Midnight Commander vs nnn

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.

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.

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.

and hence easy to install by usually package manager.

Cursor+left to go to parent directory, cursor+right to go into child directory.

Default options and navigation is simple to grasp.

Save and resume sessions.

Allows for quick switching between nnn and the terminal.

The file manager has recently added support for preview hovered files using various methods.

However, it requires some prior knowledge of inner workings of Linux and there are no tutorials (yet). NNN author is making up for this by actively responding to GitHub issues.