on Windows 10 and 11, 64 bit.

Which one fits you?

You want per-core temperatures, voltages or fan speeds on the wallpaper, and you already run HWiNFO or CoreTemp. That reach is Rainmeter's, through the plugin or registry routes.

You want a text-editor workflow and a skin you wrote line by line. A Rainmeter skin is an INI file, and the manual puts writing one at HTML or JavaScript difficulty.

You want widgets you install in a click, configure in a settings pane, and update from one place, with a record of what each one may touch before it runs. That is DeskDash's marketplace, permission model and sandbox.

You want a dock or a different taskbar from the same app that runs your widgets, and a layout per display across two or more screens. That is DeskDash's taskbar marketplace and per-display layouts.

You build widgets and already know HTML, CSS and JavaScript. DeskDash's SDK and docs are written for you. Rainmeter's authoring language is its INI format plus Lua.