Midnight Commander vs Caja

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.

Not too much cluttered, but enough customizable.

Caja script extension adds your script in script menu, then passes the file name as a parameter. This allows you to run operation which is not included in Caja.

You can click the Files entry in the panel to access a specific location (remote or local), connect to a certain server (FTP, SFTP, SAMBA, etc.), access your bookmarks, open a new window, as well as to change its default functionality.

Customizable and clean, this is crushing that garbage nautilus, the overrated p.o.s. gnome destroyed.