Best PuTTY alternatives
in 2026

Windows has shipped an OpenSSH client since Windows 10 1809, and Windows Terminal gives it tabs, panes and a config file. For a large share of people reaching for a PuTTY alternative, this is the whole answer: type ssh user@host, keep a %USERPROFILE%\.ssh\config, done. It costs nothing, installs nothing, and works exactly like SSH does on macOS and Linux.

Trade-off. No host list, no credential storage, no GUI. If your reason for leaving PuTTY was the saved-session management rather than the terminal itself, this does not solve it.

The most feature-dense option on this list. MobaXterm bundles an X11 server, a Cygwin userland with rsync, awk and scp, a tabbed terminal, an SFTP pane that follows your SSH session, and a session manager - in a single portable executable. If you run graphical Linux applications from a Windows desktop, nothing else here comes close.

Trade-off. Windows only, and the free edition caps saved sessions and tunnels. The interface carries a lot of history and it can feel dense if all you wanted was a nicer PuTTY.

The most established cross-platform SSH client with sync. Hosts, keys and snippets follow you between machines and onto a phone, there are team features for sharing credentials, and the mobile apps are the most complete in this category by some distance.

Trade-off. The free tier is tight - SFTP and several conveniences sit behind Pro at $10/mo. It is an Electron app, so the memory footprint is closer to a browser tab than a native client.

Our own, so weigh this accordingly. It covers the same ground as Termius - host list, encrypted credential vault, SFTP, key manager, sync to phone - with SFTP and unlimited sessions on the free tier and Pro at half the price. It is a Tauri app on a Rust backend rather than Electron, and credential encryption happens in native code with the key derived from a master password that never leaves the device.

Trade-off. Younger and smaller than Termius, and the client is not open source. No serial console, no RDP, no Kerberos, and the mobile apps are a companion rather than a full desktop replacement.

A fast native client covering SSH, Telnet, serial and a local shell, with a session manager, an SFTP pane and an optional master-password-encrypted session store. No account, no server, nothing phoning home - which for a lot of people is the entire appeal.

Trade-off. Local only by design, so nothing syncs between machines. The UI is dense and the documentation is thin; you learn it by clicking around.

A modern, well-designed terminal with SSH profiles, serial support, a plugin ecosystem and optional config sync you can self-host. If you want to read the source and bend the tool to your workflow, this is the one on the list built for that.

Trade-off. Electron, so it is heavy. Credential handling depends on which vault plugin you install rather than being a guaranteed part of the product.

The best graphical SFTP client on Windows, paired with a solid SSH terminal and genuinely good port-forwarding controls. It also does GSSAPI and Kerberos against Active Directory, which almost nothing else on this list supports, and it pairs with Bitvise SSH Server if you run the other end.

Trade-off. Windows only, no sync, and the interface is a wall of tabs and checkboxes. Licensing for organisations is not free.

A tabbed connection manager that speaks RDP, VNC, SSH, ICA and rlogin. If you administer Windows desktops as often as Linux servers, having all of it in one tree with inherited settings is a real time saver, and it is already approved on a lot of corporate images.

Trade-off. Development has been intermittent. More importantly, its connection file is encrypted with a default password that is publicly known, so an unmodified confCons.xml is effectively readable by anyone who obtains it. Set a custom password if you keep using it.

A long-established Windows SSH client with a mature scripting layer, good session management and tight integration with NetSarang's Xftp and Xmanager. Free for home and school use, which makes it a common recommendation for students.

Trade-off. Windows only, and file transfer generally means buying Xftp as well. Commercial licensing adds up across a team.

A PuTTY fork that adds the things people have wanted from PuTTY for twenty years: sessions in portable files instead of the registry, automatic login scripts, a session filter, tabs via an external launcher, and background transparency. Your existing PuTTY sessions carry over because it reads the same registry keys.

Trade-off. Still fundamentally PuTTY - Windows only, no real credential vault, no sync, and the automatic-login feature stores passwords in a way you should not rely on for production credentials.

The other classic. Tera Term drives serial ports as readily as SSH, emulates everything from VT100 to VT382 and Tek4010, and scripts it all through the Tera Term Language. For bringing up a switch over a console cable, it is still the tool.

Trade-off. No credential store, so the common workaround is a .ttl macro holding the password in clear text on disk. Windows only, and there is no host list worth the name.

The enterprise answer. VanDyke ships FIPS-validated cryptography, terminal emulations well beyond VT, and a scripting engine (VBScript, JScript, Python) that a lot of existing network automation is already written against. Paid support and a perpetual licence, which some procurement processes strongly prefer over a subscription.

Trade-off. Expensive for an individual, and the interface shows its age. Overkill unless you need the emulations, the scripting or the FIPS validation by name.