Best Alternatives to PUTTY in 2017 (For Windows)

Putty has been a corner stone of many developers for quite a long time. But today there are new necessities, things are not that simple like 5 years ago. Soo our ssh clients must also get smarter in a way.

That means, it is time to put aside PUTTY, look for new affairs.

1. MobaXterm 

There is free and business options for MobaXterm. You can also have either the portable version or install on your computer. However installation and unpacking takes more time than I expected.

Usage is very different than PUTTY. But it is based on PUTTY. That means, it is just a modern interface for an old program.

MobaXterm is basically a tabbed station for all of your connections. This means keeping all your terminals or SSH clients under one application, much more organized eh?

Here you can download

2. mRemoteNG

Strongest part about mRemoteNG is, the open sourceness. You can contribute, tweak, support. Another strong point is the language support. I've seen that they support quite a few language right now. Also it looks like they will add new languages in time.

About the look,  it looks more modern than the MobaXterm does. It also provides RDP feature for you remote servers. The sections which the connections are listed is similar. But the way you configure the connections is slightly different. It has this 'eclipse' feeling. I must say, I found it less practical to use than MobaXterm.

But anyway, here you can download

3. KiTTY

PuTTY and KiTTY...They are pretty much the same thing actually. If you are uncomfortable with the oldschool look of PuTTY, then you will like the KiTTY.

Technically speaking, KiTTY is a separate branch from PuTTy and it employs additional features such as session filters, pre-defined commands, automatic logon script etc. Also, KiTTY is more frequently updated than PuTTY (I see it as a good thing)

So, something additional for free? that is nice...

Here you can download KiTTY


Actually, I would like to find more of SSH clients... But it is very rare to find something more useful than PuTTY. I think when you check any of the options above and give it a try, you will want to replace your good old PuTTY with it.

Thank you for reading. Cheers!