When comparing Moom vs Midnight Commander, the Slant community recommends Midnight Commander for most people. In the question“What are the best Mac OSX apps for someone that's new to Apple?” Midnight Commander is ranked 6th while Moom is ranked 12th. The most important reason people chose Midnight Commander is:
Midnight commander uses the full screen of the terminal in a very efficient way. It displays two panels for files horizontally. On the bottom it has the most useful commands with their corresponding key attached. All of this makes for a very intuitive interface both for beginners and experienced users.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Customizable keyboard shortucts
Moom comes with many preset keyboard shortcuts. The user can go into the graphical settings of the app and change any one of them to a different combination of keys.
Pro You can save tiling window position and size
Users can set window position and size themselves, allowing for a great way to set up a tiling window experience.
Pro Windows can be snapped to the edges of the screen
In addition to using the grid or the overlay, Moom can move and zoom windows by dragging them to screen edges.
Pro Simple customization
While you can set keyboard shortcuts, Moom has a very easy-to-use GUI and GUI-based customization features to help you get going right away.
Pro Adds a zoom button for all apps
Moom adds an overlay zoom button to the corner of all apps which allows any app to go full screen or be placed to certain sections of the screen (such as the top, bottom, or sides). This works even on apps that do not normally allow for full screen views.
Pro Multi-monitor support
Moom has excellent support for multi-monitor setups. You can drag a window to the edge of your screen into another monitor and snap it there.
Pro Intuitive interface
Midnight commander uses the full screen of the terminal in a very efficient way. It displays two panels for files horizontally. On the bottom it has the most useful commands with their corresponding key attached. All of this makes for a very intuitive interface both for beginners and experienced users.
Pro Can be run in the terminal
Being a terminal application means that it's suited for people who spend most of their time on the terminal because they don't have to switch windows in order to open their file manager. It also means that they can use it both locally and remotely.
Pro Easy to use
Midnight commander is easy and intuitive to use. The most common commands are displayed in the bottom (move, copy, paste, delete, edit, view, make directory). Files can be selected with the arrow keys which move the cursor through them. The Enter key goes down in a directory. To move the focus between two panels the tab key is used.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Stable
Pro Often available in default repository
and hence easy to install by usually package manager.
Pro Lynx-like motion
Cursor+left to go to parent directory, cursor+right to go into child directory.
Pro Well-presented
Cons
Con UI for settings can be confusing
The settings for the app are pretty jumbled and are hard to get a grip of, especially for first time users. While all the settings one would need are there, they are difficult to find or understand, which requires a good bit of playing around with the settings in order to get a feel for them and what they offer.
Con Not free
Moom is not free: it costs $9.99.
Con Non customisable popover
The pop over is not customisable and has two presets which are odd for instance two presents are two split windows horizontally.
Con Two steps needed, while some tools only need one
Con File viewer: searching can be quite cumbersome
Especially searching next or previous.
Con No directory bookmarks
Con No easy way to change colors matching certain files
There probably is a possibility, but it is not easy.
Con Quirky and hard to remember shortcuts
E.g. when trying to take the current directory's path to the command line.
Con Lacks drag and drop feature
With midnight commander you cannot drag and drop files to move them around. Instead, you have to do the necessary actions in order to move files around (cut and paste or copy and delete).
Con Can only be run in the terminal
MC lacks a standalone GUI option.