When comparing Caja vs Ranger NCurses file manager with Vim bindings, the Slant community recommends Caja for most people. In the question“What are the best GUI file managers for UNIX-like systems?” Caja is ranked 10th while Ranger NCurses file manager with Vim bindings is ranked 14th.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to configure
Pro It has a reasonable set of features, out of the box
Not too much cluttered, but enough customizable.
Pro Caja script extension makes it more useful
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.
Pro Allows you to access remote or local locations
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.
Pro Open or run as administrator in the right-click-menu of the mouse
Pro It just works
Customizable and clean, this is crushing that garbage nautilus, the overrated p.o.s. gnome destroyed.
Pro Fast response
This is a NCurses GUI so it is a command line program with a user interface of shortcut keys which allows for a fast response.
Pro Detailed previews
The program will give previews in the terminal with detailed information concerning the file.
Pro Bookmark system
Makes it easy to jump to any specific folder locations you work with.
Pro Extremly minimal GUI interface
Cons
Con Frequently very slow to transfer multiple small files
Folders move fine, but it chokes on files, where other browsers take seconds.
Con Mostly unconfigurable
There are not many ways to configure Caja to fit your needs. Besides what can be seen in the settings button you can't configure it further.
Con Sort Order / Limited Configuration Options
It ignores special characters when sorting files and folders. Underscore, tilde, bracket, ASCII characters, .... everthing not recognized in numeric/alpha sorting. Also, I found no way to remove the triangle to reveal contents of sub-folders rather than opening... but I did quit looking after several seemly unalterable functionality issues.
Con Very slow to list thousands of files
Unusably so.
Con Steep learning curve for people who are not used to Vim
Since it uses many of vim's keybindings, it may be hard for someone who does not use vim or does not know how to use vim to learn how to work with this file manager.
Con Extremly minimal GUI interface
Almost everything is a shortcut key. Using ? is essential to learning this program. To show hidden files it is z-h.