Putty vs WinSCP [closed]

Question

I am new to both Putty and WinSCP. So can somebody tell me what the difference is between these two? And when should I use each.

Thanks.

Visitor

In short, Putty is an ssh client and WinSCP is an SCP/SFTP client. One is used for connecting to a shell, and one is used to transfer files. (Personally I find Filezilla better than WinSCP). I must ask though, did you google these? Both pages clearly state what they are, and if you didn't know what ssh or scp are, a quick wikipedia check could've solved that. – Liberticide

@Corbin, it's not that simple. Putty also has its own SCP and SFTP clients, PSCP and PSFTP. – Anthropomorphic

@MatthewFlaschen I assumed the asker meant literally the putty executable, putty.exe, though I guess in hindsight that was a bad assumption. – Liberticide

Thanks. Actually I searched each separately. And I found the information you provided. I wanted a more in depth insight. As Corbin mentioned. But when I try to compare these two together at office, it gives me some security warnings and doesn't let me go through. Thanks for the reply. – Visitor

For those considering FileZilla due to others comments, please beware that FileZilla stores usernames and passwords in plaintext. For instance, see trac.filezilla-project.org/ticket/1373. – Gigolo

Answer 1

WinSCP is for file transfer to and from your server while PuTTY is used to interact with the server directly. Putty is just a command line interface to your server. WinSCP is a file transfer application using Secure FTP.

Kelcey

PuTTY (specifically PSCP and PSFTP) can also transfer files using SSH File Transfer Protocol (which is what SFTP stands for). – Anthropomorphic

and winSCP also has a command line view. – Idle

So what is the difference between the winSCP command line options as shown in winscp.net/eng/docs/commandline and PuTTY? Are they just two alternatives which achieve the same thing? – Suttles