5 FTP Client 2016

5 Best Free FTP Client 2016

FTP clients are popular among the masses for its versatility and usage. If you are looking for the best FTP Client, we got you covered.

It doesn’t matter if you are a developer or webmaster, FTP clients can be extremely handy. They can be used to get into the server remotely and do changes with a single click. They are also used for uploading files. The windows interface is not only handy but it also user-friendly.

Before we list the best FTP clients, let’s learn about them.

What is FTP client?

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP Client is a software that transfers files. With the help of FTP client, you can transfer files back and forth between two computers over the internet. It is mostly used for uploading files from a computer to a web server’s computer.

To use an FTP client, you first need to download and install one. After this, the software will use a file host name, user name and password to upload or download files to your website via an internet connection.

FTP and WordPress

We all know WordPress, the simple and most powerful blogging and content management system today. Now we need to understand how FTP is crucial for WordPress.

WordPress has become such an effective CMS (content management system) that most WordPress users don’t know much about FTP.

Back in the days, FTP was extremely useful and a quick way to upload files from a personal computer to a web server’s computer. It was essential to design a website as developers would upload files to their servers via FTP. Even pages added to the website would be designed and uploaded with the help of FTP.

But currently all this is handled quite effectively via WordPress, even creating a page is just a matter of clicks.  So what is the use of FTP clients in the current era?

Usefulness of FTP client

Now as we all have understood by now, FTP clients are used for uploading and downloading files from your computer to the server. But there are some other things that FTP is useful for, even in the case of the presence of WordPress.

FTP is one of the multiple numbers of methods used to install WordPress onto your website. Though it is not the easiest and people like other methods of WordPress installation like cPanel. So when is FTP quintessential in WordPress usage?

Well, WordPress is a great to get everything done but what happens when something goes wrong? Most WordPress users who have used the CMS long enough know about the proverbial “white screen of death”.

Sometimes it happens that when you install two or more plugins which work on WordPress fine individually but causes serious problems when activated together at the same time.

When the “white screen of death” hits, your dashboard becomes inaccessible and you can’t disable the bad plugin. In such scenarios, FTP is the only fix.

So now that you understand how knowledge of FTP is useful, take a look at some of the most useful FTP clients available in the market for free.

Top 5 free FTP clients

FileZilla

filezilla

FileZilla is a free of cost, open-source software and is a very popular FTP client. The software supports FTP, FTP over SSl/TLS and SSH file transfer protocol. You can also do bookmarking, remote file searching, etc.

There is an option to drag and drop, control transfer speed limits, have proxy servers and pause/resume facilities.

FileZilla allows you to have more than one FTP up at a time. It will also show status, response and commands from the server.

It is integrated into the Mozilla Firefox browser and is supported in Windows, MAC, and Linux.

The only negative part is that the drag and drop facility is still not properly functional and the MAC version is not that user-friendly.

FireFTP

fireftp

FireFTP is a free FTP client software and is available as an extension of the Mozilla FireFox browser. I would say its best selling point is its simplicity, but I can’t as this won’t cost you a dime. But do understand it is the simplest FTP client you will find.

It is also available on various platforms like MAC, Windows, and Linux.

The software supports all the major FTP protocols.

The only negative of the software is that it is not that much feature rich.

ClassicFTP

classicFTP

This is a fully featured FTP client that is freely available for Windows and MAC users.

One of the unique features of this software is its “mirror and upload” tool. And this tool does is that it scans and uploads the selected folders to the localhost.

It is a very neat UI and uploading files are fairly easy.

WinSCP

WinSCP

WinSCP is one of the easiest to learn FTP client software and preferable for beginners. Its downside is that it only works on Windows and its upside is that, it is the most powerful FTP software for windows.

It has everything that can be expected from an FTP client. The software supports SFTP, SSH mad the plain old FTP. It also provides some one of its kind features like security protection, editing. It also supports public key and GSS authentications to guarantee more protection.

It is also very easy to assign default editors and handle files.

Cyberduck

cyberduck

Cyberduck is popular known as an FTP client for MAC users. It is preferably for a handy feature of global language translation. It has a wonderful GUI. There is a built-in support for Amazon S3 and WebDAV along with Google integrations, Amazon Cloudfront and much more.

The software is also very user-friendly and its interface is very easy to browse and move files quickly. Caching is enabled to make the performance all the better.

Recently the software has released a version which supports Linux. 

Conclusion

FTP is a necessary piece of software. It is the easiest and most effective way to fix a problem which can even occur while using a CMS like WordPress. For me, FileZilla is currently the best FTP client available online. With proper security parameters, it can easily be your daily driver for uploading, downloading or editing server files. Also, I would love to hear which FTP client you use? Use the comment section below and let us know.

1 thought on “5 Best Free FTP Client 2016”

  1. Thanks for sharing a good list of FTP clients. However, I think FTP clients are definitely losing ground to other options such as web rtc. This is likely due to issues of security and speed. Businesses and confidential doc related transfers also tend to seek out other solutions.


    Sam Smith
    Technology Evangelist and Aspiring Chef.
    http://www.innorix.com/en/DS

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