When comparing Vifm vs Caja, the Slant community recommends Vifm for most people. In the question“What are the best file managers for UNIX-like systems?” Vifm is ranked 12th while Caja is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose Vifm is:
Since it runs in a terminal, it may live within ssh sessions, tmux/screen sessions, etc.
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Pros
Pro Allows you to stay in the terminal
Since it runs in a terminal, it may live within ssh sessions, tmux/screen sessions, etc.
Pro Nice Themes for a terminal app
Vifm has a lot of good themes that you can easily grab from the main site and use with the :colorscheme command.
Pro Configurable
You can easily configure almost all aspects of vifm by just editing the dotfile which is pretty easy is you are comfortable with configuring apps.
Pro Great integration with vim
The vifm.vim plugin allows you to use vifm as a powerful filepicker for vim.
Pro Default key mappings will be comfortable to vim users
Vifm uses vim-esque key mappings. Makes for extremely efficient and---perhaps more importantly---intuitive interactions. The key mappings can be changed.
Pro Dual pane
The dual pane nature of vifm makes copy paste and moving files from one folder to another super easy.
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.
Cons
Con Useless for non-vi users
Even to quit one has to use ":q".
Con Very high learning curve for newbies
Con Can only be used in terminal
Vifm lacks a standalone GUI option.
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.