Free FTP
Taking an advantage of the data transfer capabilities of the File Transfer Protocol is possible through a variety of FTP software programs available on the Internet, which includes both free and paid solutions. The most popular of them are the ones distributed for free.
Free FTP Client
The FTP clients are programs which offer the users a work-friendly file manipulation interface. There are many FTP clients available and some of the most popular are Freeware.
Although offered at no cost, the free FTP client tools have proven to be very useful thanks to their simple interface. All free FTP clients are developed on an open-source basis, which means that they undergo extensive testing and constant performance monitoring by their large supporting communities.
Free FTP Server
If you are asking yourself how to run your own FTP but don't want to buy expensive FTP Server software, it's a good decision to look at the offers provided by the open-source community. Actually, there are a number of secure and fast, quality Free FTP server solutions. Some of them are designed for a specific platform but others offer installation on multiple OSs. Some are light, fast, and run only as a system service. They are managed only via a command line, while others provide a feature-rich graphic interface and can be easily managed through GUI.
No matter what kind of Open-source FTP server you are running, you need to specify the server's root folder, which will contain all the FTP sharing data (if you want to share data which is outside the server’s root folder you can do it by creating a symlink). Optionally, you can set an upload folder (within the root directory) where the newly uploaded files will be stored in case you don't want to give write permissions to all your FTP sharings. Also, it is recommended that you create user accounts and set user privileges. If you decide to not create separate FTP user accounts, you can set the server to use an anonymous login.
We, at NTC Hosting, understand our clients’ needs. We provide a premium FTP hosting service with all our web hosting accounts. All our hosting plans come with a web-based FTP manager, which allows our clients to easily create FTP users, manage their FTP passwords, edit the upload path of all their FTP accounts. Also, our FTP server is compatible with all popular FTP client programs and allows connections with both Active and Passive mode.
Cross-platform free software
The free FTP program types distributed online include clients and servers suitable for use under either one specific Operating System or multiple environments.
The most popular multi-OS clients are FileZilla, FireFTP and CrossFTP (for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X), supporting SFTP (Secure FTP) and SSL secured connections, and the Curl command line tool used on all possible OSs you could imagine.
Windows-specific FTP clients include the FTP Surfer, which has an Internet Explorer-like user interface, and Core FTP LE, i.FTP and RightFTP, which come with a source code. The most widely used Linux FTP clients are FtpCube, gFTP and the Prozilla Linux Download Accelerator, supporting file download via FTP and HTTP protocols. The Mac OS X clients worth mentioning are the Cyberduck FTP/SFTP browser, Fugu, supporting SFTP, SCP and SSH, and the graphical OneButton FTP.
Some of the most used cross-platform FTP servers that provide a GUI are the Filezilla Server, the CrossFTP Server, Pure-FTPd, the Java-based Apache FTP Server. Another popular open-source solution only for the Windows operation system is the War FTP Daemon. Also, the Windows users can choose between several quality proprietary pieces of software which also have free versions - these are: the Cerberus FTP Server, zFTPServer, GoldenFTP.
Multi OS
Program | Type | Price | Homepage | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
FileZilla | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
FireFTP | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
cURL | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
CrossFTP | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
For Windows
Program | Type | Price | Homepage | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
FTP Surfer | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
Core FTP LE | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
i.FTP | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
For Linux
Program | Type | Price | Homepage | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
FtpCube | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
gFTP | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
For MacOS
Program | Type | Price | Homepage | Download |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cyberduck | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |
Fugu | Open-source | FREE | Visit | Download |