Comparison of SSH clients explained

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
Name	Developer	Initial release	Platform	Version	Date	License	GUI	TUI/CLI
	AbsoluteTelnet	Celestial Software (Brian Pence)	1996	Windows
	Bitvise SSH Client	Bitvise Limited	2001	Windows
	ConnectBot	Kenny Root Jeffrey Sharkey	2007-11	Android
rowspan="9"	Dropbear	Matt Johnston	2003-04-06	AIX			rowspan="9"
BSD
Cygwin
Linux
HP-UX
iOS
Maemo
macOS
Solaris
rowspan="13"	OpenSSH	The OpenBSD project	1999-12-01	AIX			rowspan="13"
Android
BSD
Cygwin
Linux
HP-UX
iOS
Maemo
OpenVMS
macOS
Solaris
Windows
z/OS
rowspan="5"	PuTTY	Simon Tatham	1999-01-22	BSD			-- The command line tool is called "plink" and is bundled -->
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
rowspan="4"	SecureCRT	VanDyke Software	1998–06	Linux			rowspan="4"
macOS
iOS
Windows
	Tera Term	TeraTerm Project	2004	Windows
	TN3270 Plus	SDI USA, Inc.	2006	Windows
	WinSCP	Martin Přikryl	2000	Windows	6.3.3	2024-04-16	GNU GPL
rowspan="6"	wolfSSH	wolfSSL	2016-07-20	BSD			rowspan="6"
Cygwin
Linux
macOS
Solaris
Windows
rowspan="3"	ZOC Terminal	EmTec, Innovative Software	1995-07-01	macOS			rowspan="3"
OS/2
Windows

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
	Bitvise SSH Client
	ConnectBot
	Dropbear
	lsh
	OpenSSH
	PuTTY
	SecureCRT
	SmartFTP
	Tera Term
	TN3270 Plus
	WinSCP
	wolfSSH
	ZOC Terminal
Name	macOS	Windows	Cygwin	BSD	Linux	Solaris	OpenVMS	z/OS	AIX	HP-UX	iOS	Android	Maemo	Windows Phone

Technical

Name	SSH1 (insecure)	SSH2	Additional protocols <		-- telnet, rlogin -->	Port forwarding and Tunneling <		-- port forwarding, socks, tunneling -->	Session multiplexing	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP	Proxy client
Name	SSH1 (insecure)	SSH2	TELNET	rlogin	Port forwarding	SOCKS	VPN		Session multiplexing	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP	Proxy client
	AbsoluteTelnet
	Bitvise SSH Client
	Dropbear
	lsh
	OpenSSH
	PuTTY
	SecureCRT
	SmartFTP
	Tera Term
	TN3270 Plus
														-->	-->
	wolfSSH													-->	-->
	ZOC Terminal
Name	SSH1 (insecure)	SSH2	Additional protocols <		-- telnet, rlogin -->	Tunneling <		-- port forwarding, socks, vpn -->	Session multiplexing	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP	Proxy client
Name	SSH1 (insecure)	SSH2	TELNET	rlogin	Port forwarding	SOCKS	VPN		Session multiplexing	Kerberos	IPv6	Terminal	SFTP/SCP	Proxy client

Features

Name	Keyboard mapping						URL hyperlinking			Hardware encryption
	AbsoluteTelnet
	Bitvise SSH Client
	OpenSSH
	PuTTY
	SecureCRT
	SmartFTP
	Tera Term
	TN3270 Plus
	wolfSSH
	ZOC Terminal

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	ssh-rsa	RSA with SHA-2		ECDSA with SHA-2			EdDSA		Security keys
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
	AbsoluteTelnet
	Bitvise SSH Client	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	Dropbear									?
	lsh	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	OpenSSH
	PuTTY
	SecureCRT									?
	SmartFTP
	Tera Term	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	TN3270 Plus	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
	WinSCP								?	?
	wolfSSH
	ZOC Terminal