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This is one of those projects that could really use a "how does it compare to" section in the readme.

The number one question anyone who already uses a similar tool will have is, "How is it better or worse than whatever I'm already using?"

That's what I just came here to the HN comments for.
I like using vi-style keybindings for various applications.

Hence, for file managing, I had been using `vifm` for a long time and then discovered `ranger`. I switched to it due to its advanced preview capabilities and the default interface being closer to my taste.

However, said preview function (and also other functions) sometimes crashed and I recall some strange behaviour of copy operations in ranger when symlinks were involved (?). In any case, I switched back to vifm for stability reasons and have been effectively using it for years.

What I had been missing from the console file managers was a "copy & paste between windows" option. With vifm, I implemented it as a patch getting nice assistance from vifm's developer xaizek. This resulted in the (back-then) new feature `syncregs` which I have kept using ever since. Not sure if ranger came to offer something similar in the meantime :)

YMMV

I want to like this thing, but i always get the feeling that 1 or 2 accidental wrong keypresses could result in total chaos because i’ll have no idea what just happened to my files/folders…

(currently using Ranger)

That’s probably why emacs dired has you mark the files for deletion and execute deletion separately.
I love vifm! It honors the vim philosophy — it’s fast, configurable, and keyboard driven. I have it integrated with vim so that when I press “-“ it toggles a directory view. So seamless that it’s hard to tell that they’re separate apps.
Ranger for me, similar but in my opinion much better.
What makes Ranger better?