Ranger vs Total Commander

Which makes for a good choice of file explorer for those that use machines without a GUI.

There is no need for icons of files if headings are used. Previews of text documents and a simple design creates and efficient workflow.

Ranger has Vim-like keybindings which help a lot in increasing efficiency and speed up the workflow.

Ranger allows the use of various scripts for calling on individual or multiple files, for file previews, or for other operations.

In commands.py the "my_edit"-function can be extended to do whatever in python can be done. Target files can be the file under the cursor (self.fm.thisfile.path), the files marked/selected in the current tab (self.fm.thistab.get_selection() ) and the files in the copy-buffer (add/remove: ya, yr) (respectively the delete-buffer: add/remove da/dr) (both: self.fm.copy_buffer).
The most appropriate list of files can be found out automatically, like so:
if self.fm.copy_buffer:
for file in self.fm.copy_buffer:
...
elif self.fm.thistab.get_selection():
for file in self.fm.thistab.get_selection():
...
else:
file = self.fm.thisfile.path
...

Unlike other terminal file managers, Ranger can preview many files, including text files, archives, etc, but also pdf files, pictures and videos.

Makes it easy to jump to any specific folder locations you work with.

Ranger can use w3m to preview images in terminal through framebuffer.

This software is super fast and responsive in navigation.

Supports any number of viewports on folders side by side.

This may fall under "File preview", but it is a very powerful feature for PDF files in particular.

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.