It is a completely free and open source SSH client that runs on Windows operating systems. Remote operations are carried out with the help of key management such as ssh-key gen, ssh-key scan, ssh-keyadd, and ssh-keysign. Solar Putty Download; 2) Open SSH Open SSH – Top 10 Best Free Open Source SSH Clients for Windows Linux and MacOS.
Windows SFTP client apps
Specialized applications from connecting to SFTP.

- SmarTTY is a free multi-tabbed SSH client that supports copying files and directories with SCP on-the-fly and editing files in-place. New in version 3.0: Smart Terminal with auto-completion, file panel, package management GUI and more.
- Bitvise is one of the few SSH clients that offers all features free for all types of users, including organizations. At the same time, there are no compromises in terms of functionality. It has an advanced GUI, corporation-wide single sign-on, learning resources including guides and FAQs, and other features.
- WinSCP: Free and open source SFTP GUI client. Despite its name it's not limited to SCP, but works with SFTP and FTP/SSL too. Filezilla Client: Free and open source FTP, FTP/SSL and SFTP GUI client (beware of adware). Bitvise SSH Client: SSH tunneling, SSH terminal emulation and SFTP client. JSCAPE AnyClient: Web-based SFTP/FTP/FTPS.
| Application | Note |
|---|---|
| WinSCP | Free and open source SFTP GUI client. Despite its name it's not limited to SCP, but works with SFTP and FTP/SSL too. |
| Filezilla Client | Free and open source FTP, FTP/SSL and SFTP GUI client (beware of adware). |
| Bitvise SSH Client | SSH tunneling, SSH terminal emulation and SFTP client. Commercial. |
| JSCAPE AnyClient | Web-based SFTP/FTP/FTPS/WebDAV/S3 client. Commercial with free version. |
| Tectia SSH Client | SFTP/SSH client from the creators of the SSH protocol. Commercial. |
| VanDyke SecureFX | SFTP/FTP/SCP client for Windows, Mac and Linux. Commercial. |
| FlashFXP | SFTP/FTP client for Windows. Commercial. |
| FTP Voyager | FTP/FTP client for Windows. Free. |
| WS_FTP Professional Client | SFTP/FTP client for Windows. Commercial. |
| Axway Secure Client | SFTP/FTP client for Windows. Commercial. |
| SmartFTP | FTP (File Transfer Protocol), FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV, S3, Google Drive, OneDrive, SSH, Terminal client. Commercial. |
| GoAnywhere SFTP client for MFT | SFTP client from creators of GoAnywhere MFT server. Commercial. |
SFTP plugins for popular apps
| Swish (for Windows Explorer) | Shows SFTP server in Windows Explorer. It's not a filesystem driver, so this sftp drive cannot be used from command line or from inside another program. Free and open source. |
| SFTP plugin for Total Commander | Official plugin from the creators of Total Commander. Free. |
| Chrome sFTP Client | sFTP Client for Google Chrome / Chrome OS. |
Command-line clients
Use those if you want to access SFTP from a script or if you simply prefer command line over GUI.
| PuTTY PSFTP | PuTTY SFTP tool for those who are not afraid of command line. Available for Windows and Un*x-like systems. Free and open source. |
| OpenSSH | OpenSSH's 'ssh' command is available on most Un*x systems. Free and open source. Windows port is included in CygWin. |
| Bitvise Command-Line SFTP Client | Advanced command-line SFTP client for Windows. Commercial. |
Map SFTP server as a network drive
Do you want to use a SFTP connection as a Windows mapped drive? Assign it a drive letter and use it from any application? Try one of those:
| NetDrive | SFTP, FTP, DropBox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive and few others. Commercial. Reverts to a limited free version when the trial is over. Windows. |
| Web Drive | SFTP, FTP, DropBox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive and few others. File system level locking symantics. Synchronization mode and network drive mode. Commercial. Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. |
| ExpandDrive | SFTP, FTP, DropBox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive and few others. Commercial. Windows and Mac. |
| SFTP NET Drive | SFTP. Commercial. Free for personal use. Windows. |
| win-sshfs | Maps remote SFTP drive and make it available to all applications. Open source, last updated in 2012. Works on Windows 7, newer OS versions are not supported. Several forks exists. |
| WinSshFS 4every1 edition | Fork of win-sshfs which works on Win10. Free and open source. |
| WinSshFS FiSSH edition | Fork of win-sshfs focused on UI changes. Free and open source. |
| SSHFS for Linux | Enables you to mount a remote folder on Linux over SSH. FUSE-based, free and open source. Part of most Linux distros. |
| SSHFS for OS X | SSH File System for MAC OS X based on FUSE for OS X. Free and open source. |
This article or section is a candidate for merging with SFTP chroot.
The Secure copy (SCP) is a protocol to transfer files via a Secure Shell connection. The SSH file transfer protocol (SFTP) is a related protocol, also relying on a secure shell back-end. Both protocols allow secure file transfers, encrypting passwords and transferred data. The SFTP protocol, however, features additional capabilities like, for example, resuming broken transfers or remote file manipulation like deletion.
Secure file transfer protocol (SFTP)
Install and configure OpenSSH. Once running, SFTP is available by default.
Scp Client
Access files with the sftp program or SSHFS. Many standard FTP programs should work as well.
Secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) with a chroot jail
Sysadmins can jail a subset of users to a chroot jail using openssh thus restricting their access to a particular directory tree. This can be useful to simply share some files without granting full system access or shell access. Users with this type of setup may use SFTP clients such as filezilla to put/get files in the chroot jail.
Setup the filesystem
Create a jail directory:
Optionally, bind mount the filesystem to be shared to this directory. In this example, /mnt/data/share is to be used. It is owned by root and has octal permissions of 755.
/etc/fstab to make the bind mount survive a reboot.Create an unprivileged user
Create the share user and setup a good password:
Setup OpenSSH
Add the following to the end of /etc/ssh/sshd_config to enable the share and to enforce the restrictions:
Restartsshd.service to re-read the config file.
Test that in fact, the restrictions are enforced by attempting an ssh connection via the shell. The ssh server should return a polite notice of the setup:
Secure copy protocol (SCP)

Install, configure and startOpenSSH. It contains the scp utility to transfer files.
More features are available by installing additional packages, for example rsshAUR or scponly described below.
General Usage
Linux to Linux

Copy file from a remote host to local host SCP example:
Copy file from local host to a remote host SCP example:
Copy directory from a remote host to local host SCP example:

Scp Gui Client Linux
Copy directory from local host to a remote host SCP example:
Copy file from remote host to remote host SCP example:
Linux to Windows
Use a Windows program such as WinSCP
Scponly
Scponly is a limited shell for allowing users scp/sftp access and only scp/sftp access. Additionally, one can setup scponly to chroot the user into a particular directory increasing the level of security.
installscponly.
For existing users, simply set the user's shell to scponly:
Adding a chroot jail
The package comes with a script to create a chroot. To use it, run:
- Provide answers
- Check that
/path/to/chroothasroot:rootowner andr-xfor others - Change the shell for selected user to
/usr/bin/scponlyc - sftp-server may require some libnss modules such as libnss_files. Copy them to chroot's
/libpath.
Uploads to Chroot jail root dir
For security reasons the directory set as the chroot directory must be owned by root with only root having write access to it otherwise sftp/ssh connections will be denied. This of course means regular users cannot upload files to the root directory. In order to get around this while not compromising security you can create a folder inside the chroot directory which the regular user or group has write access to, e.g:
chmod 770 to allow sshusers to view contents.Some applications utilizing SFTP do not allow input of sub-directories when performing operations (e.g. uploading files), and will attempt to upload files to the chroot base directory (which will be denied). In order to force these applications to use a specific sub-directory you can append the following to the 'ForceCommand' option:
Ubuntu Scp Gui
Users on connect will then have their start directory change to the specified sub-directory (remember to restart the sshd server).