PuTTY is a terminal emulator, serial console and network file transfer application. It supports several network protocols, including SCP, SSH, Telnet, rlogin, and raw socket connection.
The software was originally written for Windows but has been ported to other operating systems including Linux.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Sessions.
- Supports the following protocols: SSH, Serial, Telnet, Rlogin, SUPDUP, Raw, and bare ssh-connection.
- Control over the SSH encryption key and protocol version.
- Control the behavior of the terminal emulation.
- Control over port forwarding with SSH (local, remote or dynamic port forwarding), including built-in handling of X11 forwarding.
- Make raw TCP connections.
- Supports 3DES, AES, Arcfour, Blowfish, and DES.
- Public-key authentication support.
- Support for local serial port connections.
- Save log files of your PuTTY sessions, for debugging, analysis or future reference.
- Event log.
- Unicode support.
- Cross-platform support – runs under Linux and Windows.
Website: www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty
Support: Documentation, FAQ
Developer: Simon Tatham
License: MIT License

PuTTY is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Graphical SSH Frontends | |
|---|---|
| XPipe | Shell connection hub and remote file manager |
| Termix | Self-hosted all-in-one server management platform |
| RustConn | Connection orchestrator with a GTK4/Wayland-native interface |
| Ásbrú Connection Manager | Full-featured connection manager written in Perl |
| sshPilot | Lightweight SSH connection manager |
| PuTTY | SSH and telnet client with sessions |
| EasySSH | Connection manager written in Vala |
| Kerminal | Modern terminal emulator and SSH manager |
| OpenSSH GUI | Frontend for managing your SSH Keys |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Serial Terminal Tools | |
|---|---|
| Serial Studio | Cross-platform telemetry dashboard and real-time data visualization tool |
| SerialTest | Test tool for serial port, Bluetooth, TCP and UDP |
| GTKTerm | Simple, graphical serial port terminal emulator |
| COMTool | Cross platform serial debug tool |
| moserial | Clean, friendly GTK-based serial terminal for the GNOME desktop |
| minicom | Text-based modem control and terminal emulation program |
| WhippyTerm | Has a number of unique features such as bookmarks and built in hex dumps |
| PuTTY | SSH and telnet client |
| seriot | Serial monitor and serial plotter |
| QSerial | Cross-platform serial port utility |
| ttysterm | Minimalist terminal program |
| ssterm | Simple console-based serial port terminal |
| SerialTool | Serial-Port/TCP/UDP debugging tool |
| opencu | Minimalistic serial terminal emulator |
| HTerm | Uses wxWidgets, fmt, and spdlog |
| CuteCom | Graphical serial terminal |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Discovered a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |

