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 notable clients.

General

Name	Developer	Status	First release	Latest release	Current version	Based on	License	Source available
Admin Hands	Admin Hands	Active	2015-05	2015-05-01	1.0		Proprietary	No
AbsoluteTelnet	Celestial Software (Brian Pence)	Active	1996	2014-01-31	9.83^[1]		Proprietary	No
Bitvise SSH Client/Tunnelier	Bitvise	Active	2002-05	2016-04-05	6.47^[2]		Proprietary	No
Cisco CLI Analyzer	Cisco Systems Inc.	Active	2016-03	2016-03-16	2.0.0		Proprietary	No
ConnectBot	Kenny Root / Jeffrey Sharkey	Active	2007-11	2015-08-28	1.8.6		Apache	Yes
CRAX Commander	Soft4U2 Marcin Słowik	Active	2013-09	2015-12-01	1.10.6	libSSH2	Proprietary	Yes
DameWare	SolarWinds	Active	2012-11-28				Proprietary	No
Dropbear	Matt Johnston	Active	2003-04-06	2015-08-08	2015.68		MIT	Yes
JuiceSSH	Sonelli Ltd	Active	2012-12	2015-12-26	2.1.2		Proprietary	No
MindTerm	Cryptzone	Active	1998-11-13	2014-02-25			Proprietary	Yes
MobaXterm	Mobatek	Active	2008	2016-01-20	8.6 ^[3]	OpenSSH (crypto), PuTTY (terminal emulator) and X11 server	Proprietary	Yes
eSSH Client	Ecode Software	Inactive	2002-07				Proprietary	No
Private Shell	Imposant	Active	2003-04	2013-07-29	3.2		Proprietary	No
ProxyCap	Proxy Labs	Active	2002				Proprietary	No
FileZilla	Tim Kosse	Active	2001-06-22	2015-10-16	3.14.1	PuTTY	GPL	Yes
lsh	Niels Möller	Active	1999-05-23	2013-06-26	2.0.4		GPL	Yes
OpenSSH	The OpenBSD project	Active	1999-12-01	2015-08-21	7.1	ossh	BSD	Yes
PACManager	David Torrejón Vaquerizas	Active	2010-01-01	2015-06-05	4.5.5.5	OpenSSH, Telnet, FTP, vncviewer, rdesktop, cu, remote-tty, mosh, cadaver	GPL	Yes
PenguiNet	Silicon Circus	Active	2000-03-22	2015-02-17	2.62		Proprietary	No
PuTTY	Simon Tatham	Active	1999-01-22	2015-11-07	0.67^[4]		MIT	Yes
Reflection for Secure IT	Attachmate	Active		2012-11-12		F-Secure SSH	Proprietary	No
Salt	Maarten L. Hekkelman	Active	2011-11	2015-05-12	3.4.10		Proprietary	No
SecureCRT	VanDyke Software	Active	1998-06	2016-03-31	8.0		Proprietary	No
SFTPPlus	Pro:Atria Ltd	Active	2005	2015-09-18	3	Twisted (software)	Proprietary	No
ShellCraft	Fengfeng Shi	Active	2015-12	2016-04-19	1.0.4		Proprietary	No
SmartFTP	SmartSoft Ltd	Active	1998				Proprietary	No
SSH Tectia Client/ConnectSecure	SSH Communications Security (former Tectia)	Active	1995-07	2013-07		Own implementation in C	Proprietary	No
SunSSH	Open Solaris	Active	2001			OpenSSH 2.3	CDDL	Yes
Terminals CodePlex	Terminals CodePlex Project	Active	2006	2015-05-07	3.6		Microsoft MS-CL	Yes
Tera Term	TeraTerm Project	Active	2004	2016-03-05	4.90^[5]	TeraTerm 2.3 (1994–1998)	BSD	Yes
TN3270 Plus	SDI USA, Inc.	Active	2006				Proprietary	No
Token2Shell	Choung Networks	Active	2008	2014-04-04	6.9.1		Proprietary	No
TtyEmulator	FCS Software	Active	2002-05				Proprietary	No
WinSCP	Martin Prikryl	Active	2000	2015-02-20	5.7	PuTTY	GPL	Yes
Win32-OpenSSH	Microsoft	Active	2015	2016-03-19	Pre-release	OpenSSH & Windows PowerShell	BSD Licence	Yes
Xshell	NetSarang	Active		2015-09-25			Proprietary	No
ZOC Terminal	EmTec, Innovative Software	Active	1995-07-01	2015-01-14	6.64		Proprietary	No

Platform

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

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

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

Name	OS X	Windows	Cygwin	BSD	Linux	Solaris	Java	OpenVMS	z/OS	AIX	HP-UX	iOS	Android	Maemo	Windows Phone
AbsoluteTelnet	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
Bitvise SSH Client/Tunnelier	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Cisco CLI Analyzer	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
ConnectBot	No	No	No	No	No	No	?	?	?	No	No	No	Yes	No	?
CRAX Commander	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Dropbear	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	?
eSSH Client	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	No	No	No	No	No	?
JuiceSSH	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Admin Hands	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
lsh	Yes	No	No	Partial^{[Note 1]}	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	No	No	No	No	No	?
MindTerm	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	?
MobaXterm	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
OpenSSH	Included	partial	Included	Included	Included^{[Note 2]}	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^{[Note 3]}	No	Yes	?
Private Shell	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
PACManager	No	No	No	Partial	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
PenguiNet	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
ProxyCap	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
PuTTY	Partial	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	No	No	No	No	No	Beta^{[Note 4]}
Salt	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
SecureCRT	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	?
SFTPPlus	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
ShellCraft	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
SmartFTP	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
SSH Tectia Client/ConnectSecure	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes^{[Note 5]}	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	?
Tera Term	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	?	?	?	?	No	No	No	No	?
TN3270 Plus	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
Token2Shell	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes^{[Note 6]}
TtyEmulator	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
WinSCP	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes^{[Note 3]}	No	No	?
Xshell	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
ZOC	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	?
Name	OS X	Windows	Cygwin	BSD	Linux	Solaris	Java	OpenVMS	z/OS	AIX	HP-UX	iOS	Android	Maemo	Windows Phone

↑ lsh supports only one BSD platform officially, FreeBSD.
↑ The majority of Linux distributions have OpenSSH as an official package, but a few do not.
1 2 Only for jailbroken devices.
↑ Available from the Windows Phone Store. See Nogsnet/PuTTY for details
↑ In the form of a Java Secure File Transfer API.
↑ Available as Token2Shell/WP in Windows Phone Store

Technical

Name	User interface	SSH1	SSH2	Additional protocols		Tunneling			Session multiplexing^{[Note 1]}	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP	Proxy client^{[Note 2]}
Name	User interface	SSH1	SSH2	TELNET	rlogin	Port forwarding	SOCKS^{[Note 3]}	VPN^{[Note 4]}	Session multiplexing^{[Note 1]}	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP	Proxy client^{[Note 2]}
AbsoluteTelnet	GUI (multi-session, single-window)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP
Bitvise SSH Client/Tunnelier	GUI and command line	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP
Dropbear	command line	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
lsh	command line	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
MindTerm	GUI or command Line or browser	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP;;FTP;Generic
MobaXterm	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5
OpenSSH	command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	ProxyCommand
PACManager	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Generic
PenguiNet	GUI (multi-session, single-window)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5
Private Shell	GUI or command line	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No		No	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 5
ProxyCap	GUI	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; SSH
PuTTY	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes^{[Note 5]}	Yes	Yes	Yes^{[Note 6]}	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local
Salt	GUI	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	SSH
SFTPPlus	GUI or command line	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
SecureCRT	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Generic
ShellCraft	GUI (multi-session, single-window)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
SmartFTP	GUI (multi-session, single-window)	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP
Tera Term	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	SCP	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet
TN3270 Plus	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	SOCKS 4
Token2Shell	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP
TtyEmulator	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	SOCKS 4,4a, 5; HTTP Local
WinSCP	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	limited ^{[Note 7]}	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	simple	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local
Xshell	TDI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	SOCKS 4, 5
ZOC	TDI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	?	No	Yes	Yes	SCP	SOCKS 4

↑ Accelerating OpenSSH connections with ControlMaster.
↑ Can the SSH client connect itself through a proxy? This is distinct from offering a SOCKS proxy or port forwarding.
↑ The ability for the SSH client to perform dynamic port forwarding by acting as a local SOCKS proxy.
↑ The ability for the SSH client to establish a VPN, e.g. using TUN/TAP.
↑ The version 0.63 supports GSSAPI. Successfully tested on Win 8 using Active Directory
↑ The PuTTY developers provide SCP and SFTP functionality as binaries for separate download.
↑ WinSCP connection tunneling.

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	Hardware encryption	FIPS 140-2 validation	Scripting	Shared Database
AbsoluteTelnet	full	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	Yes	?
MindTerm	No	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
MobaXterm	No	Yes	no, but built-in graphical SFTP client	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	?
OpenSSH	?	No	No	?	Yes^{[Note 2]}	Yes	not native^{[Note 3]}	Yes	Yes^{[Note 4]}	Yes	Partial^{[Note 5]}	No	No
PACManager	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	?
PenguiNet	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	?
Private Shell	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	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^{[Note 9]}	No	No	No
Salt	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	?
SecureCRT	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No
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	No
TN3270 Plus	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	?
Token2Shell	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	AES-NI	No	Yes	?
TtyEmulator	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	?
Xshell	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	No
ZOC	full	Yes	Yes	Alt+F	Yes	UTF-8	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes	?

↑ The ability to transmit mouse input to text mode applications such as Midnight Commander
↑ Only when the terminal itself supports mouse input. Most graphical ones do, e.g. xterm
↑ No native URL highlighting; however most graphical consoles support URL highlighting
↑ 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).
↑ Validated when running OpenSSH 2.1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2 in FIPS mode or when running OpenSSH 1.1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 in FIPS mode .
↑ PuTTY does not support directly, but many wrappers are available that do (e.g. PuTTY Connection Manager, SuperPuTTY, MTPuTTY, PuTTYTabManager, and mRemoteNG).
↑ PuTTY does not support this, some branches of PuTTY do (e.g. PuTTY Tray and KiTTY).
↑ PuTTY does not support smart cards, but is supported in puttywincrypt, PuTTY-CAC, and in Smartcard Authentication – Secure & Easy putty version.
↑ PuTTY does not support AES-NI but a branch of PuTTY named PuTTY-AES-NI does.

References

External links

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