nnn vs Thunar
nnn
github.comThunar
docs.xfce.orgSide by side
| Figure | nnn | Thunar |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · File Manager Software | 8.7 (#6) | 8.1 (#34) |
| Archive support | Yes | Yes |
| File operations | It can analyze disk usage, batch rename, launch apps, pick files, and copy, move, delete, archive, and link selections. | It supports common file and folder operations including copy, move, rename, duplicate, symbolic links, and undo and redo for up to ten recent operations. |
| Platforms | The project says nnn runs on Linux, macOS, Android through Termux, Cygwin, and WSL, among other environments. | linux |
| Purpose | nnn is a full-featured terminal file manager. | Thunar is a file manager for the Xfce desktop environment, designed to be fast and easy to use. |
| Support | The project invites users to discuss new ideas or enhancement requests in GitHub Discussions. | The project directs users to its bug reporting page for open bugs and instructions for submitting reports. |
Plans
In their own words
nnn
nnn is a terminal file manager designed to be small, fast and nearly zero-configuration. It handles copying, moving, deleting, archiving and linking selections, alongside batch renaming, disk-usage analysis, app launching and file picking. Navigation includes contexts, sessions, bookmarks and directory marks, while search options include instant filtering, fuzzy matching, regular expressions and string filters. It provides directory and text previews, and can create, list, extract and mount archives. Plugins can add functions such as live previews, disk mounting, file comparison and uploads. Remote mounts require optional sshfs or rclone dependencies. The project says nnn typically needs less than 3.5 MB of resident memory; it has no configuration file and uses defaults, with optional environment-variable settings. It is free and open source under the BSD-2-Clause license, and is listed for Android, Linux, macOS and Windows. The project offers packages and a statically linked binary, or users can compile it from source.