DHH says he's replacing the default file manager, and one 66-follower developer jumped in: Flea hit 1,000 stars in two months

Omarchy is a Linux distro made by DHH. Its default file manager has always been GNOME's Nautilus, and the community complains it doesn't feel like part of this desktop. In September, DHH publicly said it would be replaced and that "whoever does it best" wins. Flea is one of the two front-runners in that contest, and nearly all of its stars came from a few moments in that race. Below: how it took off, why it and not someone else, and whether it's worth chasing the same stars yourself.

A quote repost

On the evening of Sep 10, 2026 GM, a developer on GitHub going by thisisgm, posted on X: "Flea 0.2.0 is out!" followed by a list of new features: dual-pane view, "Open with," a restorable trash, and rename in every view. The last line: "If you gave up on Flea in the first week, try again. It's so much better." The post got 424 likes.

A few hours later, on Sep 11, DHH quote-posted it:

It's clear that the days of Nautilus as the default file manager in Omarchy are numbered. There are a lot of great attempts at its successor, and Flea is definitely among them. We will coronate a new default either for Quattro RS or the version after. May the best attempt win!

The gist: Nautilus's days as Omarchy's default are numbered, many people are trying to take its place, Flea is surely one of them, and the new default will be settled in the next release or the one after that, with the best one winning. The post got 1,674 likes.

That post set a prize: "Become the default." Flea was named directly as a contender.

GM is not an influencer. His GitHub bio reads "Infrastructure and reliability" and he has 66 followers. He had built some small add-on tools for Omarchy before, and the best of them has 246 stars. Flea is a repo Sep 2 created. By Nov 6 it had 1,062 stars, 113 forks, and 62 open issues (GitHub, 11-06).

What it is

A GUI file manager for Omarchy. The frontend uses Quickshell/QML, the backend is Rust, and the first line of the README is "the fastest GUI file manager on Omarchy."

The feature set is complete: four views (list, split, grid, dual-pane), spacebar quick preview for images, PDFs, video, and archives, connections to SMB, SFTP, WebDAV, and Taildrop, writing ISO files to USB drives, reading the iPhone photo library directly, and keybindings in default, Vim, Mac, or Windows styles.

What makes it feel like part of the system is the Omarchy integration: it follows Omarchy's theme and window transparency, adds a "shelf" to the Omarchy top bar (a holding spot for files you then drag into other apps), and can take over Super+Shift+F and the system open/save dialogs. Install is a single line:

omarchy pkg add flea && flea --default

The README says it is "only published to the Omarchy official package repo." Users had already moved over from the earlier AUR version.

Where the stars came from

Day-by-day star counts for September aren't available. All we know is that it had 17 by Oct 818, meaning most of its stars came in the month-plus after DHH's post. The numbers after Oct 17 (GitHub):

Four pushes you can actually confirm:

It was in the official repo on day one. 0.1.0 was released in the early hours of Sep 3. That afternoon, ryanrhughes, the maintainer with the most commits to the official Omarchy package repo (2,174 commits, and DHH himself has 523), submitted "Add hardened Flea package." Every update after that was merged by someone on the Omarchy side. On Nov 5, he moved Flea into the "fast ring": when the author releases, stable users get it right away instead of waiting 24 hours (omarchy-pkgs PR #2178).

DHH's quote repost. Covered above. It's the biggest single push. There's no way to measure exactly how many stars it brought, but by mid-October the count had reached 818, and after that the daily gain was usually single digits.

A volunteer's endorsement. On Oct 28, Chris Hallas, who lists himself as an Omarchy volunteer on X and built ODK, a dev toolkit for writing Omarchy apps, posted "I fully endorse Flea as the future default file manager for Omarchy," calling it "a labor of love." For the next three days it gained about twenty stars a day, several times its usual pace. The community site Omarchy Central then ran a piece on it.

Tutorials and posts in the community. On Sep 16, Hysen Labs wrote an install guide. On Sep 30, Starry Hope published a tutorial. r/omarchy carried posts like "Flea: A fast GUI file manager for Omarchy" and "Meet Flea & Strata." On Nov 3, another post went up on 0.4.0.

On Nov 5, +89. The timing lines up with the Omarchy 4.5 release, Flea entering the fast ring, and 0.4.0's Reddit post. But 4.5's release notes don't mention Flea or change the default file manager. So the likelier story is that new and returning users from 4.5 installed it on the side. How much each of the three drove it can't be separated (inference). On the same day, its most direct rival Strata only gained 11, so this spike was Flea's own, not the whole niche moving together.

I found no sign it made HN, GitHub trending, or major Linux media. Its reputation lives almost entirely inside the Omarchy circle.

Who else is in the race

The race has no shortage of contenders. At least five file managers are being built specifically for Omarchy:

Only Strata and Flea have really taken off, and both are in the official repo. The author of omanta has YouTube traffic and a similar product direction, yet has only 53 stars. In this race, what decides stars is first whether the platform accepts you, and only second the product.

Why this one

It got into the official channel. One command installs it, sets it as default, and keeps it updated with omarchy update. Contenders outside the official repo make users install from the AUR or source, which is a noticeably higher bar.

"Fastest" can be verified. The README includes a benchmark table for 7 file managers, with the method and raw data attached. In the Nov 2 round, on a folder with 100k files, Flea settled at 0.75 seconds, Strata at 1.80 seconds, Dolphin at 5.25 seconds, and Nautilus at 20.33 seconds, and it also used the least memory. Searching 1M files, the first result came back in 166 ms. Under the table, the author honestly listed where it lost (search result ranking is weaker than two rivals). DHH cares a lot about performance, and the 4.5 release notes include a whole section on millisecond speedups. That message fits this community's taste.

A caveat: these are all the author's own measurements on his own machine. In the October round Nautilus took 6.59 seconds, and in the November round it took 20.33 seconds. Versions and test conditions changed, and the numbers moved a lot. Readers can use them as a directional signal for "which is faster," but not as a precise ranking.

Same technology as the system. Omarchy's own desktop shell is built on Quickshell, and Flea uses Quickshell for its frontend too. That's how it can offer system-level integration like the top-bar shelf and following theme transparency. Strata uses GTK4, which can't go that deep.

Most frequent updates. From Sep 3 to Nov 3, it went from 0.1.0 to 0.4.0, with 23 releases in two months. Every major release went out on X and Reddit. In a race to see who does it best, shipping often is itself something for the judges to see.

What it doesn't do, and what's still open

• It serves only one distro. Flea is explicitly for Omarchy, and even the build requires Omarchy to be installed. Hyprland users and other tiling-desktop users can't use it.
• The race isn't over. 4.5 hasn't changed the default. DHH said "the next release or the one after that." Two PRs in the main Omarchy repo (#10542 and #16741) would add a file manager option under Settings > Default Apps. Flea is among the candidates, and neither has been merged. If the outcome is "let users pick," the prize of "becoming the default" gets much smaller.
• Strata still leads. It has more stars and more media coverage. Both projects are in the official repo, and nobody knows yet which one will become the default.

If it were you

Verdict: C. There's something to learn, but following it isn't a good bet. The Omarchy file manager race already has two finalists, both in the official repo, and a sixth entrant is unlikely to get stars. What Flea is really worth studying is the playbook: when a platform owner publicly says they want to replace a default component, sign up immediately, get into the official channel, and let the platform's people vouch for you. But the opportunity only exists once the platform speaks first. You can't force it, and the circle is small, so the best outcome is still around a thousand-plus stars.

Good fit for: developers who already use Omarchy, Hyprland, or similar niche but sticky desktops, who can watch the posts from DHH and the maintainers, and who can ship a working version within days. Also people comfortable with Rust, QML, or system tools, who can make performance measurable and comparable.

Not a good fit for: people who don't use this desktop and just want to pick a hot topic from outside (you can't know on day one what the platform will replace, and you won't get the maintainers' trust); people who want a lot of stars (the best result in the Omarchy circle is still around a thousand-plus).

How to do it, ranked by how worthwhile:

1. Watch the next default component that's about to be replaced. The Omarchy issues and discussions show which default apps the community says "don't feel like this desktop." That's how the file manager got called out. When DHH or a maintainer speaks, ship 0.1 within three days and submit packaging to the official repo the same day. The same playbook works on any platform with an "official plugin or package repo plus a vocal lead."
2. Serve the audience Flea doesn't: a file manager just as fast and just as deeply theme-integrated, but built for all Hyprland or other tiling-window desktops. hyprfm has only 348 stars, so that spot is still open. The downside is you don't get the "platform owner named you" boost, so the product and the benchmark table have to do all the talking.
3. Build reputation by contributing to Flea: it has 62 open issues and a plugin system (PLUGINS.md). Building a few useful plugins or fixing a few major bugs gets you a name in the Omarchy circle, not your own stars.

How to get users: On day one, get into the official package repo so it installs with one command. Put a test table with the method and raw data on the first screen of the README, comparing against the system default and the strongest rival. Post on X at each major release, tag the platform lead, and post in the platform's subreddit at the same time. Get a volunteer or maintainer of the platform to publicly say "I back this as the default."

When was the window: The file manager race is already late to enter. The next window is one to two weeks after the platform opens its mouth. Flea was building before DHH spoke, and it was in the repo on day one, which is how it caught the moment.

What would mean I read it wrong: ① If over the next month or two a new Omarchy file manager comes from behind and reaches a thousand-plus stars, the race isn't settled and a late entry still has a shot. My read was too conservative. ② If Omarchy finally picks Flea as the default and its stars double again because of it, then being the default is worth more stars than I estimated, and the next component is worth watching closely. ③ The other way: if no one ends up as the default and it just adds an option, and Flea and Strata both stall at today's numbers, then the prize for this kind of race is that small.

Data and sources

GitHub: the thisisgm/flea repo page, the README (with the 11-02 test table), the release history, and daily stars (10-17 to 11-06); star counts for lgse/strata, omanta, omafiles, and hyprfm (11-06). X: @thisisgm's 09-10 post on 0.2.0; @dhh's quote post on 09-11; @hicsfh (Chris Hallas)'s post on 10-28. The Flea packaging commit in omacom/omarchy-pkgs and PR #2178; omacom/omarchy PRs #10542 and #16741; the Omarchy 4.5 release notes (11-05). The Omarchy Central feature, the Starry Hope and Hysen Labs posts, and the r/omarchy thread titles and dates; the It's FOSS article on Strata; the omanta video on the NO SIGNAL channel. Where I write "inferred," it is an inference. My judgment that ryanrhughes is an Omarchy core maintainer comes from his commit volume and was not checked commit by commit.