In the field of desktop environments, there are two desktops that dominate the open source landscape: KDE and GNOME. They are smart, stable, and generally stay out of the way.
While KDE is more customizable than GNOME, both offer a lot of flexibility. For example, the best GNOME extensions and KDE widgets improve the desktop experience. At the basis of the main KDE technologies is Qt, a free and open source widget toolkit. And at the heart of GNOME is the free and open source GTK toolkit.
GTK is a very popular toolkit. Offering a complete set of widgets, GTK is suitable for projects ranging from small tools to comprehensive application suites. GTK is mainly developed by The GNOME Project, which also develops the GNOME Development Platform and the GNOME Desktop Environment.
This article selects the finest GTK file managers. Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.
Click the links in the table below to learn more about each file manager.
| GTK File Managers | |
|---|---|
| Double Commander | File manager with two panels side by side |
| PCManFM | Slim and useful, but not to have any feature bloat |
| Files | File browser designed for elementary OS; loose fork of GNOME Files |
| GNOME Files | Simple file manager for GNOME |
| GNOME Commander | Two-panel graphical file manager |
| 4Pane | Multi-pane, detailed-list file manager |
| Sunflower | Small and highly customizable twin-panel file manager |
| Tux Commander | Windowed file manager with two panels side by side |
| Thunar | xfce’s file manager |
| A couple of GNOME Files forks are also worth mentioning. | |
| Nemo | File manager for the Cinnamon desktop environment |
| Caja | File manager for the MATE desktop |
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |
I’m not keen on any of these GTK file managers to be honest. I much prefer Krusader
You missed
SpaceFM, a fork of PCmanFM, with smaller footprint, lower memory usage, and the ability to have four panels.
You ALSO missed ZZZfm, which is an EVEN SMALLER fork of SpaceFM – it’s *very* fast, with very few dependencies.
Thanks for your suggestions.
We cover the finest software in the group and naturally don’t include every single GTK file manager particularly if they are long abandoned.
We didn’t miss SpaceFM. We decided not to include it given that it has been unmaintained since 2018 and scored too low to qualify as good.
zzzFM is a fork of SpaceFM with a few minor code changes. Essentially no development in the past 2 years and doesn’t rate as good in our opinion.