Rainmeter is a desktop customisation platform that can be a sensor panel. CLU VIEW is a sensor panel, full stop. Which one you want depends on whether you're theming a desktop or monitoring a machine.
> What Rainmeter does brilliantly_
It's free, open source, and there are thousands of community skins: clocks, launchers, notes, visualisers, full desktop suites. If you can code it in Rainmeter's INI-based skin language, you can build it.
> Where it gets heavy for monitoring_
- ■Rainmeter has no hardware sensors of its own; you wire in HWiNFO via a plugin and shared-memory configuration.
- ■HWiNFO's free tier caps shared memory at 12-hour sessions, so a 24/7 panel needs a Pro license.
- ■Editing a skin means editing INI files. There's no drag-and-drop canvas, and no undo or multi-select either.
- ■Fullscreen output to a secondary or in-case display is something you arrange by hand; there's no dedicated mode for it.
> The dedicated-panel route_
CLU VIEW reads your hardware itself via LibreHardwareMonitor, so it's one app with no plugin chain and no session limits. You build with a visual editor (14 widget types, 216 styles, multi-select, undo/redo), style with 19 effects and 11 filters, automate with rules, and send it fullscreen to any display with one-click Panel Mode.
> Verdict_
If you want your whole desktop themed, with monitoring as one element, use Rainmeter, no contest. CLU VIEW is for the other case: a dedicated hardware dashboard on a spare or in-case screen, working in minutes and free at any session length. Plenty of people run both.