Double Commander vs Total Commander

You can use same tool in all desktop OS environments.

If the developer loses interest there is at least the possibility that someone else will pick up the torch.

Lots of options allow you to configure DC the way it suits you best: Tools, Fonts, Colors, Hotkeys, Mouse, Fileviews, Plugins, Layout, Toolbars, Tabs, Icons etc.

Save shortcuts to folders. Organize them in a treeview with submenus. Define a name and sorting for each entry.

so you can use documentation from Total Commander for writing plugins. WCX (packer), WDX (content), WFX (file system), WLX (lister).

For instance, the 'Settings | Layout' pane is quasi-identical to TCs.

Although it is lightweight and simple to use, it can do very sophisticated tasks, like copying files from directories which have a certain extension or file size or have a certain text pattern in them. Also, it's very customizable and stable.

It's all a matter of perspective. I'm not for an argument about IDE's, frameworks etc, but to me that's a big plus. I think it should be a tie, it's either a pro or a con or should that be neither a pro nor a con. It just depends on context.

Supports plugins for compression, file system, and file types.

There are a lot of built-in utility tools and plug-ins. There's multi-file renamer, verify file checksum to ensure download content integrity, sync directory tool, etc.

Once purchased you can use it as long as you like and never have to pay again.

The dual-pane layout makes normal file operations (like move & copy) easy.

Show hidden files, show differences between directories, FTP connections, coding and decoding (MIME, l).

Total Commander is extremely flexible, with plenty of customizable options such as changing the color scheme, customizing menus, and editing shortcuts.

Even if you have not learned the keys from DOS NortonCommander, learning them now will make you more productive when dealing with files.

The file search has many features, like using regular expressions to find the file names or even inside the content of the files. It can filter by file size, date and others, or even find duplicate files.

Can compare and show text file differences (diff) line-by-line, even character-by-character. Very useful for programmers. Can compare binary files, telling if files have the same content or not.

Sometimes you want to rename a bunch of files for some reason.
Eg:
file1-useless info blah blah.mp8
file2-useless info blah blah.mp8
file3-useless info blah blah.mp8
file4-useless info blah blah.mp8
file5-useless info blah blah.mp8

At once you can remove the "-useless info blah blah" in all file names. Or you could change the "file" to "my_super_file" to all at once.

The possibilities are endless.

Allows renaming tabs and setting maximum tab text length, which is very convenient. You can also lock tabs in two modes: a) change dir not allowed and b) change dir allowed (but it would return to the original path once you browse another tab). It doesn't allow assigning different colors to each tab, though.

Sometimes you need to copy/move a bunch of files to a folder that already has files. During the copy when Total Commander encounter files in the destination folder that has the same name of the copied files, it allows you to choose auto-rename the copied files or the destination files. It's beautiful.

The total commander is convenient to use both with the mouse and exclusively using the keyboard.
But using only the keyboard gives it a big increase in the speed of work because you do not aim at your mouse. You need some time to get used to it, but it's really worth it.