Comparison
Telnety vs PuTTY — the modern SSH client for Windows 11
PuTTY has served Windows sysadmins for more than two decades and is still a perfectly good free SSH client. Telnety is built for the next twenty years: tabs, six protocols in one window, an encrypted vault, and the same free price for personal use.
Where PuTTY shines
- PuTTY is genuinely free (MIT licensed), audited by the community, and ships a tiny single-file executable that runs anywhere.
- It has unmatched longevity — sessions, keys, and habits built around PuTTY have worked for over twenty years and will keep working.
- The companion tools (PuTTYgen for keys, Pageant for agent, plink for scripting) are well understood and widely documented.
Feature comparison
All claims about PuTTY reflect their public marketing and documentation. Where PuTTY does better, we say so.
| Feature | Telnety | PuTTY |
|---|---|---|
| Protocols | ||
| SSH | ||
| Telnet | ||
| Serial console | ||
| Rlogin | ||
| RDP | ||
| VNC | ||
| SFTP | Built-in dual-pane browser | Separate tool (WinSCP / pscp) |
| Tools | ||
| Tabbed sessions | ||
| Split panes | ||
| Built-in network tools | 36 tools (ping, traceroute, DNS, port scan, subnet calc, etc.) | None bundled |
| SSH key generation | Built-in (Ed25519, RSA, ECDSA) | PuTTYgen (separate executable) |
| Session save / restore | ||
| Snippet manager | ||
| Security | ||
| Credential vault | AES-256-GCM + Argon2id | |
| Biometric unlock (Windows Hello) | ||
| SSH agent | Built-in | Pageant (separate) |
| Host key TOFU prompts | ||
| Session recording | Asciicast v2 | Logging to file only |
| Productivity | ||
| Command palette (Ctrl+K) | ||
| Quick-connect dialog | ||
| MCP AI server | v1.1 preview | |
| Plugin ecosystem | v1.1 preview | |
| Pricing | ||
| Personal / hobbyist use | Free Community (5 hosts, all 6 protocols) | Free, unlimited |
| Power user | Pro: $9.99 / month | Free |
| Team management | Team: $19.99 / user / month | None built-in |
| Commercial use | Allowed on every tier | Allowed (MIT license) |
| Cross-platform | ||
| Windows 10 / 11 | ||
| macOS | Community ports only | |
| Linux | Source build; community packages | |
| Android | ||
| Privacy | ||
| Telemetry default | Off | None (PuTTY does not phone home) |
| No account required to install | ||
| Open data formats for sessions | JSON export | Windows Registry |
Pricing, side by side
Public list prices for both products. Always confirm in your billing currency before committing.
Telnety
- All 6 protocols (SSH, RDP, VNC, SFTP, Telnet, Serial)
- 5 saved hosts
- Basic terminal tools
- 1 device activation
- Community forum support
Or $99.99/year billed yearly · billed in USD via Paddle
- Everything in Community
- Unlimited saved hosts
- All 36 built-in tools
- AES-256-GCM credential vault
- Session recording & playback
- MCP AI server (v1.1)
- Plugin ecosystem (v1.1)
- 3 device activations
- Priority email support
Yearly: $199.99/user/year billed annually
- Everything in Pro
- Shared vault with team roles
- SSO / SAML
- Audit logging
- Admin dashboard
- Custom plugin deployment
- Dedicated support with SLA
PuTTY
- SSH, Telnet, Rlogin, Serial
- Per-session windows
- PuTTYgen for SSH keys
- Pageant for SSH agent
- pscp / psftp for file transfer
- No support contract; community forums
Importing from PuTTY
PuTTY stores saved sessions in the Windows registry. Telnety's import wizard reads those keys, pulls out hostnames, ports, usernames, key paths, and per-host options, and creates the equivalent host entries in your Telnety host tree.
1. Export your PuTTY sessions from the registry
On Windows, open Registry Editor, navigate to the PuTTY sessions key, right-click and choose 'Export'. Save it as a .reg file.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY\Sessions2. Or use the portable export from PuTTY itself
From a command prompt, run the reg.exe export command. The resulting file is a plain UTF-16 .reg file that Telnety reads directly.
reg export "HKCU\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY" putty-sessions.reg3. Open Telnety's import wizard
In Telnety, go to File → Import → From PuTTY. Pick the .reg file. Telnety parses each session key into a host entry: hostname, port, protocol, username, and 'Private key file for authentication' becomes the Telnety SSH key reference.
4. Migrate your PuTTYgen keys
PuTTYgen stores keys in PuTTY's own .ppk format. Telnety uses OpenSSH format. Use PuTTYgen → Conversions → Export OpenSSH key to produce a compatible private key.
# Or from the command line with puttygen.exe puttygen mykey.ppk -O private-openssh -o mykey5. Confirm and import
Review the host tree Telnety proposes. You can flatten or re-group sessions before clicking Import. Telnety stores everything locally; the .reg file is not modified.
Why teams switch
“PuTTY is the tool I used my entire career. Telnety is the first replacement that imported all four hundred of my saved sessions without losing a single setting.”
“Half my desk used to be PuTTY plus WinSCP plus the Windows Remote Desktop window plus a VNC viewer. Telnety collapses that into one tabbed window with the same free price for personal use.”
“We kept PuTTY for compliance reasons for years. Once Telnety added Ed25519 signed releases and a documented build, our security team approved it as a PuTTY replacement.”
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers to the questions teams ask when comparing PuTTY and Telnety.
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