PuTTY
Shares rank 8 of 13 SSH clients by recommenders
Free, long-lived Windows SSH client that people reach for for remote management. Critics say it has a lot fewer features overall.
Free, long-lived Windows SSH client that people reach for for remote management. Critics say it has a lot fewer features overall.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Long-lived, trusted, widely known
“There is normally a wiki page for every popular program which normally contains an official site URL. That's how I remember where to actually get PuTTY.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “7zip.com Is Serving Malware” “PuTTY out since 1999 and bumped to 0.82 in 2024 is pretty incredible”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Fearless SIMD v1.0” Essential for remote management on Windows
“a vital tool of anyone doing remote management from Windows”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Show HN: Got sick of ads, so I made my own logic puzzle site” “start teams, outlook and putty in a citrix session”
Comment from 20 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
A lot fewer features overall
“a lot fewer features overall”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Terminal Latency on Windows (2024)”
Other SSH clients people recommend
The four most recommended other SSH clients, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mosh | 61 | 10 | 86% | 12 | — | Approved |
| SSH | 57 | 17 | 77% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Termius | 33 | 16 | 67% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Moshi SSH and Mosh terminal for iOS | 16 | 2 | 89% | 8 | — | Approved |
| PuTTYThis page | 9 | 2 | 82% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“PuTTY out since 1999 and bumped to 0.82 in 2024 is pretty incredible”
“a vital tool of anyone doing remote management from Windows”
“start teams, outlook and putty in a citrix session”
“it did not work for me in putty”
“There is normally a wiki page for every popular program which normally contains an official site URL. That's how I remember where to actually get PuTTY.”
“Using putty, the formatting is messed up.”
“I could have a browser open, PuTTY, and some tracker music playing no problem.”
“a lot fewer features overall”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.