ConchshellConchshell vs Cyberduck: one moves files, one runs the session
Cyberduck is a file transfer client. Conchshell is a session client that happens to transfer files. Most of what follows comes out of that sentence. If your week is buckets, shares and cloud drives, Cyberduck covers ground we do not touch. If it is a shell prompt with a Windows box and an FTPS server beside it, the gap runs the other way. Everything about Cyberduck here was read from its documentation, repository and store listings on 20 August 2026.
The overlap is smaller than the search results imply
Both applications speak SFTP and both speak FTPS, and that is roughly where the shared ground ends. Cyberduck's documented protocol index runs to nineteen entries, including SMB, WebDAV, S3, Azure Blob, Backblaze B2, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint and Box, plus vetted profiles for around thirty S3-compatible services.
Conchshell's list is four items long: SSH, SFTP, FTPS and RDP, plus monitoring of the host you are already on. No object storage, no Drive, no SharePoint, and none of that is a roadmap tease. The useful question is not which client is better, but which of those two lists your week is made of.
Where the shell actually lives
Cyberduck has no terminal emulator. Open in Terminal launches something else: Terminal.app or iTerm2 on macOS, PuTTY, ssh.exe or WSL bash on Windows. Send Command is a one-shot dialogue their documentation limits to FTP and SFTP, meant for reloading a config, not for working. If your day alternates between typing and copying, you keep two applications and two host lists, and the terminal you land in knows nothing about the bookmark you clicked.
Conchshell puts both in one window: a real PTY, xterm.js drawn on the GPU, panes split four ways, tab groups, sessions restored at launch, search and clickable links in the scrollback. The two-panel file browser sits beside it, with a transfer queue showing speed and ETA, directory compare and sync, and remote files opened in your own editor and written back on save.
RDP, and the Linux desktop that never came
Cyberduck has no remote desktop and has never claimed one. The protocol index has nineteen entries and not one of them is RDP or Telnet. If a Windows server is part of your day, that is a second application on the dock.
Conchshell has RDP in the same window as the terminal, with a limit worth knowing before you download: CredSSP (NLA) only, no fallback. A host with NLA switched off will not connect, and this is not parity with mstsc.
Linux is the other split. The Cyberduck desktop application is macOS and Windows only. The duck command-line tool ships for Linux at version parity, 9.5.3 in the official APT repository on 20 August 2026, but the GUI has never existed there and the 2023 request for one was closed as a duplicate. Conchshell ships .deb, .rpm and .AppImage of the same application you run on a Mac.
The price conversation, which goes differently here
Most comparison pages on this site are about a subscription. This one is not. Cyberduck is free software under GPLv3: nothing gated, no trial, no per-seat tier, source on GitHub for anyone who wants to read it before trusting it. Their donate page, read on 20 August 2026, offers a registration key in return for a donation of $10 or more, and that key switches off the donation prompt. On the same day both stores listed a build at $23.99 one-time.
Conchshell: the application is free on every platform, and one feature is paid, syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once. That is an introductory price and it becomes $29 later. Not a subscription, updates included, key checked offline. Neither product has an account and neither runs a cloud; syncing here mirrors the encrypted vault into a folder you already sync, iCloud Drive or Dropbox or a git checkout, and without such a folder only the first copy travels, by a code read off the desktop screen.
On price alone Cyberduck wins and it is not close. If a bucket browser is what you need, you should not be paying us anything.
The small frictions that decide a week
Keyboard shortcuts in Cyberduck are fixed. Asked in February 2025, the maintainer pointed at macOS System Settings, Keyboard, App Shortcuts, which matches menu items by exact title; no Windows equivalent was offered. Conchshell has a shortcut editor in its settings.
Bookmarks leave Cyberduck easily and arrive badly: a .duck file exports by dragging it to the desktop, but import from another client is automatic at first launch only, and the docs say there is no manual import function. Conchshell reads and writes a JSON bundle of connections and settings in both directions, on demand, and keeps credentials in its own vault: XChaCha20-Poly1305, key derived by Argon2id, each one bound to host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host together. The interface can create a credential and delete it; it cannot read one back.
Where Conchshell fits better
- Half your day is a prompt: real PTY, four-way splits, tab groups, sessions restored at launch.
- There is a Windows host in the mix and you would rather not run a second application for it.
- Your desktop is Linux and you want the application, not the command-line tool.
- You watch machines as well as visiting them: live CPU, memory and process views, per-interface bandwidth, latency, several logs tailed at once with regex filters.
- You rebind keys and expect a client to let you.
Where Cyberduck is the better tool
- If your files live in S3 this is not a contest: versioning, lifecycle rules, Glacier restore, storage classes, ACL editing, pre-signed URLs, a CloudFront panel. We have no object storage at all, and none is planned.
- Enterprise identity that takes years to build: AWS IAM Identity Center, Microsoft Entra ID, OIDC via AssumeRoleWithWebIdentity, STS AssumeRole, the credential_process directive.
- It reads your ~/.ssh/config, honouring IdentityFile, IdentitiesOnly and ProxyJump, so a bastion configured once for OpenSSH works untouched. Conchshell does not read that file, and it has no ssh-agent support either, so a key held only by an agent needs its file on disk.
- It is GPLv3 on GitHub, so a security claim about it can be checked rather than believed, and iterate GmbH is a named company standing behind the build. Conchshell's source is not published, so every claim on this page has to be taken on trust or tested on your own machine.
- Cryptomator vaults are built in with the crypto documented down to the chunk size, plus roughly thirty-eight interface languages and an MSI made for corporate deployment.
Running the two side by side
- Install Conchshell from the download page: 9.1 MB to download for version 2.15.1, and 18 MB on disk on Apple silicon, measured on 3 August 2026 against version 2.10.1. On macOS 13 and later the first launch goes through System Settings, Privacy and Security, Open Anyway; on macOS 12 that switch sits in System Preferences, Security and Privacy, General.
- Leave Cyberduck where it is. Nothing here reads .duck files, and a bucket or a Cryptomator vault still belongs to it.
- Rebuild one host by hand first, the one you open most: address, port, username, and the jump host if there is one. If another client left you a JSON bundle, import that instead of typing.
- Re-enter that host's credentials once. They were never in the .duck file, they sat in the Keychain or Credential Manager, and Conchshell keeps them out of its own export by design.
- Point Conchshell at the private key where it already sits; encrypted keys with a passphrase work. With no ssh-agent support, a key that only an agent holds needs its file on disk.
- Confirm the host key once. Conchshell keeps its own trust-on-first-use fingerprint store, the confirmation is drawn by the operating system rather than by the application, and RDP and FTPS certificates go through the same check.
Questions people actually ask
Is Conchshell really free?
The application is free on every platform and there is no trial to expire. One feature is paid: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once, an introductory price that becomes $29 later, updates included and the key checked offline. Terminal, SFTP, FTPS, RDP and host monitoring all work without paying anything, and nothing greys itself out after a few weeks.
Does Cyberduck do RDP?
No. Their documented protocol index held nineteen entries when it was read on 20 August 2026, and not one of them is a remote-desktop protocol. Cyberduck is a file transfer and storage browser and has never advertised otherwise. Conchshell has RDP in the same window as the terminal, over CredSSP (NLA) only, so a host with NLA disabled will not connect.
Do I need an account for either of them?
Neither has one. Cyberduck's only identity is an optional .cyberducklicense file emailed after a donation and applied locally, with no vendor cloud behind it. Conchshell has no account at all, and syncing connections works by mirroring the encrypted vault into a folder you already sync, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git checkout, rather than through a server of ours. Without such a folder only the first copy moves across, by a code read off the desktop screen.
Can Cyberduck open an SSH terminal?
Not inside itself. Open in Terminal hands the session to Terminal.app, iTerm2, PuTTY, ssh.exe or WSL bash, and Send Command runs a single command in a dialogue their documentation limits to FTP and SFTP. That is enough to reload a config; it is not a place to work. There are no terminal tabs, panes or scrollback.
Is there a Cyberduck for Linux?
The duck command-line tool, yes, and it is kept at version parity: 9.5.3 in the official APT repository on 20 August 2026, matching the desktop release. The graphical application has never existed for Linux, and the 2023 request for one was closed as a duplicate. Conchshell installs on Linux as an ordinary application, from .deb, .rpm or .AppImage.
Does Conchshell handle S3 buckets?
No, and not Google Drive, SharePoint, WebDAV or SMB either. The list is SSH, SFTP, FTPS, RDP and monitoring of the host you are connected to. If object storage is a real part of your week, keep Cyberduck for it. Running both is a sensible answer and the one most readers of this page will land on.
Is Cyberduck free for commercial use?
GPLv3 permits it and there is no per-seat tier or enterprise product on their site, so organisations do deploy it freely. Their documentation does not say free for commercial use in those words, so run it past whoever signs off licences where you work. The practical office objection is usually the donation prompt rather than the licence.
Two tools, one dock
Nothing here argues that Cyberduck should be uninstalled. It is two decades old, free, auditable, and better than us at everything involving a bucket or a shared drive.
What it does not do is hand you a shell, a remote desktop or a Linux window, and it does not pretend to. If those three are why you keep switching applications all day, that is the whole case for putting Conchshell beside it, and testing it costs nothing.