Comparison of SSH clients

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This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup.
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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

General

Name	Developer	Status	First release	Based on	License	Source available
AbsoluteTelnet	Brian Pence	Active	August, 1996		Proprietary	No
Browser Shell	John Hunsley	Active	2008	Ajaxterm	Proprietary	No
cURL	Daniel Stenberg	Active	January, 2007	libssh2 [1]	MIT	Yes
eSSH Client	Ecode Software	Active	July, 2002		Proprietary	No
Dropbear [2]	Matt Johnston	Active	January, 2005		MIT	Yes
iSSH	Zinger-Soft	Active	2008	PuTTY	Proprietary	No
IVT [3]	BearStar Software	Active	1998	PuTTY (for SSH-implementation)	Proprietary	No
JTA	Matthias L. Jugel, Marcus Meissner	final	1996		GPL	Yes
lsh	Niels Möller	Active	May 23, 1999 (0.1)		GPL	Yes
MindTerm [4]	AppGate Network Security AB	Active	?		Freeware	Yes
OpenSSH	The OpenBSD project	Active	December 1, 1999	ossh	BSD	Yes
PenguiNet [5]	Silicon Circus	Active	April 7, 2000	N/A	Proprietary	No
Poderosa	Daisuke OKAJIMA, Natsuki Watanabe	Active	2005		GPL (Apache License Compatible with GPL 3)	Yes
PuTTY	Simon Tatham	Active	January 1999		MIT	Yes
Reflection for Secure IT [6] (formerly F-Secure SSH)	Attachmate	Active	?		Proprietary	No
SecureCRT	VanDyke Software, Inc.	Active	?		Proprietary	No
SFTPPlus	Pro:Atria Ltd	Active	2005	OpenSSH/PuTTY	Proprietary	No
SSH Tectia Client [7]	SSH Communications Security	Active	1995		Proprietary	No
Tera Term	TeraTerm Project	Active	2004	TeraTerm 2.3 (1994-1998)	BSD	Yes
TouchTerm	jbrink.net	Active	2008	OpenSSH	Proprietary	No
TuSSH	Angus Ainslie	Active	2002	OpenSSH	Freeware	No
Webbased SSH client	Unknown	Active	2008		Freeware	No
WinSCP	Martin Prikryl	Active	2000	PuTTY	GPL	Yes
XShell	NetSarang Computer, Inc.	Active	?		Proprietary	No

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	AmigaOS	AIX	iPhone^† / iPod Touch
AbsoluteTelnet	No	No	Yes	N/A	No	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	No	No	No
Browser Shell	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
Dropbear	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	No	No	No
eSSH Client	Yes	No	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	No	No	No
iSSH	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
IVT	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
JTA	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	N/A	No	No	No
lsh	Yes	No	No	No	Partial^†	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	No	No	No
MindTerm	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
OpenSSH	Included	No	Yes^†	Included	Included	Included^†	Yes	No	N/A	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes^†	Yes^†
PenguiNet	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	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
Reflection for Secure IT	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
SecureCRT	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
SSH Tectia Client	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	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
TouchTerm	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	No	N/A	N/A	No	N/A	N/A	N/A	Yes
TuSSH	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Webbased SSH client	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?
WinSCP	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
XShell	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

^ lsh supports only one BSD platform officially, FreeBSD.
^ The majority of Linux distributions have OpenSSH as an official package, but a few do not.
^ Openssh 3.4 was the first release included since since AIX 5L
^ iPhone refers to non-jailbroken devices.
^ [8]
^ Only for jailbroken devices.

Technical

Name	User interface	SSH1	SSH2	Additional protocols		Tunneling			Session Multiplexing^†	Kerberos	IPv6
Name	User interface	SSH1	SSH2	TELNET	rlogin	Port forwarding	SOCKS^†	VPN^†	Session Multiplexing^†	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP
AbsoluteTelnet	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Browser Shell	web	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Dropbear	command line	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
iSSH	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
IVT	GUI (multi-session, single-window)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
lsh	command line	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
MindTerm	web	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
OpenSSH	command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PenguiNet	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
PuTTY	GUI^† or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No^†	Yes	Yes	Yes^†
Reflection for Secure IT	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes				Yes		Yes	Yes
SecureCRT	TDI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	?	Yes	?	Yes	Yes
SFTPPlus	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes^{[citation needed]}	Yes^{[citation needed]}	No		No		No	Yes
SSH Tectia Client	command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tera Term	GUI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
TouchTerm	GUI	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	?	No	?	No	?	Yes	No
TuSSH	GUI	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No
Webbased SSH client	web	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
WinSCP	GUI or command line	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
XShell	TDI or command line	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	?	Yes	Yes

^ The ability for the SSH client to establish a VPN, e.g. using TUN/TAP.
^ The ability for the SSH client to perform dynamic port forwarding by acting as a local SOCKS proxy.
^ The PuTTY developers provide a command line capable SSH client called PLINK.
^ However, there exist third-party patches that add Kerberos functionality to PuTTY. [9][10]
^ 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.
^ Accelerating OpenSSH connections with ControlMaster.

Features

Name	Session tabs	ZMODEM transfers	Find text in buffer	Mouse input support^†	Unicode support	URL Hyperlinking	Public key authentication	Smart card support	Hardware encryption	FIPS 140-2 Validation
AbsoluteTelnet	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
iSSH	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
OpenSSH	?	?	?	?	Yes	?	Yes	Yes^†	Yes	No
PuTTY	No^†	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No^†	?	?
SecureCRT	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	Yes^†
Tera Term	Yes	Yes	?	?	Yes	?	Yes	?	?	?
TouchTerm	?	No	?	No	Yes	?	Yes	No	No	?
TuSSH	No	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No	No
XShell	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	?	?

^ The ability to transmit mouse input to text mode applications such as Midnight Commander
^ 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)
^ PuTTY needs patches for the smartcard http://www.opensc-project.org/scb/.
^ SecureCRT 5.1 and later uses a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic library.
^ PuTTY does not support directly, but with installing PuTTY Connection Manager session tabs support is available.

External links

SSH for Java - Comparing Java clients
SSHBlackbox - A component suite for software developers that lets you create your own full-featured SSH client and server software
[11] - A Comparison of Free SSH and SCP Programs for Windows

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_SSH_clients"