Alternatives to Solar-PuTTY
A free tabbed SSH, Telnet, SCP and SFTP session manager for Windows, built on PuTTY. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Solar-PuTTY
A free tabbed SSH, Telnet, SCP and SFTP session manager for Windows, built on PuTTY.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Solar-PuTTY.
PuTTY
The small, stubbornly reliable SSH and Telnet client that has been on every Windows admin’s desktop for twenty-five years.
PuTTY is the open-source MIT-licensed upstream client with PSCP, PSFTP, Plink and Pageant and regular security releases, but it has no tabbed interface for many sessions.
KiTTY
A PuTTY fork for Windows that adds session filtering, automatic login scripts and portability.
KiTTY is an open-source Windows PuTTY fork with a session filter, automatic login scripts and portability, though it is based on PuTTY 0.76.
MobaXterm
A Windows remote-computing toolbox: tabbed SSH, an X11 server, RDP, VNC, FTP and Unix commands in one portable executable.
MobaXterm is a freemium Windows toolbox with tabbed SSH, graphical SFTP, an X11 server, RDP and VNC in one portable executable, with limits in the free edition.
WindTerm
A fast SSH, SFTP, telnet, serial and tmux client for Windows, macOS and Linux, free for commercial use.
WindTerm is a free native SSH, SFTP, telnet and serial client that adds macOS and Linux builds and split views, with only part of its source published.
Tabby
A terminal, SSH client and serial console in one window, with a connection manager and an encrypted secret store.
Tabby is an open-source MIT-licensed Electron terminal for Windows, macOS and Linux with SSH, Telnet, serial and an encrypted secret store, using more memory than native apps.
Bitvise SSH Client
A Windows SSH client combining a terminal, SFTP file transfer and port forwarding.
Bitvise SSH Client is a free Windows client combining a terminal with graphical SFTP and flexible port forwarding, with a portable version and service mode.
Xshell
A tabbed SSH, Telnet and serial terminal client for Windows from NetSarang.
Xshell is a paid Windows tabbed SSH, Telnet and serial client with shared authentication profiles, triggers and RDP sessions, requiring a commercial licence.
Tera Term
Long-running Windows terminal emulator for SSH, Telnet and serial connections.
Tera Term is an open-source Windows terminal for SSH, Telnet and serial with a macro language, but it lacks classic tabs and graphical SFTP.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
OpenSSH
The standard SSH client and server suite for encrypted remote login, file copying and tunnelling.
1Remote
A Windows remote session manager for RDP, VNC, SSH and other protocols in one tabbed app.
Remote Desktop Manager
A connection manager that keeps RDP, VNC, SSH and other remote sessions in one workspace.
Windows Terminal
Microsoft’s tabbed terminal for Windows, hosting Command Prompt, PowerShell and WSL in one GPU-rendered window.
SmartFTP
A Windows client for FTP, FTPS, SFTP, WebDAV, SSH and cloud storage transfers.
Wishlist
Choose SSH destinations from an interactive directory.
