How can Docky, AWN, Cairo Dock and Unity be compared?

I will try to be impartial and objective. Help and suggestions are welcome ;-).

I'm very grateful for the important contributions of these buddies:
Alaukik, Kaustubh P, Uri Herrera and Mandy.

First of all, the question is tricky. Putting all this together may lead someone to think of Unity as a Dock, which it is not. Actually, it is a User Interface (see this as reference to this affirmation and this for the definition of a Dock).

Second: the Unity Launcher can't be moved from left edge.

To make this answer be more suitable, I will focus on features that are common to all and on those which are (at least to me) most desired.

Applications Menu

This is more easily answered with images:

Unity:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here _

AWN:

AWN own menu:

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YAMA (has "Places" and bigger icons):

enter image description here

I wasn't able to find this feature for Docky but maybe it has it.

Workspace Switcher

Unity:
You can't preview the workspaces from the Launcher:
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But when you click on the icon, you will see:
enter image description here

Docky:
No preview:
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AWN:
enter image description here

Cairo Dock:
enter image description here

Notification Area

Unity:
enter image description here

AWN:
enter image description here

Cairo Dock:
enter image description here

I wasn't able to find this feature for Docky but maybe it has it.

Monitoring:

Battery

Unity:

enter image description here

Docky:

enter image description here

AWN:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

Processor

Unity:

enter image description here

and

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obs.: check What Application Indicators are available? to see how to install this and others indicators.
Specifically for this indicator: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:indicator-multiload/stable-daily && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indicator-multiload && indicator-multiload

Docky:

enter image description here

AWN:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

RAM

Unity:

enter image description here

Docky:

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AWN:

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Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

Internet Connection

Unity:

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Docky:

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AWN:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

Hard Disk

Unity:

enter image description here

AWN:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

I wasn't able to find this feature for Docky but maybe it has it.

Dropbox

Unity:

enter image description here

AWN:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

I wasn't able to find this feature for Docky but maybe it has it.

Weather

Unity:

enter image description here
Click here to install.

Docky:
enter image description here

AWN:
enter image description here

Cairo Dock:
enter image description here

Date and Clock

Unity:

enter image description here

Docky:

enter image description here
When you click on it:
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AWN:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

Clipboard

Unity:

enter image description here

Docky:

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:

enter image description here

I wasn't able to find this feature for Docky but maybe it has it.

Some extra features

Unity: When you drag an app to the launcher it lights up the apps that can open it .

enter image description here

Docky:
enter image description here

AWN:
This applet shows items related to what you are doing
enter image description here

Cairo Dock:
It is very beautiful and has lots of visual effects and configurations. Let's see some:
Sub folders
enter image description here

Widgets
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Recent Events
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Lightness on system

On average, this is what top shows me for processor (P) and memory (M) usage:

Unity:
P: 1 M: 0.4

enter image description here

Docky:
P: 1-2 M: 1.2

enter image description here

AWN:
P: 0 M: 0.3

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:
P: 0-1 M: 1.5

enter image description here

Final Overview

Unity:
enter image description here

Docky:
enter image description here

enter image description here

AWN:

enter image description here

enter image description here

Cairo Dock:
enter image description here

enter image description here

Websites

Unity: unity.ubuntu.com

Docky: www.go-docky.com

AWN: awn-project.org

Cairo Dock: glx-dock.org

Installation

Unity: It comes with Ubuntu 11.04 and later.

Docky: docky

AWN: avant-window-navigator (I would suggest you also install awn-applets-all)

Cairo Dock: cairo-dock

Tags:

Docky

Unity

Cairo Dock

Awn

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