Home replacement apps vs. Skinable beautiful widgets

[Garemlin]

Just curious what advantage one has over the other. Do they have similar functions or are they completely different animals. Haven't really looked thoroughly into either one but I would like a fresh, custom look to my Droid so I figure I would ask first and then start digging deeper.

[seang]

they can be used together.
GDE, pandahome, and maybe others allow themes to be applied to the UI.
beautiful widgets only skins the widget itself.

[Rettocs]

Just curious what advantage one has over the other. Do they have similar functions or are they completely different animals. Haven't really looked thoroughly into either one but I would like a fresh, custom look to my Droid so I figure I would ask first and then start digging deeper.

They are, as you say, completetly different animals. Beautiful widgets is an awesome widget that shows a big clock in digital format, and combines it with a weather widget that shows the temperature and conditions. BW can be skinned to look differently, and is great.

The home replacement apps allow you to skin everything else visible on your phone. Things like changing how your icons are displayed, the number of screens available, etc. There are many possibilities with it. They can be used with Beautiful Widgets to give you a very nice looking home setup. There are downsides though, all of the home replacements that I know of have bugs, and certain issues with some apps. If you can live with that, then go for it!