Comparison of SSH clients

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For more details on this topic, see Secure shell.

An SSH client is a software program which uses the secure shell protocol to connect to a remote computer. This article compares a selection of popular clients.

1 General
2 Platform
3 Technical
4 Features
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] General

Name	Developer	Status	First release	Based on	License	Source available
AbsoluteTelnet [1]	Brian Pence	Active	August, 1996		proprietary	No
cURL [2]	Daniel Stenberg	Active	January, 2007	libssh2 [3]	MIT	Yes
Dropbear [4]	Matt Johnston	?	?		MIT	Yes
Ganymed SSH-2 [5]	Christian Plattner, ETH Zurich	Active	June 27, 2005 (build205)		BSD variant	Yes
JSch/JCTerm [6] [7]	JCraft, Inc.	Active	December 18, 2002		BSD-like/LGPL	Yes
JTA [8]	Matthias L. Jugel, Marcus Meissner	?	1996		GPL	Yes
lsh	Niels Möller	Active	May 23, 1999 (0.1)		GPL	Yes
MacSSH[9]	Jean-Pierre Stierlin	Terminated	2000 (2.1d4)	lsh	GPL	Yes
MindTerm [10]	AppGate AB	Active	September 14, 1998		proprietary	Yes
OpenSSH	the OpenBSD project	Active	December 1, 1999	ossh	BSD	Yes
ossh[11]	Björn Grönvall			ssh 1.2.12	BSD-like	Yes
PocketPuTTY [12]	Aleq Berka	Active	2006	OpenSSH/PuTTY	BSD	Yes
Poderosa [13]	Daisuke OKAJIMA	Active	?		Apache License	Yes
pssh [14]	Greg Parker			OpenSSH/PuTTY	BSD and MIT	Yes
PuTTY	Simon Tatham	Active			MIT	Yes
SecureCRT [15]	VanDyke Software	Active	June 30, 1998	original	proprietary	No
SSH Secure Shell [16] (original)	SSH Communications Security	Terminated	1995	N/A	proprietary	Yes
SSH Tectia Client [17]	SSH Communications Security	Active		original	proprietary	No
SFTPPlus	Pro:Atria Ltd	Active	2005	OpenSSH/PuTTY	proprietary	Yes
SwitchTermJ [18]	CyberAccess,Inc.	Active	2005		proprietary	No
TeraTerm [19]	TeraTerm Project	Active	2004	TeraTerm 2.3(1994-1998)	BSD	Yes
Tunnelier [20]	Bitvise	Active	2001		free for individual use	No
TuSSH [21]	Angus Ainslie	Active	2003		freeware	No
Xshell [22]	NetSarang Computer, Inc.	Active	2001	original	proprietary	No

[edit] Platform

The operating systems or virtual machines the ssh clients are designed to run on without emulation; there are several possibilities:

No indicates that it does not exist or was never released.

Partial indicates that while it works, the client lacks important functionality compared to versions for other OSs but may still be under development.

Beta indicates that while a version is fully functional and has been released, it is still in development (e.g. for stability).

Yes indicates that it has been officially released in a fully functional, stable version.

Dropped indicates that while the client works, new versions are no longer being released for the indicated OS; the number in parentheses is the last known stable version which was officially released for that OS.

Included indicates that the client comes pre-packaged with or has been integrated into the operating system.

The list is not exhaustive, but rather reflects the most common platforms today.

Name	Mac OS X	Mac OS Classic	Windows	Cygwin	BSD	Linux	Solaris	Palm OS	Java	OpenVMS	Windows Mobile	IBM z/OS
AbsoluteTelnet	No	No	Yes	N/A	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Dropbear	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Ganymed SSH-2	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
JSch/JCTerm	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
JTA	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
lsh	Yes	No	No	No	Partial^†	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
MacSSH	No	Terminated (2.1fc3)	No	No	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
MindTerm	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
OpenSSH	Included	No	No	Included	Included	Included^†	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A
ossh		No	No		Yes	Yes		No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PocketPutty [23]	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	N/A
Poderosa [24]	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
pssh	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PuTTY	Partial	Partial	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes		No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
SecureCRT [25]	No	No	Yes	N/A	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
SFTPPlus	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
SSH Secure Shell [26] (original)	No	No	Terminated (3.2.9)	No	Terminated (3.2.9)	Terminated (3.2.9)	Terminated (3.2.9)	No	No	Included	N/A	N/A
SSH Tectia Client [27]	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	N/A	N/A	Yes
SwitchTermJ [28]	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A
TeraTerm	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Tunnelier [29]	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	N/A
TuSSH	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Xshell [30]	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

^ lsh supports only one BSD platform officially, FreeBSD.
^ The majority of Linux distributions have OpenSSH as an official package, but a few do not.

[edit] Technical

Name	User interface	SSH1	SSH2	Additional protocols		Tunneling			Session Multiplexing^†	Kerberos	SFTP/SCP	FTP/SFTP bridge	IPv6
Name	User interface	SSH1	SSH2	TELNET	rlogin	Port forwarding	SOCKS	VPN^†	Session Multiplexing^†	Kerberos	SFTP/SCP	FTP/SFTP bridge	IPv6
AbsoluteTelnet	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No^†	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Ganymed SSH-2			Yes			Yes					Yes	No	No
JSch/JCTerm	Java applet	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No		No	Yes	No	No
lsh	command line	No	Yes	No	No				Yes			No	No
MindTerm	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
OpenSSH	command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
ossh	command line	Yes	No	No	No							No	No
PocketPutty [31]	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes								No	No
Poderosa [32]	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No^†	No		No	Yes	No	No
pssh		No	Yes									No	No
PuTTY	GUI^† or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		No	No	Yes^†	No	Yes
SecureCRT [33]	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No		Yes	Yes	No	Yes
SFTPPlus	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No		No	Yes	No	No
SSH Secure Shell [34] (original)	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes		Yes		Yes	No
SSH Tectia Client [35]	GUI or command line	No^†	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SwitchTermJ [36]	GUI or command line or Java applet	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	No	Yes		Yes	No	Yes
TeraTerm	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	Yes	No	No		No	No	Yes
Tunnelier [37]	GUI or command line	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
TuSSH	GUI	Yes	Partial^†	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Xshell [38]	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No		No	Yes	No	No

^ The ability for the SSH client to establish a VPN, e.g. using TUN/TAP.
^ The PuTTY developers provide a command line capable SSH client called PLINK.
^ The PuTTY developers provide SCP and SFTP functionality as binaries for separate download.
^ SSH Tectia versions prior to 5.0 have SSH1 support; 5.0 and later do not support SSH1.
^ AES encryption only with third-party library.
^ Poderosa supports connection via SOCKS5 proxy, not dynamic port forwarding as local SOCKS proxy!
^ Accelerating OpenSSH connections with ControlMaster.
^ AbsoluteTelnet supports connection via SOCKS5 proxy, not dynamic port forwarding as local SOCKS proxy.