From WikiVS, the open comparison website

[edit] Development

Both projects have very good momentum and a strong user base. KDE released its 4.4.5 version in 30 June 2010; Gnome's current version, 2.30.1, was released in 28 April 2010.

With KDE4, the KDE projects had major revamps to its code-base. It now uses the more advanced Qt4 in place of Qt3, and some design principles were rethought. This provides for better code design and integration, but more bugs than a typical upgrade. The KDE team explicitly targeted the 4.0 release at developers, and not for people who want a stable desktop. Releases after 4.2 are increasingly stable and feature-complete, and thus are more suitable for adoption.

[edit] Integration

KDE strives to be a more integrated desktop than Gnome. KDE has a main System Settings (control panel) that allows you to set options for various applications. They have this advantage because they build on top of a common KDE library instead of just the Qt framework. Thus, Qt applications have a different look and feel from KDE applications.

Gnome is built on top of GTK, the GUI platform and other Gnome libraries, but Gnome application developers don't adhere to the Gnome libraries as much as KDE developers adhere to KDE libraries for their applications. This is offset by the fact that GTK applications look similar to each other regardless of whether they are pure GTK or created for Gnome. Gnome also provides a bit of integration for configuration, but most of the options are not available through the System Settings but through Gconf.

A simple way to think of it is:

There are more KDE applications available than pure Qt applications
There are more pure GTK applications available than Gnome-integrated applications

[edit] Usability

In December, 2005, Linus Torvald explicitly recommended the use of KDE because of its configurability [1]. Gnome aims to be more "user-friendly" but still has options for power-user hidden away in Gconf.

Rule of thumb:

KDE has more options readily visible. It is easily configurable but can bewilder new users.
Gnome has less options readily visible. Its minimalistic offering of configurability attracts new users.

Some people claim that KDE is better for new users because it provides a more integrated and consistent interface.

From an interview with Linus By Rodney Gedda, Computerworld Australia January 22, 2009 03:30 PM ET:

"I used to be a KDE user. I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster I switched to GNOME. I hate the fact that my right button doesn't do what I want it to do. But the whole "break everything" model is painful for users and they can choose to use something else.

I realise the reason for the 4.0 release, but I think they did it badly. They did so may changes it was a half-baked release. It may turn out to be the right decision in the end and I will re-try KDE, but I suspect I'm not the only person they lost."

[edit] Performance

Gnome users typically accuse KDE of being bloated. Besides eating more memory, KDE desktop load times are slower because they have to load more from disk. KDE users justify this by saying that once the libraries are loaded, applications start quicker.

KDE actually feels a bit sharper than Gnome across the entire desktop with applications starting quicker, specifically Firefox.

[edit] Technology

KDE users claim that Qt, especially Qt4, is a much more advanced GUI library than GTK, and claim that its superior design makes for better applications. Not only are the resulting applications faster, but developing the applications take less time because of the clean way Qt is designed.

For more information on technology differences, go to Qt vs GTK