When comparing Files App vs Far Manager, the Slant community recommends Far Manager for most people. In the question“What are the best file managers for Windows?” Far Manager is ranked 7th while Files App is ranked 41st. The most important reason people chose Far Manager is:
Far Manager's interface encourages keyboard operation - all actions are easily accessible with keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly record macros for any repeatable action, there are no screen redraws if it is not necessary and that makes everything faster.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy setting management
You can find what is customizible quickly.
Pro Great UI that compliment Windows 10 and 11
In advent of alternatives, visuals aren't forgotten.
Pro Has column based navigation
Pro Looks modern, generally works well
Pro Keyboard-oriented
Far Manager's interface encourages keyboard operation - all actions are easily accessible with keyboard shortcuts, you can quickly record macros for any repeatable action, there are no screen redraws if it is not necessary and that makes everything faster.
Pro Open source
Released under BSD license.
Pro Two-panel interface
Pro Many plugins
There are may of them, and you can write them in any languages, including Python.
Pro Editor with syntax highlighting
Every Far feature is also true for its editor. You can setup an external editor if you like, but the included editor works really well and features syntax highlighting.
Pro Easily recorded macros
Hit "Ctrl-." and start recording your boring sequence. Hit "Ctrl-." again to assign it a key. You can use Lua if you need more advanced macros.
Pro Numeric sorting option
E.g. readme-9.txt before readme-10.txt
Pro Extremely fast
Pro Offline context help
Just press F1 when you need it. No internet connection or browser is required.
Pro Themeable
Fully themeable, allowing you to change the colors of every part of the interface.
Pro Scrippting support via LUA
Cons
Con Not stable enough
Susceptible to hang ups. Drives may just disappear.
Con Time waister
Between crash, load time and weird behaviour you will lose time even compared to installing multiple software to reproduce same capability.
Con Lacks description of settings
Hard to figure out what some toggles do. The title of a setting doesn't have expected result sometimes.
Con Sometimes glitches out and you have to restart using task manager
Con Blocking operations
Operations such as copy, move, delete, etc are blocking, and you have to wait for them to complete before you can continue.
Though you can cancel the operation with the escape key.
Con Only for Windows
Con Always uses monospace font
Which makes long file names look extremely wide
Con Does not support scrolling with mouse
With plugin
Con Text-based interface
Far Manager does not use a GUI like most windows applications nowadays. This may prove difficult to use for people who are not familiar with text-based user interfaces.