What FTP app do you use?

Written on May 16, 2006 by Josh Pigford and 63 people have commented

For ages I used Dreamweaver’s FTP utility. But in the last year or so I’ve changed my workflow and don’t use Dreamweaver anymore for any sort of coding (I use TextMate). Since TextMate doesn’t have built in FTP service I’ve been using Panic’s Transmit. Unfortunately I have had all sorts of issues with it and it only works about half the time. I have the same issues across any server I try to upload to.

And to top it off, Panic’s “Support” might as well not even exist as I’ve yet to ever even get a response from them…sad considering I paid for their product.

At any rate, what FTP app do you use and why do you like it so much?

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  1. #1 Diesel says:

    I’m using Transmit as well. Can’t say I’m all that happy with it but there aren’t any other apps worth the while. I’m eyeing Civil Netizen (.com) but I’m not sure if that app is a good alternative. Not even sure what the hell that app does. Haha

  2. #2 Kristen says:

    I use Transmit. I don’t use FTP all that often, so if there are issues with it for power users, I don’t notice them. I used to use Fetch and Transmit is superior to that.

  3. #3 Guitartech says:

    I use Cyberduck (they’re site seems to be down). Integrated well with Textmate too.

  4. #4 Tim says:

    Interarchy will give you the power you’re looking for. SFTP, Scheduling, Syncing, Queueing, Batching, Traffic monitors, pinging, scriptable, FTP Disks, WebDav, Bonjour, Permission control, and more… all the power features you will ever need.

  5. #5 Jon Kantro says:

    Heh, it’s funny that you have problems with Transmit as well. No matter what server I upload to, half of the time it will work and the other half it won’t connect or things such as chmodding wont apply. I have tried many other FTP programs and the following is what I have gatherd. Cyberduck is good when you don’t get the beach ball of death and decides to upload fast. OneButton FTP, which has great potential, but is no longer in development (as it seems), works everytime for me. There are some important features that are missing, but if it were still under development, it would be amazing.
    BulletProof FTP:
    AbleFTP: UI is horrible
    Captain FTP: Works, but the UI is eh.
    CuteFTP: Simply awesome but needs a new and more aqua UI
    YummyFTP: Great if you like multi-window interfaces

    I can continue with simple and in depth lists, but it is not worth my or your time so the programs i suggest are Cyberduck, CuteFTP, Captain FTP, YummyFTP

  6. #6 Bill I says:

    I use Fugu (it’s a free SFTP client), but my reason for liking it is probably a bit weak.

    I’ll start by saying that I used to use Cyberduck before I noticed how much memory it used (at least the last time I installed it): ~65MB. It is especially bad when compared with Fugu’s memory usage (~20MB).

    Fugu has the same kind of layout that Transmit (local browser side-by-side with a remote browser), but lacks some of the polish and features (favorites, doesn’t rember last-used location in local browser, scriptability, etc).

    Minor limitations aside, I’ve never had any problems uploading to anywhere, but I’m not a hardcore (S)FTP person (I use it at least daily, but usually only once or twice).

    …don’t know if that helps, but it’s definitely something else to consider.

  7. #7 Vincent Noel says:

    I use Fugu, which is kinda Transmit-for-the-poor (almost the same basic interface and features, without all the neat bells and whistles Transmit offers). The sftp support is basically all I need, and you can drag-n-drop stuff between the remote server and the Finder. It’s “good enough” for my needs.

  8. #8 Brutal says:

    I use Transmit, and I have never had any trouble with it.

  9. #9 b352 says:

    Well I use RBrowser.

    Free for the average user. For advanced features like SFTP you must purchase a license.

    I’m quite satisfied with it…for my needs.

  10. #10 jerry richardson says:

    I like transmit because it has a bitchin’ icon, but if Josh declares Transmit to be uncool, I will drop it like a bad habit.

  11. #11 john chandler says:

    I’ve used CyberDuck and been pretty happy of it, but perhaps only for lack of looking deeply for other options.

  12. #12 Joe Edmon says:

    I’m using rbrowser. I have a love-hate relationship with it but stick with it because it is fast and mimics the Finder. Another feature I like is the ability to archive and un-archive files with just a right click.

  13. #13 Joshua Mace says:

    Sounds to me like if someone came out with a great FTP app for the mac they would have a hit on their hands…If only there were a mac version of FileZilla…

  14. #14 Jeff says:

    I use transmit for almost everything and I’ve never had any problems with it. I edit with code-view in dreamweaver because I like having the ability to edit locally and then just hit cmd-shift-U and be able to see my changes on the web, but DW’s ftp capabilities are very unreliable so I have actually been considering a reorganization of my workflow to revolve around transmit. Perhaps after hearing all these complaints I’ll reconsider.

    I’ve also used Cyberduck but it’s far too barebones / slow / apt to quit without warning, to be a regular player in my workflow.

    I think if someone were to make some sort of finder plugin that enabled sFTP and file syncing to go along with it’s current ftp abilities they would be golden.

  15. #15 Aron says:

    Have used both Transmit and Fetch in the past, but switched to Cyberduck and have been using it for many moons now.

    Cyberduck is free (you can donate to the project) has a clean and simple interface, and has worked flawlessly for me. The author also seems to mainatain the project very well, and issues updates when they become necessary.

    I just dont see myself shelling out the 30 bones for a program like Transmit when I can get everything I need out of a great FTP client like Cyberduck.

    I highly reccommend it!

  16. #16 Rob says:

    CYBERDUCK! It’s the best. It’s like the older brother Fetch always wanted. It’s simple, Mac-like, and easy use. I do all my ftp there now, and ignore dreamweaver’s, which is slow and icky. :)

  17. #17 Brandon says:

    I used Filezilla when I was on a PC and wish there was a similar open source app for Mac. I finally gave up on searching and bought Transmit… which is good.

  18. #18 Curt says:

    I use Cyberduck (at least 2 years), never really liked Transmit very much.

    The latest versions of Cyberduck have a better interface - slicker. But they also have given me a few problems though - can’t delete some files/folders inside of other folders at times from my server at strange times. However, it gets the job done.

  19. #19 joppe says:

    Cant decide between Transmit and Cyberduck

  20. #20 snc says:

    I use Transmit. Never had any problems with it. I’m surprised that their support is bad, I was always under the impression that the Panic guys really cared. Hm, I hope I will stay problem-free.

  21. #21 AaronC says:

    I use Cyberduck. I have had some delete issues like mentioned before, but other than that it’s been pretty golden. I also have Fugu, but don’t use it very often. They’re both free so they’re good for me.

  22. #22 Michael Clark says:

    I primarily use MacSFTP http://pro.wanadoo.fr/chombier/MacSFTP/SFTP_info.html , and sometimes use Fugu.

  23. #23 urs says:

    Not really an FTP, but I use sKEdit, it’s an amazing text editor and has an option built in for editing remote sites. I hardly ever use transmit anymore.

  24. #24 Finney says:

    Cyberduck because it’s free. Transmit because it has a browser and a widget (and overall-y more powerful I find). However, I find myself using Cyberduck more just so I won’t have the 10 minute time-out thing on the free trial of Transmit.

  25. #25 pitulgi says:

    I was using Cyberduck but I now use Transmit, because I need support for the WebDAV protocol, and it seems Transmit is the only one that can provide a decent one…

  26. #26 Twist says:

    I use Transmit and I love it. Never had any problems with it. Now I have had issues with some of Panics other apps and I have found their customer support to be way above average. Heck they actually have a special email address where you can get around their customer support people and talk directly with Cabel Sasser and Steven Frank (the company founders) if you are having issues with their normal customer support people.

  27. #27 Dan Bruno says:

    I use Fetch and I’ve never had any issues with it.

  28. #28 Andre says:

    I just bought Transmit this week after using their trial. Exactly what I wanted from an FTP client. (On Windows I use SmartFTP). I haven’t a clue as to what kind of issues you could be having with it.

    And as for their customer service not respoding, when I purchased Transmit the page reloaded and it charged the credit card twice. I forwarded one of the serials to them and within two hours it had been refunded.

  29. #29 Dan says:

    Cyberduck, merely because i can’t pay for transmit, but hearing the trouble with it makes me hesitate.

    Dan

  30. #30 midbach says:

    Cyberduck. Great FTP and reasonable update frequency.

  31. #31 Justin Crittenden says:

    I admit to using Cyberduck everyday myself and never having had a problem, But its just as easy to use OSX’s Built-in FTP services… (Command-K: connect to server)

  32. #32 Amit Karmakar says:

    Transmit surely! Never had a single problem. Love it for its simplicity and you gotta love docksend and the ability to FTP multiple sites through the tab(I don’t use it frequently but its a great feature to have)

  33. #33 Ryan says:

    I used Cyberduck for ages (well, about 6 months) before folding and buying transmit. Cyberduck caused me various problems such as:

    Slow transfers, constant seemingly-random crashing, issues connecting to random servers (one day it would work, next it wouldn’t), and the general lack of polish of the UI.

    I switched to transmit and loved it so much I took 20 minutes to write a long thank you to the developers (who are the coolest guys). I’ve never had any reason to write for support but I got a reply to my ‘great product guys!’ email in less than a day, from one of the founders noless!

    I’m glad I haven’t had the problems some people are quoting here, but I’ve gotta say, you must be doing something wrong becuase Transmit has been more than flawless for me. And I’m not exactly a newb either, I use quite a wide variety of ftp servers in quite a variety of ways. All the ftp servers I connect to are on various OS’ (bsd, winblows eXtra Painful, mac, various linux distros, even a really old win98 box).

    Lucky me I guess :p

  34. #34 Bill Goggin says:

    Like Tim, I’ve been having good luck with Interarchy. It’s really fast.

  35. #35 dalton says:

    I’ve been a Transmit user since I switched to Mac professionally about a year ago. I’m a heavy FTP user, managing almost a dozen sites, and never have a problem with it. I especially like the ability to edit remote files in my favorite editor. Not just text files (BBEdit), but graphic files too (Photoshop). Killer feature in my book. Plus droplets. I’m in love.

  36. #36 Jason Terhorst says:

    I’ve been using Trasmit, in combination with SubEthaEdit (instead of TextMate, whose quirks were driving me crazy). In fact, I’ve been using them together for a while.

    One of my professors called me a moron for not using his prescribed Dreamweaver workflow. I can’t stand that clunky, slow app.

  37. #37 Daniel Sofer says:

    I use both Transmit and Dreamweaver for ftp, depending on what I’m doing. Every ftp program I ever used has had SOME reliability problems, but it always seems more issues with the ftp protocol itself or server timeouts, than something with the program…

  38. #38 Thijs says:

    Have been using BBEdit and Transmit. Extremely happy with both. Used to work with Dreamweaver (code FTP), but found it too limited for both purposes.

  39. #39 Billifer von Raptor says:

    There was a thread similar to this at The Unofficial Apple Weblog last week, in which the various merits of YummyFTP and Cyberduck were debated.

    Since I commented on that post, I’ve resolved essentially all the issues I’ve had with Cyberduck and still continue to use it as my FTP app of choice. I tried Yummy and found that it was not all that delicious after all. I like Cyberduck so much, in fact, that I donated cold, hard euros to the project, even though it’s freeware.

    The developer, David Kocher, is very prompt is answering emails, bugs filed in the tracking system, etc., and seems to be totally on top of adding a lot of new features current users are asking for in upcoming releases.

    My recommendation is 100 percent for Cyberduck!

  40. #40 filipp says:

    I rely pretty heavily on FTP and use Transmit. I can’t say it’s perfect - I still get some weird situations from time to time (like not being able to connect to a Favourite, then clicking on the globe icon and just connecting). Also have had some connection timeouts resulting in empty files on the server which was pretty scary, (luckily I still had the document open in BBEdit, this might’ve been a network problem, but I think an FTP client should be able to handle, or at least notify of such situations) but I’ve used it for quite a while and am generally *very* happy with it.

    Panic’s customer service has always worked well for me and I really like them as a company.

    The first FTP client I really used was Interarchy (back when it was still called Anarchy) and I really liked it but it’s just gotten a little over the top for me (I don’t feel like learning a massive app for something as simple as FTP) but I can totally see why many power-users would prefer it.

  41. #41 Marco says:

    Reluctant Transmit user. Its apparent simplicity is what sells it, and Cabel and co have always done right by me, right back to when they were still shipping Audion.

    Interarchy really is the better ftp client in terms of connection reliability and transfer speed, but its multi window management is irritating.

    I believe it was previously titled “Anarchie” (ie: an Archie, the original search engine for FTP archives)

  42. #42 filipp says:

    You’re right, it was Anarchie, not Anarchy :) I remember they had the coolest About box that showed your “online rank” based on how much you had transfered. I was particularly proud of my “net assasin” status using a 28.8kbit modem…

  43. #43 DinghyGuy says:

    I use cyberduck. It is free, works consisistnetly, and has great Quicksilver integration. Can send files via quicksilver directly to bookmarked servers.

  44. #44 Jesse says:

    Fetch

  45. #45 Somazx says:

    Cyberduck. It has a nice clean, minimal interface. You really shouldn not need a local file browsing window (like Transmit has). You really shouldn’t have to pay ~$30 for FTP either. skEdit was mentioned - and I payed for and used it a while, but overall it has too many little bugs. imo. TextMate is my editor of choice … I wish it had built in FTP tho - or some means of supporting projects through S/FTP. Actually what I really wish is that OS X natively had ‘really good’ ™ S/FTP support. Then this discussion wouldn’t be happening =)

  46. #46 Banagor says:

    I have to throw my weight in here for Cyberduck.

    Haven’t tried most of the others, but that’s because I never have had to. Cyberduck is free, clean, fast, has never bugged out on me, and is updated on a regular basis.

    It also has a really awesome and fun icon.

    Seriously, how can you go wrong? Cyberduck it is.

  47. #47 Dave says:

    Cyberduck or Fugu :D

  48. #48 Lomovogt says:

    I used Transmit, but switched to Cyberduck. Very reliable on SFTP, integrates nicely with Quicksilver and Growl - and it’s free! Why should I use another one? (Besides: they all are by far better than all the crappy windows-clients)

  49. #49 Avi Flax says:

    CyberDuck! Love it!

  50. #50 anders says:

    I hate to admit it but I use Transmit because it is so damn good looking. All the icons and UI are lickable. There must be better reasons to use Transmit since it works so well but my reason is purely aesthetics.

  51. #51 Jan says:

    I use Fetch because it’s very reliable.

  52. #52 Marcus Wortley says:

    FTPeel, though I will go away and try Transmit since loads here seem to be using it and I have never tried it?

  53. #53 PBenz says:

    Transmit. It’s simple, elegant, and works every time for me. I did have to contact support once, though, about the .Mac sync not working, and never got a response.

  54. #54 Alan says:

    Fetch. Works like a charm - never had a problem.

  55. #55 Doug!as says:

    Dang. I just fire up Terminal and ftp into the site. I do it all via the shell. Guess that makes me old school, but it’s fast and reliable.

    ~Douglas
    ~=~
    http://thesplinteredmind.blogspot.com - Overcoming Neurological Disabilities With Lots Of Humor And Attitude

  56. #56 L. Hunt says:

    Interarchy, I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned more often by respondents. It can be as simple or as complete as the user wishes.

  57. #57 Tekl says:

    I recommend Yummy http://FTP. It’s very customizable and has an easy interface. It’s also very reliable and stable. The developer is very responsive and it seems that Yummy FTP is one of the fastest ftp clients.

  58. #58 Old Salt says:

    I used Cyberduck for more than one year but was upset with its lack of any auto-reconnect /resume feature.
    I gave a try to Yummy FTP and purchased it.
    It’s easy to use, reliable, reconnects and resumes automatically flawlessly.

  59. #59 Aaron Jacobs says:

    Hey, I’m Aaron Jacobs, the author of OneButton http://FTP. Jon Kantro said that it seems that OBFTP is no longer in development. I can understand that impression since I have not had time to work on it for quite awhile — I’m the sole developer and have had a killer year in school.

    But it’s not the case that the project is dead. In fact, I’ve got quite a few things that I want to implement this summer, and hope to make a 1.0 release sometime in the future. I won’t commit to any specific timeline because it will just slip, but it’s definitely a goal for me.

    Also, despite a lack of time to work on the code, I’ve been responding to e-mails about bugs and feature requests all along. So if you have something to say, let me know.

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  62. #62 Dave says:

    ForkLift is my latest favorite: http://www.binarynights.com
    Unbelievably fast and sophisticated. It is still in beta but set up a new standard for me.
    It handles FTP/SFTP and it can even copy between two servers.

  63. #63 michael says:

    There are a number of good Mac FTP clients. Cyberduck is adequate for personal websites but way too slow for pro work. Fugu is also okay for free. But if you design for a living the $25-$30 that a quality FTP client costs is more than worth the money.

    Yummy FTP is my favorite. It has good feature match with Transmit but moves multiple files much more quickly. Unlike Cyberduck (or Filezilla) I can trust it to transfer all the files of a large site. I use Yummy’s scheduled syncs for multiple sites and drop folders for sites I’m currently designing. It’s the only Mac FTP client that comes close to transferring files as quickly as a Windows program. The built in OS X FTP functions than most Mac FTP clients incorporate are noticeably slow in this regard.

    Crush FTP and Captain FTP also have nice feature sets. All of the clients offer free demo periods. Try them out.

    Interarchy is powerful but I’m not willing to pay extra for its system admin features that I don’t use. Fetch, unfortunately hasn’t kept up with the other quality FTP clients.

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