Panevrix: a Commander-style file manager in your browser

Panevrix, an open-source local file manager.

It has the familiar two-panel workflow, keyboard controls, and a browser interface. A local Node.js process handles filesystem access; the browser provides the workspace.

The project is aimed at developers who want to manage files and inspect binaries, logs, and build artifacts from the same interface.

Try it locally

You need Node.js 20 or newer:

npx panevrix@latest

This starts a local server and opens the application in your browser. Keep the terminal running while you use it.

You can also open two existing folders:

npx panevrix@latest ./project ./backup

Files stay on your machine. No account or cloud storage is required.

The familiar Commander workflow

Panevrix supports two independent panels, folder tabs, filtering, sorting, favorites, and keyboard navigation.

Some useful shortcuts:

Visible buttons provide the same actions when a browser or operating system intercepts a shortcut.

More than copying files

Version 1.1.0 includes:

• Background transfers: progress, cancellation, and stop/skip/keep-both conflict handling. Close the progress window and continue browsing.
• Large-file inspection: a read-only hex viewer with ASCII, bounded text decoding, byte-offset navigation, and hexadecimal-pattern search.
• File comparison: exact byte comparison that reports the first differing offset.
• SHA-256 hashing: streamed calculations without loading the entire file into memory.
• Live information: replace the inactive panel with details that follow the current selection.
• System monitoring: CPU, memory, process information, and application logs.

Large folder listings use virtualized rows, so the browser renders the visible portion rather than creating a row for every file.

Why a browser interface?

For this project, a browser makes it convenient to combine keyboard-driven file management with readable inspection views, progress controls, and system charts.

The backend and frontend use Node.js and browser-native JavaScript, with no runtime dependencies or build step.

There are tradeoffs: browser shortcuts can conflict, and it requires a running local server. It currently has no terminal interface.

What's still missing?

Panevrix is an early project. Archive support, SFTP, standalone installers, and durable task recovery after a server restart are still planned.

Folder comparison currently checks immediate names and metadata; it does not prove that matching files contain identical data.

I'd appreciate your feedback

If you try it, I'd especially like to hear:

• Which workflow would make this useful to you?
• Would you prefer a browser, desktop window, or terminal interface?
• What feels missing compared with your current file manager?

Source and documentation: GitHub

Published package: npm