# OpenSSH scp

12 Hacker News commenters recommended OpenSSH scp and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Recommended for simple file copies over SSH because the syntax is easy to remember. Critics say it is slow on round trips, weaker than rsync for syncs, and its flags clash with ssh.

## Why people recommend it

- Handles simple file copies well (3 comments): "transfer a file to a server in one second using `scp`" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46628456)) "a simple file copy is pretty trivial with scp" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46295884)) "‘cp' or ’scp’ almost always meet my needs." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49943742))
- Simple, easy to remember syntax (2 comments): "easy to remember, if you don't use trailing slashes ever, it will just work every time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47239467)) "It works great and its simple interface is easy to remember." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47238408))
- Handy for moving files between hosts (2 comments): "upload with scp then download with http is easy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50017149)) "scp for moving files (instead of ftp)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49736371))
- Fast, reliable transfers over SSH (2 comments): "even with scp I can pin GigE with an old Xeon-D system acting as a server" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46289931)) "ssh and scp just never fails to impress" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49316309))

## What people warn about

- Weaker than rsync for syncs (3 comments): "Note that tar and rsync can handle sparse files, but scp doesn't." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46868432)) "there's no reason to use scp when rsync does everything better" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48405941)) "scp is brittle for bulk syncs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47239006))
- Slow transfers from round trips (2 comments): "do round trip acks to the remote side which drastically slows things down" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866917)) "doing local copies with scp was slow as hell from the cipher overhead" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46290806))
- Confusing flags: -p, -r and -R (2 comments): "Always annoys me -p(port) for ssh clashes with -p(reserve permissions) for sftp and scp." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48666277)) "I really hate that in scp -r and -R mean entirely different things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49943378))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Magic Wormhole](https://hackerapproved.com/p/magic-wormhole.md): 21 recommend
- [croc](https://hackerapproved.com/p/croc.md): 13 recommend
- [FileZilla](https://hackerapproved.com/p/filezilla-pro.md): 12 recommend
- [Transmit by Panic](https://hackerapproved.com/p/transmit.md): 10 recommend
- [syq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/syq.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "OpenSSH scp", https://hackerapproved.com/p/scp/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).