MobaXterm and PuTTY are two of the most popular and the most recommended SSH clients. Which one do you think is the best between MobaXterm and PuTTY? When comparing MobaXterm and PuTTY, some people think MobaXterm is better. Why does it so? Here is the reason why MobaXterm is better than PuTTY.
MobaXterm is a very handy terminal and SSH tool for Windows that is really easy to use and is able to perform more advanced operations compared to PuTTY. It is true that PuTTY is such a great starter tool for getting access to the command line of the remote machine, but MobaXterm offers support for a lot of protocols, including SSH, VNC, SFTP, FTP, and it has a tabbed interface for easy access to all of the sessions.
Here is the comparison of MobaXterm and PuTTY:
| Category | MobaXterm | PuTTY |
| Rank of the Best Terminal Emulator for Windows | 3 | 10 |
| Market Segments | Mid-Market | Enterprise |
| Shared Categories | MobaXterm is categorized as Terminal Emulator. | PuTTY is categorized as Terminal Emulator. |
| Unique Categories | It is categorized as Remote Desktop. | It does not have unique categories. |
| Pricing | Free Trial Unavailable | Free Trial Unavailable |
| Meets Requirements | 9.4 | 8.9 |
| Ease of Use | 9.2 | 8.8 |
| Ease of Setup | 8.5 | 9.1 |
| Ease of Admin | 9.6 | 9.0 |
| Quality of Support | 7.8 | 7.8 |
| Ease of Doing Business With | 9.1 | 8.8 |
| Product Direction (% positive) | 8.5 | 7.7 |
| Plugins | 8.9 | 8.0 |
| Resource Usage | 8.6 | 8.6 |
| Latency | 8.5 | 8.3 |
| Linux Support | 7.3 | 9.0 |
| Windows Support | 9.3 | 8.9 |
| Mac Support | 5.7 | 8.3 |
| Scrolling | 9.2 | 8.3 |
| Customization | 9.3 | 7.5 |
| Logging | 9.0 | 8.2 |
| Command line interface | 9.5 | 8.9 |
| Small Business (50 or fewer emp.) | 27.9% | 27.8% |
| Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) | 48.8% | 26.6% |
| Enterprise (>1000 emp.) | 23.3% | 45.6% |
| Reviewer’s Industry | Information Technology and Services (25.6%) | Information Technology and Services (35.3%) |
| Telecommunications (9.3%) | Computer Software (13.9%) | |
| Insurance (7.0%) | Telecommunications (6.8%) | |
| Financial Services (7.0%) | Computer Networking (4.9%) | |
| Computer Software (7.0%) | Higher Education (3.4%) | |
| Other (44.2%) | Other (35.7%) |
The advantages of MobaXterm:
- Flexible, can connect to literally anything
- X server support if you need X11 forwarding
- Full Linux subsystem with package manager
- Tabbed or split mode
- Integral remote file editor
- SSH tunnel controls and forwarding UI controls makes everything simple
- Automatic SFTP
- Connection manager
- ENV can use Windows PATH
- Password vault
- Server tools (HTTPD, SSHD, SFTPD, TTFT)
- Build in sftp file manager
- Integrates with WSL
- Supports macro controls or multi commands in just single screen
The disadvantages of MobaXterm:
- No completely freeware
- When you split a screen within a tab, you will need to go back to single screen before you are able to switch to another one
- Can have performance issues. They might happen rarely but it is worth to mention that they are there, especially since it is a paid tool
The advantages of PuTTY:
- Free
- De facto standard client for Telnet, SSH, and Rlogin
- It is able to be used on any Windows computer, without admin rights needed
- Source code available, feel free to compile and modify it yourself
- Lightweight and portable. It does not need much resources. Can run on a system by just downloading without installing
The disadvantages of PuTTY:
- Cannot save passwords
- Lacks features
- Ugly design, too simple
- No global settings
- There are no features for organizing session connections like folders. It is fine if you have five or ten connections, but it is not if you have 30 to 30 connections
- Can only open a session and cannot open a second one in the same window
- It is tedious to set up logging or tracing such as for serial connections
- No login scripting
If you agree that MobaXterm is better and you want to install it, first of all, you will need to download the software from the official website of MobaXterm. When you are there, all that you have to do is to click on the Download Now button located under the Free Home Edition. There two versions of the software available to choose from: Portable and Installer. Feel free to click on the one that best suits your needs and the process of the download will be started immediately. Once you have downloaded MobaXterm, please double click the installation file and then install the directory that you want.
After installing the software called MobaXterm, it is time for you to use it. You can start off everything by using SSH to connect to the Omega2. All that you have to do is to click on the Session button that is able to be found in the top left corner and then choose the SSH option.
In the Remote host textbox, you need to type the name of your Omega. For example: omega-xxx.local,where xxx are the last four digits of the MAC address of your Omega. You are able to specify the username by typing root and checking the box Specify username if you want. Doing so will make you in.
Every session that is started will be saved in case you want to use it in the future, making it really fast to connect your different kinds of Omegas. You are allowed to have as many sessions at the same time as you want, all of them are able to be accessed easily in their own tabs.
It is also possible for you to connect to your Omega through Serial. In order to set it up, you can just click on the Session button again and then select Serial. Under the Serial port, select USB to UART and Speed (bps) to 115200. Lastly, click OK and you will be able to see the familiar serial connection to your Omega.
Apart from that, MobaXterm also offers a colorized terminal. This kind of thing makes it easy for you to discern what is a file, directory, or a soft link. Basically, having this software on your computer is really worth it, especially if you are working with more than once remote devices, like a ton of Omegas. The friendly user interface of this tool will make your project more active and running smoothly.
AUTHOR BIO
On my daily job, I am a software engineer, programmer & computer technician. My passion is assembling PC hardware, studying Operating System and all things related to computers technology. I also love to make short films for YouTube as a producer. More at about me…
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