Last Updated on December 24, 2022
7. SpaceFM
SpaceFM is a multi-panel tabbed file and desktop manager with built-in VFS, udev- or HAL-based device manager, customisable menu system, and bash-GTK integration. It’s feature-rich, flexible, and independent of any desktop environment.
SpaceFM aims to offer a stable, capable file manager with significant customisation capabilities. It has a daemon mode, and good network support.
The software is written in the C programming language. There’s a fairly comprehensive manual available.
SpaceFM was originally developed from a fork of PCManFM.
Website: ignorantguru.github.io/spacefm
License: GNU General Public License v3.0 or any later version
8. Thunar
Thunar is a fast and easy to use file manager for the Xfce Desktop Environment.
Thunar’s user interface is clean and intuitive and does not include any confusing or redundant options by default. Thunar is both fast and responsive in operation.
It’s a relatively basic file manager without lots of features. But there are plugins to extend functionality if needed.
Search functionality is missing, but it’s not difficult to use the custom actions functionality to call an external utility like catfish or mlocate.
Website: docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/start
License: GNU General Public License version 2 or later
9. Polo
Polo excels in some departments, but languishes in others. The lack of drag and drop and search functionality are serious omissions for any graphical file manager, and a particularly startling omission for an ‘advanced’ file manager.
There’s lots of bugs in the file manager so we wouldn’t recommend it for daily use. We experienced a few crashes, panes that didn’t display contents correctly, incorrect transfer rates, and slow file access to directories with lots of files. As the software reaches maturity, hopefully these issues will be ironed out. But Polo certainly has a lot of promise.
We’re not keen on the ‘donation plugins’. Not really a donation…
Website: teejee2008.github.io/polo
License: GNU General Public License version 2
Next page: Page 4 – Tux Commander, Donnatella, Files (Elementary)
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – PCManFM, Files, Double Commander
Page 2 – GNOME Commander, 4Pane, Sunflower
Page 3 – SpaceFM, Thunar, Polo
Page 4 – Tux Commander, Donatella, Files (Elementary)
Page 5 – emelFM2, Gentoo, Rox-Filer
Page 6 – Memory comparison
Page 7 – Summary
Why no mention of Caja and Nemo?
They are mentioned…
Hi Steve. I think they deserve better than just “(and forks)”.
They do, that’s why they have a special mention in the section in question, not merely (and forks).
In general we don’t think it’s a great idea to fork actively maintained high quality software. It’s much better to contribute to the active project than fork.
I think Files (Nautilus) is awful compared to Caja and Nemo. Files has had many features ripped out.
And maybe in a future article you could cover non-GTK/non-QT window managers including XFE which uses the Fox widget library.
We’ve already covered XFE in File managers article, but there are other good non-GTK/non-QT file managers, so yes, we will.
Hey folks. Thanks for mentioning Sunflower. Development has been stale for a bit due to my personal life and work taking most of my free time. However in the background I’ve been preparing new release for a while now, which will be based on GTK+ 3.20. This release will have better and simpler interface but without removing any of the existing features. It will be much faster and better optimized.
If you need any help in testing your new release let us know. And when it’s ready, we’ll be happy to reevaluate.
my favorites are Thunar and Caja, even they’re not perfect. nowadays I’m more than a terminal based FM guy though, I use Midnight Commander a lot.