When comparing Directory Report 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 Directory Report is ranked 27th. 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 Offers good options for quickly dealing with duplicates
Once duplicates are found you can choose to select certain files based on criteria like when was it created, when was it last modified, size, folders they're in or if the folders they're in contain a particular string.
Pro Reasonable rules for finding both duplicate files and folders
The program can find duplicate files based on any combination of size, name, CRC. It can also compare files byte by byte. Also, it can compare folders (with or without subfolders) based on any combination of size, name, CRC as well as file count.
Pro Gives a clear overview of found duplicates
It shows duplicate items grouped with every second group highlighted.
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 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.