[6] The development of Metacity was started by Havoc Pennington and it was released under the GNU General Public License.

[citation needed] Metacity uses the GTK graphical widget toolkit to create its user interface components, which makes it themeable and makes it blend in with other GTK applications.

Its author has characterized it as a "Boring window manager for the adult in you.

Many window managers are like Marshmallow Froot Loops; Metacity is like Cheerios.

"[8] People in favour of Metacity say that it is aimed at new computer users who do not need the abundant options and functionality of Sawfish or Enlightenment.