Comment 0 for bug 1042378

Pantheon Shell is a modular, DE-independent desktop shell.

It consists of:
    WingPanel - a panel that holds indicators and spawns application launcher
    Slingshot - a lightweight and stylish application launcher
    Pantheon Wallpaper - nautilus-free wallpaper service with smooth transitions and blur support
    Plank - dock, stupidly simple
    Cerbere - our watchdog, a simple service to relaunch all of the above if it closes or crashes (wouf!)

Unlike GNOME Shell or Unity, it's not monolithic "all-or-none" kind of thing. You can use some components from it while not using the others, or replace some of them with apps that suit you better.

http://elementaryos.org/docs/packaging/pantheon-shell