Nimble Commander alternative: Peekaboo vs Nimble Commander
By Vishva Variya · Updated
Nimble Commander is free, open source and quick: two panels, more than a hundred keyboard actions, FTP, SFTP and WebDAV, a terminal that follows the current folder, and a viewer that opens multi-gigabyte files without loading them whole. For keyboard-driven file management, nothing beats that price. Peekaboo costs money and does a different job: it shows your files as a library, finds them from a description, and helps you clear out what you no longer need.
Looking for Nimble Commander itself? It’s at magnumbytes.com.
- Nimble Commander price
- Free and open source
- Nimble Commander requires
- macOS 12 or later
- Peekaboo
- $24.99 one-time, 14-day trial, macOS 14+
Nimble Commander figures from magnumbytes.com, verified 2026-11-02.
Why pick Peekaboo over Nimble Commander?
Sentences instead of masks
Nimble Commander selects by mask and searches by attributes or contents. Peekaboo reads “pdfs from gmail” and shows the kind and source it understood as chips you can change.
A library, not two panels
Images, videos, music, documents, archives and apps each get a shelf with live totals and real thumbnails, so you browse by what a file is.
Space you can get back
Duplicates, Clean Up, App Caches and Space Map live in Peekaboo, and every cleanup goes to the Trash as a session you can reverse in one click.
Peekaboo vs Nimble Commander, job by job
| Job | Nimble Commander | Peekaboo |
|---|---|---|
| Keyboard-first file management | Orthodox dual pane, 100+ bindable actions | ⌘K command palette and shortcuts, one library view |
| FTP, SFTP, WebDAV | Built in | Not offered |
| Terminal and root access | Built-in terminal; admin mode in the standalone build | Opt-in developer features add a peekaboo command for your own Terminal; no root mode |
| Text in images, duplicates, disk map | Not on its feature list | On-device OCR, exact and look-alike duplicates, Space Map |
| Price | Free and open source | One-time, 14-day free trial |
The honest verdict
If you want a free, keyboard-driven dual pane with a terminal and SFTP, Nimble Commander is the better choice and costs nothing, so try it first. Peekaboo earns its price only if your problem is finding things you half remember, reading the words in old screenshots, or working out what filled the disk.
Nimble Commander vs Peekaboo: questions
Is Nimble Commander really free?
- Yes. magnumbytes.com describes it as free and open source, with the code on GitHub, and lists macOS 12 or later, as of November 2, 2026.
Does Peekaboo have a built-in terminal or admin mode?
- No. With developer features turned on, a peekaboo command opens and reveals files from your own Terminal, and Copy Path As gives a Terminal-ready path. There’s no root access mode.
Can I use Peekaboo and Nimble Commander together?
- Easily, since they barely overlap. Right-click any file in Peekaboo for Open With, Show in Finder or Copy Path, then carry on in your panels.