Comparison of SSH clients

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.

Contents

General

Name Developer Status First release Latest release Based on License Source available
AbsoluteTelnet Celestial Software (Brian Pence) Active 1996 January 7, 2011 Proprietary No
CopSSH ITeF!x Active February, 2009 OpenSSH BSD Yes
ConnectBot Kenny Root / Jeffrey Sharkey Active November, 2007 Apache Yes
Dropbear Matt Johnston Active January, 2005 MIT Yes
eSSH Client Ecode Software Active July, 2002 Proprietary No
FileZilla Tim Kosse Active Feb, 2001 PuTTY GPL Yes
GoAnywhere Director Linoma Software Active 2002 Proprietary No
KiTTY (Cyd) Active 2009 August 17, 2011 PuTTY MIT Yes
lsh Niels Möller Active May 23, 1999 (0.1) GPL Yes
MindTerm Cryptzone Active November 13, 1998 Commercial Yes
OpenSSH The OpenBSD project Active December 1, 1999 ossh BSD Yes
PenguiNet Silicon Circus Active April 7, 2000 N/A Proprietary No
PowerTerm InterConnect Ericom Software Active 1994 Proprietary No
Pragma Fortress SSH Client Suite Pragma Systems, Inc. Active 2004 Commercial No
Private Shell Imposant Active April, 2003 Proprietary No
ProxyCap Proxy Labs Active 2002 Commercial No
PuTTY Simon Tatham Active January 1999 December 10, 2011 MIT Yes
Reflection for Secure IT Attachmate Active F-Secure SSH Proprietary No
Salt Hekkelman Programmatuur Active Nov, 2011 Proprietary No
SecureCRT VanDyke Software Active June, 1998 November 8, 2011 Proprietary No
SFTPPlus Pro:Atria Ltd Active 2005 OpenSSH/PuTTY Proprietary No
SmartFTP SmartSoft Ltd Active 1998 Proprietary No
SSH Tectia Client/ConnectSecure SSH Communications Security (former Tectia) Active July 1995 December 2011 Own implementation, C language Proprietary No
SunSSH Open Solaris Active 2001 OpenSSH 2.3 OpenSolaris License Yes
Tera Term TeraTerm Project Active 2004 TeraTerm 2.3 (1994–1998) BSD Yes
TN3270 Plus SDI USA, Inc. Active 2006 Proprietary No
WinSCP Martin Prikryl Active 2000 PuTTY GPL Yes
ZOC Terminal EmTec, Innovative Software Active January, 1999 Proprietary No
TtyEmulator FCS Software Active May, 2002 Proprietary No

Platform

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

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 z/OS AmigaOS AIX HP-UX iPhone,[Note 1] iPod Touch Android Maemo
AbsoluteTelnet No No Yes No No No No No No No Not Yet No No No No No No No
CopSSH No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Connectbot No No No No No No No No N/A N/A N/A N/A No No No No Yes No
Dropbear Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No N/A N/A N/A N/A No No No No Yes Yes
eSSH Client Yes No Yes N/A Yes Yes Yes No N/A N/A N/A N/A No No No No No No
GoAnywhere Director Yes Yes Yes N/A Yes Yes Yes Yes[Note 2] Yes No Yes[Note 2] No N/A Yes Yes Yes[Note 2] Yes[Note 2] N/A[Note 2]
lsh Yes No No No Partial[Note 3] Yes Yes No N/A N/A N/A N/A No No No No No No
MindTerm Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] No Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] No Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] Yes[Note 4] No No No
OpenSSH Included No Yes Included Included Included[Note 5] Yes No N/A Yes N/A Yes Yes Yes[Note 6] Yes Yes[Note 7] No Yes
PenguiNet No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
PowerTerm InterConnect Yes No Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No
Pragma FortressSSH Client Suite No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Private Shell No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
ProxyCap Yes No Yes No No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No
PuTTY Partial Partial Yes N/A Yes Yes No N/A N/A Yes N/A No No No No No No
Reflection for Secure IT No No Yes No No Yes Yes No No No No No No Yes Yes No No No
Salt No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
SecureCRT Yes No Yes No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No
SFTPPlus No No Yes No No Yes Yes No N/A N/A N/A N/A No No No No No No
SmartFTP No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
SSH Tectia Client/ConnectSecure No No Yes No No Yes Yes No Partial No No Yes No Yes Yes No No No
Tera Term No No Yes No No No No No N/A N/A N/A N/A No N/A No No No No
TN3270 Plus No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
TtyEmulator No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
WinSCP No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No Only on non-MC model iPod touches No No
ZOC Terminal Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Name Mac OS X Mac OS Classic Windows Cygwin BSD Linux Solaris Palm OS Java OpenVMS Windows Mobile z/OS AmigaOS AIX HP-UX iPhone,[Note 1] iPod Touch Android Maemo
  1. ^ a b Unless otherwise noted, iPhone refers to non-jailbroken devices.
  2. ^ a b c d e Client runs on a server and files can be securely administered or transferred from an internet capable mobile or wireless device.
  3. ^ lsh supports only one BSD platform officially, FreeBSD.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Requires Java 1.1 or later.
  5. ^ The majority of Linux distributions have OpenSSH as an official package, but a few do not.
  6. ^ Openssh 3.4 was the first release included since AIX
  7. ^ Only for jailbroken devices.

Technical

Name User interface SSH1 SSH2 Additional protocols Tunneling Session
multiplexing[Note 1]		 Kerberos IPv6
TELNET rlogin Port
forwarding		 SOCKS[Note 2] VPN[Note 3] Terminal SFTP/SCP Proxy client[Note 4] Central Management Available Key Management Available
AbsoluteTelnet/SSH GUI (multi-session,
single-window)		 Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP N/A N/A
CopSSH GUI or command line Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? N/A N/A
Connectbot GUI No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No No N/A N/A
Dropbear command line No Yes No No Yes No No No No Yes Yes Yes ? N/A N/A
GoAnywhere Director GUI or command line Yes Yes No No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local N/A N/A
lsh command line No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes ? N/A N/A
MindTerm GUI Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet N/A N/A
OpenSSH command line Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ProxyCommand Yes[Note 5] Yes[Note 6]
PenguiNet GUI Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No No No No Yes SCP ? N/A N/A
PowerTerm InterConnect GUI Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No Yes Yes SFTP ? N/A N/A
Pragma FortressSSH Client Suite GUI Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes  —  —  — Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes N/A N/A
Private Shell GUI or command line Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes SOCKS 5 N/A N/A
ProxyCap GUI Yes Yes No No Yes No No No No Yes No No SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; SSH N/A N/A
PuTTY GUI or command line Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No[Note 7] Yes Yes Yes[Note 8] SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local N/A N/A
Reflection for Secure IT GUI or command line Yes Yes Optional Optional Yes Yes ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes SOCKS; HTTP N/A N/A
Salt GUI No Yes No No No No No Yes No Yes Yes No No N/A N/A
SecureCRT GUI Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes Yes Yes SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Generic N/A N/A
SFTPPlus GUI or command line Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? No No No Yes ? N/A N/A
SmartFTP GUI (multi-session,
single-window)		 No Yes No No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP N/A N/A
Tectia Client/ConnectSecure GUI and/or command line No[Note 9] Yes No No Yes[Note 10][Note 11] Yes Yes[Note 10] Yes Yes No [Note 12] Yes Yes, including legacy SCP and modern SCP (SCP using SFTP) SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP Yes Yes
Tera Term GUI Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No Yes Yes SCP SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet N/A N/A
TN3270 Plus GUI Yes Yes Yes No No Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No SOCKS 4 N/A N/A
TtyEmulator GUI or command line Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No, not yet Yes No, use external tool SOCKS 4,4a, 5; HTTP Local N/A N/A
WinSCP GUI or command line Yes Yes No No No No No No Yes Yes simple Yes SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local N/A N/A
ZOC Terminal TDI or command line Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No ? No Yes Yes SCP SOCKS 4 N/A N/A
  1. ^ Accelerating OpenSSH connections with ControlMaster.
  2. ^ The ability for the SSH client to perform dynamic port forwarding by acting as a local SOCKS proxy.
  3. ^ The ability for the SSH client to establish a VPN, e.g. using TUN/TAP.
  4. ^ Can the SSH client connect itself through a proxy? This is distinct from offering a SOCKS proxy or port forwarding.
  5. ^ Central server management available via following products: Tectia Manager
  6. ^ Key management available via following products: Tectia Manager
  7. ^ Current development snapshots of PuTTY contain Kerberos support, which is planned for the next release. Also, there exist third-party patches that add Kerberos functionality to PuTTY. [1][2]
  8. ^ The PuTTY developers provide SCP and SFTP functionality as binaries for separate download.
  9. ^ SSH Tectia versions prior to 5.0 have SSH1 support; 5.0 and later do not support SSH1.
  10. ^ a b Tectia SSH Client/ConnectSecure supports transparent TCP tunneling which captures application traffic on-the-fly without the need to point application to connect to local host address. You can get point-to-point encrypted connections easily in order to secure legacy application traffic.
  11. ^ In port forwarding, Tectia also supports automatic listener/tunnel creation (aka automatic tunnels)
  12. ^ In 2012

Features

Name Keyboard mapping Session tabs ZMODEM transfers Find text in buffer Mouse input support[Note 1] Unicode support URL hyperlinking Public key authentication Smart card support via MSCAPI/PKCS#11/Entrust Hardware encryption FIPS 140-2 validation Scripting Support available: community support by volunteers Support available: commercial online support Support available: commercial telephone support 8x5 Support available: commercial telephone support 24x7 APIs available SFTP compatibility mode (adjustable SFTP command behavior) SFTP streaming support (separate control and data channels) Automatic FTP to SFTP conversion Support for FTP tunneling, FTP over SSH (active/passive) Key management available Support for standard OS log facilities (SMF, Event log, syslog) Support for IBM z/OS MVS dataset file transfers (zOS) Support for custom conversion tables Support for SITE commands in IBM z/OS file transfers Public key/certificate selector available Keepalive configurable Authentication Agent (adjustable passphrase caching) Configurable terminal colors QA tested and verified, installable product packages File transfer resume/Checkpoint-restart X509v3 certificate management tools included (i.e. CMP, SCEP, certificate viewers, etc) Host key management tools (i.e. add, delete, fetch, view) Configurable host key policies (strict, ask, etc) Support for over 2 GB file transfers
AbsoluteTelnet full Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
CopSSH ? ? ? ? No Yes No Yes Yes[Note 2] Yes No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Connectbot No Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes ? ? No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
GoAnywhere Director No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No[Note 3] Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
MindTerm Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
OpenSSH ? ? ? ? ? Yes ? Yes Yes[Note 2] Yes Partial[Note 4] No ? ? Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? Yes[Note 5] ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
PenguiNet Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
PowerTerm InterConnect full No Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Pragma FortressSSH Client Suite Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Private Shell full No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
ProxyCap No No No No No Yes No Yes No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
PuTTY No No[Note 6] No No Yes Yes No[Note 7] Yes No[Note 8] ? No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Reflection for Secure IT Yes No ? Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Salt Yes No No Yes No UTF-8 No Yes Yes No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
SecureCRT Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
SSH Tectia Client/ConnectSecure Yes No No Yes No No[Note 9] No Yes MSCAPI/PKCS#11/Entrust on z/OS Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes[Note 5] Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes traditional-resume + checkpoint-restart Yes Yes Yes Yes
SmartFTP Partial Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes AES-NI Yes No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Tera Term Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
TN3270 Plus Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes No No No Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
TtyEmulator No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
ZOC Terminal full Yes Yes Alt+F Yes UTF-8 No Yes No No No Yes ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
  1. ^ The ability to transmit mouse input to text mode applications such as Midnight Commander
  2. ^ a b OpenSSH needs to be patched to ask for the pin of the smartcard. If you don't want to patch OpenSSH you can use ssh-agent (the link is in french)
  3. ^ Uses FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic libraries.
  4. ^ Validated [3] when operated on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in FIPS mode
  5. ^ a b Key management available via following products: Tectia Manager
  6. ^ PuTTY does not support directly, but with installing PuTTY Connection Manager or SuperPuTTY session tabs support is available.
  7. ^ PuTTY does not support smart cards but PuTTY-CAC does, see http://www.risacher.org/putty-cac/.
  8. ^ in 2012

See also

References

External links