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Add to SafariWhen comparing nomacs vs pqiv, the Slant community recommends nomacs for most people. In the question“What are the best small and lightweight image viewers for UNIX-like systems?” nomacs is ranked 1st while pqiv is ranked 8th.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Highly customizable
Pro Detailed view of image metadata
Pro Lots of image adjustment tools
Pro Simple and pleasant look
No cramped toolbars or large icons; the UI is cohesive, minimal and keeps out of your way.
Pro Lightweight
Starts very quickly and has a small memory footprint.
Pro You can work with hot keys that can be reassigned as you want them
Pro Frameless view
Pro Allows to cut (frame) images
It is important if you have to work with photos of documents and want to cut off the background on which you made photos.
Pro Flexible thumbnail views
Can display thumbnails in a strip or a zoomable grid as well, also has hotkey for both of these. Opening a folder is one of the main actions on the toolbar!
Pro Cross-platform
Has builds for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Pro Remembers last used folders
Often used folders (e.g., screenshots) can be quickly accessed.
Pro Batch image processing
Has tools for applying conversions etc. to many files at once.
Pro Can print to printer
Unlike most other image viewers.
Pro Supports new image formats out of the box
Such as WebP, AVIF, etc.
Pro Comparing two images
This feature is called Synchronization. With the synchronization it is possible that multiple viewers perform the same action (like panning, zooming, etc.). This feature is useful when comparing two images. See more here.
Pro Configuration via command line flags or configuration file
Configuration based on one file (~/.config/pqivrc).
See manual page:
"
[options]
fullscreen=1
sort=1
command-1=|convert - -blur 20 -
...
[keybindings]
q { goto_file_relative(-1); }
w { goto_file_relative(1); }
Similarly, you can also specify (multiple) actions to be executed each time pqiv is started in a section called [actions].
"
Pro Has a jump mode in thumbnail mode (montage mode) thats similar to vim-easymotion
See "montage_mode_follow(KEYS)" in the man page.
By default g activates jump mode.
Pro Can pipe images through external filters
Pro VIM-like key sequences, action cycling and binding multiple actions to a single key
Pro Keys are easily configured to a user command.
Keys can even be configured on the command line.
Pro Powerful collection of so called actions
Actions can be used to configure the interaction with the program (e.g. moving, file selection, view manipulation, UI appearance, simple image manipulation).
Actions can easily be used in the configuration.
Pro Rudimentary viewing manipulation
h/v: Flip the image horizontally or vertically.
k/l: Rotate the image right or left.
Plus/Minus: Zoom.
Pro Comes with transparency support
Pro Can watch files and directories for changes
Pro Quick jump dialog based on filename mask
j: Show a dialog with a list of all files for quick selection.
Pro Has infobox out of the box
Cons
Con No support for JPEG-XL
Con Only partial support for HEIC
Apple's HEIC format is only partially supported. Nomacs can open individual images, but can't navigate among them.
Con Heavy compared to other Linux image viewers
Uses more memory and CPU than other lightweight image viewers. High CPU usage when starting.
Con Returns to default settings after update
Con Recent version has slowed down
The latest version (3.8) suddenly became very slow in Fedora 26. Slow to step from image to image; slow to open a directory; slow slow slow. Downgrading to the previous version (3.6) restored speed.
Con Browsing a directory after opening a single file needs user intervention
Con Slow display
Going through a list of images is not as fast as e.g. with sxiv.
Con No selection of (multiple) files
Thumbnail mode hasn't any means of marking files.
Con Thumbnail creation extremely slow
Thumbnail mode is called "montage mode" (key m).
Con Only background color of infobox can be configured
Con It doesn't have pong
