When comparing Nova Launcher Prime vs ES File Explorer, the Slant community recommends Nova Launcher Prime for most people. In the question“What are the most useful Android phone apps?” Nova Launcher Prime is ranked 4th while ES File Explorer is ranked 27th. The most important reason people chose Nova Launcher Prime is:
Nova Launcher provides an experience that's similar to stock Android, but adds multiple customization options. Customization ranges in ways that interactions and the user interface can be changed both aesthetically and functionally.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Has a more customizable stock Android experience
Nova Launcher provides an experience that's similar to stock Android, but adds multiple customization options. Customization ranges in ways that interactions and the user interface can be changed both aesthetically and functionally.
Pro Fast
Speed of Nova Launcher is one of the app's key points. Even with a lot of widgets Nova Launcher performs speedy.
Pro Drawer style options
Options include horizontal pages, vertical scrolling or list. The user is also able to adjust the background transparency. This way the users drawer can look unique while also offering more or less apps on the page depending on their preference.
Pro Custom grid size
From the Nova Settings menu, users can create a custom grid size for their desktop and app drawer, up to a maximum of 12 columns and rows. Discriminating users can also adjust the size of the margins on the top, bottom, left and right. This allows for users to set how many widgets and apps can fit on these screens.

Pro Custom icon packs
Not all custom launchers allow custom icon packs. Nova supports most custom icon packs that are in the Play Store.
Pro Infinite home screen scroll
Turning on infinite scrolling allows the user to move seamlessly among all of their home screens, rather than having to scroll backward when the last page is reached. This proves particularly useful if the user has a large number of homescreens. Infinite scrolling can also be enabled in the app drawer.
Pro Extra dock pages
There are extra bottom row dock pages accessible when swiping left or right on the dock. In Nova's settings there is support for a maximum of five dock pages and a minimum of one.
This way you can set up to 25 shortcuts in the dock that can be scrolled though, leaving plenty of room on the home screen for widgets and other apps.
Pro Tapping & swiping a shortcut can have different results
Nova has the ability to add an assortment of action shortcuts to the home-screen which can be performed when swiping on particular areas or icons (as opposed to when tapping).
Pro Folders in the app drawer
Nova Launcher has the ability to add folders into the app drawer making for easy sorting of many apps.

Pro Can automatically sort inside of folders alphabetically
The user can sort their folders in the drawer and home-screen alphabetically.
Pro Tablet support
The app drawer and widgets take full advantage of a tablets extra screen real estate.

Pro Outstanding widget support
With the custom grids, most widgets can be sized to specifications which give added control over Android home screens.

Pro Allows hiding the status bar
Within Nova's setting the user can set the notification bar to stay hidden, allowing for more screen real estate.
Pro Desktop lock
It has an option to lock the icons and widgets in place as well as locks out the ability to delete apps, preventing accidental rearranging or deletions.
Pro Folder contents synced between drawer and homescreen
- Create a folder in the drawer.
- Drag the folder from the drawer to a home screen.
- Add more items to the drawer folder.
- The item gets added automatically to the home screen folder (because it is the same folder).
In addition, the user can set a custom icon for the folder (or for each shortcut).
Pro Google widget customizations
Pro Sesame Shortcuts integration
Pro Gesture support
Use gestures (swipe up, double tap, etc.) to easily launch apps.

Pro Stable
Solid performance for getting work (and play) done, no crashes, no slow downs.
Pro Useful visual customization options
Allows you to customize scroll effects, scroll speeds, animation speed, app animations, gestures.
All of these options allow for very individualistic differences in how the launcher performs and looks, making for a great way to set ones phone apart from others.
Pro A free version available
A free version, Nova Launcher is available, but it lacks gestures, unread counts, custom drawer groups, ability to hide apps from the app drawer, icon swipes and additional scroll effects.
Pro Backup option available.
Users can save their configuration in a backup file and quickly restore it.
Pro Unread counts
Nova Launcher Prime offers unread counts for all supported apps, a feature not available on all launchers. Although it requires the free installation of TeslaUnread.
What TeslaUnread does is add unread count numbers to certain application icons in ones application drawer and home screen, giving a quick overview of how many unread notifications they have in that supported application.
Pro Supports SMB
ES File Explorer supports a local Samba connection to browse files on other area connected devices.
Pro Built-in ZIP and RAR support
ES File Explorer supports the .zip and .rar compression formats.
Pro Browse FTP
Pro Builtin audio player
Pro Cleaner
Cleaning cache, temp, junk files.
Pro Image viewer
Pro Inbuilt video player
Pro Root explorer
Explore root files if the phone is rooted.
Pro SFTP client
Access SFTP network shares.
Pro Encrypt files
Encrypt private or sensitive files and folders, set password.
Pro Can set custom ftp server folder location
Pro Builtin text editor with code highlight
Can set text encoding, find and replace, text highlighting for various programming and scripting language.
Pro Install plugins
For additional features.
Pro Share, send and receive files via WiFi
Like shareit.
Pro Create FTP server
Browse files from PC or mobile.
Pro Mediafire
Pro Box Cloud Integration
Pro Sugar Sync
Pro Amazon S3
Pro GoogleDrive file browse
Pro OneDrive file browse
Pro Dropbox file browse
Pro Recycle bin
Pro Download manager
Pro Space analyzer
Pro Integrates with a wide variety of services
The app supports Dropbox, Box.net, Sugarsync, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Amazon S3, Yandex and more.
Cons

Con Lacks automatic backup
There is no way to automatically back up settings or content. Reinstalling the launcher on the same device will lose all settings and content.
Con Overwhelming at first
Nova Launcher offers such a huge amount of customization that at first it is quite a bit overwhelming. There are settings everywhere and other launchers offer more of a step-by-step setup process. Nova Launcher could take you hours to set up how you like it. On the other hand the pure amount of settings allows you to set it up almost exactly how you like it.
Con Notification count not included
Notification count need tesla Unread app to be installed
Con unable to inherit icon size on dock - dekstop - drawer
you need to set icon size separately on dock - dekstop - drawer
Con Less icon packs
This launcher has less icon packs. The system icons it has, are not HD quality.

Con Memory utilisation is a bit high
With all of the features and options Nova Launcher offers there is an understandable loss of RAM, though it could always be optimized better.
Con Network delete unreliable
Deleting files from network shares is not always reliable, especially when the file is first in the directory list.
Con Click fraud
Removed from Play store after being caught engaged in click fraud.

Con Ugly
Interface is kind of crappy.
Con Connects to an IP in China
For some reason ES File Explorer installs a folder called Baidu of which any app that installs this folder connects to an IP in China for some reason. Sadly it is still not known at this time for what or why.
Con Smart charger is enabled by default
It is annoying, after installing the app, suddenly you see your phone has changed.
Con News feature is enabled by default
Also it is not related to file browser.
Con ES Swipe is enabled by default
It is disturbing.
Con You have to install another app to add plugin/feature
Con Constant notifications
It is always running in the background and monitoring for possible issues. It always pops up with notifications about new files and suggested files for deletion. There is no way to turn it off.
Con Bought by another company and bundled with adware
Con Loads at start up and constantly runs in background
Takes up resources by always running. Performs monitoring you cannot turn off.
Con Changes features often
Features are changed very frequently, with most of the additions/changes being unnecessary.
Con Adds possible malware
This issue appears after the update of Aug, 1, 2016 ver 4.1.2.4.
Con Closed source (proprietary)
The source code for ES File Explorer is closed source.
Con Slow
Con Broken
