nnn vs Vifm
nnn
github.comVifm
vifm.infoSide by side
| Figure | nnn | Vifm |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · File Manager Software | 8.7 (#6) | 8.4 (#16) |
| Spec score · File managers | 8.7 (#4) | 8.5 (#7) |
| Spec score · Terminal File Managers | 8.5 (#7) | 7.8 (#21) |
| Archive support | Yes | Yes |
| Dual-pane layout | No | Yes |
| File operations | It can analyze disk usage, batch rename, launch apps, pick files, and copy, move, delete, archive, and link selections. | Features include undoing, redoing, and backgrounding operations, as well as trash. |
| Intended users | The project describes nnn as unobtrusive and designed for smart workflows, and documents beginner and power-user quickstarts. | The site describes Vifm for people who use vi and want keyboard control over files using familiar commands. |
| Platforms | The project says nnn runs on Linux, macOS, Android through Termux, Cygwin, and WSL, among other environments. | The site describes Vifm as cross platform for GNU/Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Windows, and Mac OS, and UTF 8 aware. |
| Purpose | nnn is a full-featured terminal file manager. | Vifm is a curses based file manager that provides a Vim like environment for managing filesystems. |
| Support | The project invites users to discuss new ideas or enhancement requests in GitHub Discussions. | The site directs general usage questions to its Q&A site, where registration is not required, and lists GitHub issues, SourceForge tracker, and email for other contact. |
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.