Comparison of SSH clients
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 | Initial release | Platform | Latest release | License | GUI | TUI/CLI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version | Date | |||||||
| AbsoluteTelnet | Celestial Software (Brian Pence) | 1996 | Windows | 11.24[1]  |
2020-08-13 | Proprietary |  |
 |
| Bitvise SSH Client | Bitvise Limited | 2001 | Windows | 9.17[2][3] |
2022-03-12 | Proprietary | |
|
| ConnectBot | Kenny Root Jeffrey Sharkey |
2007-11[lower-alpha 1] | Android | 1.9.9[4] |
2023-02-09 | Apache-2.0 | ? | ? |
| Dropbear | Matt Johnston | 2003-04-06 | AIX | 2022.83[5] |
2022-11-14 | MIT | |
|
| BSD | ||||||||
| Cygwin | ||||||||
| Linux | ||||||||
| HP-UX | ||||||||
| iOS | ||||||||
| Maemo | ||||||||
| macOS | ||||||||
| Solaris | ||||||||
| eSSH Client | Ecode Software | 2002-07 | BSD | 4.2.0[6] |
2007-01-15 | Proprietary | ? | ? |
| Linux | ||||||||
| macOS | ||||||||
| Solaris | ||||||||
| Windows | ||||||||
| lsh | Niels Möller | 1999-05-23 | BSD | 2.1[7] |
2013-06-26 | GPL-2.0-or-later | |
|
| Linux | ||||||||
| macOS | ||||||||
| Solaris | ||||||||
| OpenSSH[lower-alpha 2] | The OpenBSD project | 1999-12-01[lower-alpha 3] | AIX | 9.5[8] |
2023-10-04 | BSD | |
|
| Android | ||||||||
| BSD | ||||||||
| Cygwin | ||||||||
| Linux | ||||||||
| HP-UX | ||||||||
| iOS | ||||||||
| Maemo | ||||||||
| OpenVMS | ||||||||
| macOS | ||||||||
| Solaris | ||||||||
| Windows | ||||||||
| z/OS | ||||||||
| PuTTY | Simon Tatham | 1999-01-22 | BSD | 0.79[9] |
2023-08-26 | MIT | |
|
| Linux | ||||||||
| macOS | ||||||||
| Solaris | ||||||||
| Windows | ||||||||
| SecureCRT | VanDyke Software | 1998-06 | Linux | 9.3.1[10] |
2022-12-06 | Proprietary | |
|
| macOS | 9.3.1[10] |
2022-12-06 | ||||||
| iOS | 2.4.3[11] |
2021-12-13 | ||||||
| Windows | 9.3.1[10] |
2022-12-06 | ||||||
| Tera Term | TeraTerm Project | 2004[lower-alpha 4] | Windows | 4.106[12] |
2021-06-05 | BSD-3-Clause | |
|
| TN3270 Plus | SDI USA, Inc. | 2006 | Windows | 4.0.7[13] |
2019-02 | Proprietary | |
|
| TtyEmulator | FCS Software | 2002-05 | Windows | 4.6.0.0[14] |
2021-03-16 | Proprietary | |
|
| wolfSSH | wolfSSL | 2016-07-20[lower-alpha 5] | BSD | 1.4.13[15] |
2023-04-04 | GPL-3.0-or-later[lower-alpha 6] | |
|
| Cygwin | ||||||||
| Linux | ||||||||
| macOS | ||||||||
| Solaris | ||||||||
| Windows | ||||||||
| ZOC Terminal | EmTec, Innovative Software | 1995-07-01 | macOS | 8.04.1[16] |
2022-04-25 | Proprietary | |
|
| OS/2 | 4.15[17] |
2004-08-25 | ||||||
| Windows | 8.04.1[16] |
2022-04-25 | ||||||
- Based on Trilead SSH-2 for Java.
- Also known as OpenBSD Secure Shell.
- Based on OSSH.
- Based on Tera Term Pro 2.3 (1994–1998).
- Based on wolfCrypt.
- Also available under a proprietary license.
Platform
The operating systems or virtual machines the SSH clients are designed to run on without emulation include 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 | macOS | Windows | Cygwin | BSD | Linux | Solaris | 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 | ? |
| Bitvise SSH Client | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| ConnectBot | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Dropbear | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes[lower-alpha 1] | No | Yes | ? |
| eSSH Client | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| lsh | Yes | No | No | Partial[lower-alpha 2] | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| OpenSSH[lower-alpha 3] | Included | Included[lower-alpha 4] | Included | Included | Included[lower-alpha 5] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[lower-alpha 1] | Yes | Yes | ? |
| PuTTY | Partial | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | No | No | No | No | No | Beta |
| SecureCRT | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | ? |
| SmartFTP | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| Tera Term | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| TN3270 Plus | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| TtyEmulator | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| WinSCP | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes[lower-alpha 1] | No | No | ? |
| wolfSSH | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| ZOC | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | No | ? |
| Name | macOS | Windows | Cygwin | BSD | Linux | Solaris | OpenVMS | z/OS | AIX | HP-UX | iOS | Android | Maemo | Windows Phone |
- Only for jailbroken devices.
- lsh supports only one BSD platform officially, FreeBSD.
- Also known as OpenBSD Secure Shell.
- Included and enabled by default since windows 10 version 1803. Win32-OpenSSH can be installed as an optional component in the Windows versions before Windows 10 version 1803 to Windows 10 version 1709. Portable version can be download from Win32-OpenSSH for other versions.
- The majority of Linux distributions have OpenSSH as an official package, but a few do not.
Technical
| Name | SSH1 (insecure) |
SSH2 | Additional protocols | Port forwarding and Tunneling | Session multiplexing [lower-alpha 1] |
Kerberos | IPv6 | Terminal | SFTP/SCP | Proxy client[lower-alpha 2] | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TELNET | rlogin | Port forwarding |
SOCKS [lower-alpha 3] |
VPN [lower-alpha 4] | |||||||||
| AbsoluteTelnet | yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP |
| Bitvise SSH Client | no | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | SOCKS 4, 5 |
| Dropbear | no | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
| lsh | no | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
| OpenSSH[lower-alpha 5] | no[lower-alpha 6] | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ProxyCommand |
| PuTTY | yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes[lower-alpha 7] | Yes | Yes | Yes[lower-alpha 8] | SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local |
| SecureCRT | yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Generic |
| SmartFTP | no | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP |
| Tera Term | yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | SCP | SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet |
| TN3270 Plus | yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | SOCKS 4 |
| TtyEmulator | yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | SOCKS 4,4a, 5; HTTP Local |
| WinSCP [lower-alpha 9] | no[lower-alpha 10] | Yes | No | No | limited[lower-alpha 11] | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | simple | Yes | SOCKS 4, 5; HTTP; Telnet; Local |
| wolfSSH | no | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | simple | Yes | No |
| ZOC | yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes[lower-alpha 12][lower-alpha 13] | SOCKS 4; 5; HTTP; Jumpserver |
| Name | SSH1 (insecure) |
SSH2 | Additional protocols | Tunneling | Session multiplexing [lower-alpha 1] |
Kerberos | IPv6 | Terminal | SFTP/SCP | Proxy client[lower-alpha 2] | |||
| TELNET | rlogin | Port forwarding |
SOCKS [lower-alpha 3] |
VPN [lower-alpha 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.
- Also known as OpenBSD Secure Shell.
- OpenSSH deleted SSH protocol version 1 support in version 7.6 (2017-10-03)
- 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 bundles a number of software components including PuTTY. .
- WinSCP Version history.
- WinSCP connection tunneling.
- SCP and SFTP through terminal.
- SCP and SFTP according to ZOC features page.
Features
| Name | Keyboard mapping | Session tabs | ZMODEM transfers | Find text in buffer | Mouse input support[lower-alpha 1] | Unicode support | URL hyperlinking | Public key authentication | Smart card support | Hardware encryption | FIPS 140-2 validation | Scripting | Shared Database | Auto-reconnect | CA Certificates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AbsoluteTelnet | full | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
| Bitvise SSH Client | ? | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | ? | Partial | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| OpenSSH[lower-alpha 2] | ? | No | No | ? | Yes[lower-alpha 3] | Yes | not native[lower-alpha 4] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial[lower-alpha 5] | No | No | ? | Yes[lower-alpha 6] |
| PuTTY | No | No[lower-alpha 7] | No | No | Yes | Yes | No[lower-alpha 8] | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No | No[lower-alpha 9] |
| 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 | Yes | No | ? | ? |
| TN3270 Plus | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
| TtyEmulator | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
| wolfSSH | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
| ZOC | full | Yes | Yes | Alt+F | Yes | UTF-8 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | ? | ? | ? |
- The ability to transmit mouse input to text mode applications such as Midnight Commander
- Also known as OpenBSD Secure Shell.
- 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.
- 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
- OpenSSH supports the minimal certificate format since v5.4. "OpenSSH Release Notes: 5.4". OpenBSD Project. 2010-03-08. Retrieved 2021-08-30.
- PuTTY does not support tabs directly, but many wrappers are available that do.
- PuTTY does not support hyperlinks, but some forks of PuTTY do.
- Putty v71.0 does not support OpenSSH certificates. See Ben Harris' 2016-04-21 wish.[18][19]
Authentication key algorithms
This table lists standard authentication key algorithms implemented by SSH clients. Some SSH implementations include both server and client implementations and support custom non-standard authentication algorithms not listed in this table.
| Name | ssh-dss[lower-alpha 1] | ssh-rsa | RSA with SHA-2 | ECDSA with SHA-2 | EdDSA | Security keys | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rsa-sha2-256 | rsa-sha2-512 | ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 | ecdsa-sha2-nistp384 | ecdsa-sha2-nistp521 | ssh-ed25519 | ssh-ed448 | sk-ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 | sk-ssh-ed25519 | |||
| AbsoluteTelnet | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Bitvise SSH Client | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Dropbear | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ||
| lsh | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| OpenSSH[lower-alpha 2] | Yes[lower-alpha 3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| PuTTY | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No[lower-alpha 4] | No[lower-alpha 4] |
| SecureCRT | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ||
| SmartFTP | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Tera Term | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| TN3270 Plus | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| TtyEmulator | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| WinSCP | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | ? | ||
| wolfSSH | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| ZOC | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Name | ssh-dss | ssh-rsa | rsa-sha2-256 | rsa-sha2-512 | ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 | ecdsa-sha2-nistp384 | ecdsa-sha2-nistp521 | ssh-ed25519 | ssh-ed448 | sk-ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 | sk-ssh-ed25519 |
| RSA with SHA-2 | ECDSA with SHA-2 | EdDSA | Security keys | ||||||||
-
ssh-dssis based on Digital Signature Algorithm which is sensitive to entropy, secrecy, and uniqueness of its random signature value. - Also known as OpenBSD Secure Shell.
- By default, disabled at run-time since OpenSSH 7.0 released in 2015.
- PuTTY does not support security keys / FIDO tokens, but is supported in PuTTY-CAC
See also
References
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- "Release 1.9.9". 9 February 2023. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
- "Release Dropbear 2022.83".
- "Ecode Software Inc". Archived from the original on 31 October 2013.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- Simon Tatham (26 August 2023). "PuTTY 0.79 is released". Retrieved 26 August 2023.
- "SecureCRT 9.3.1". 6 December 2022.
- "SecureCRT on the App Store". Retrieved 30 January 2023.
- "Release Tera Term 4.106 - Tera Term - OSDN".
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- "Release 1.4.13". 4 April 2023. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- Error: Unable to display the reference properly. See the documentation for details.
- "ssh2-openssh-certkeys.html".
- "ssh2-openssh-certkeys".
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