ConchshellA PuTTY alternative, and what the move actually costs
Nobody goes looking for a PuTTY alternative because PuTTY costs money. It is free, MIT-licensed, asks for no account, and it will still be free in ten years, which is more than most software on your machine can say.
People go looking when the machine changes, when one window per session stops scaling, or when carrying sessions to a new laptop means looking up the regedit incantation again. This page is about that move: what carries over, what you type again, and what you leave behind.
The three moments people actually switch
The first is a new Mac. There is no official PuTTY for macOS and none is coming: the project FAQ says ports have been started over the years and never finished, and doubts the core team will finish one. The 0.85 download page of 16 August 2026 lists Windows binaries for four architectures and a Unix source tarball. Homebrew's third-party formula gives you plink, pscp and psftp, which is a command line rather than the window you know.
The second is the host list outgrowing one window per session, which is the gap MTPuTTY, SuperPuTTY, QuTTY and KiTTY were all built to patch. The third is counting the programs open beside PuTTY, usually WinSCP for files and Remote Desktop Connection for the Windows box, and noticing the terminal is one of four.
If none of that is happening to you, stay where you are. Nothing below is an argument that PuTTY is bad software.
What comes across, and what you type again
Sessions do not export. They sit in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY, unencrypted, and manual section 4.33 says outright that storing configuration in a file is not supported before handing you a batch-file recipe. A regedit dump gives you a readable .reg with hosts, ports, usernames and the SshHostKeys fingerprints, and that file is a reference sheet rather than an import file, because Conchshell reads its own JSON bundle and nothing else.
Keys convert once each, in PuTTYgen, through Conversions and Export OpenSSH key. Passwords do not come across at all: PuTTY never stored any, and the Conchshell JSON export leaves credentials out on purpose. You type each one once more, after which it is bound to that host, port, user, proxy chain and jump host and is not offered anywhere else.
Where they go: a store encrypted with XChaCha20-Poly1305, its key derived by Argon2id from a master phrase, with independent slots for that phrase, the system keychain and a recovery code. The application can create a credential and delete it; it cannot read one back, because there is no command that does. Host keys are trust on first use, and the operating system draws the confirmation.
One window instead of three
Tabs, tab groups, tabs you can drag, and a pane you can split four ways. Sessions come back when you reopen the application, local terminal tabs run your own shell and remember their directory, and the scrollback has a search, which the PuTTY tracker still lists as an open wish. Shortcuts are rebindable per action in settings, where PuTTY's Keyboard panel only decides which bytes a key sends to the server.
Files stay in that same window: two panes with drag and drop, a queue with progress, speed, ETA, cancel and retry, directory compare in four explicit steps, and remote files opened in your own editor so that saving pushes them back. FTPS, meaning FTP over TLS rather than SFTP, runs over rustls and checks the system root certificate store; PuTTY has neither FTP nor FTPS. RDP arrives with its limit written on the tin: CredSSP, that is NLA, only, with no fallback, so a host with NLA off will not connect and mstsc stays installed for that one.
There is also a view of the machine PuTTY was never meant to give you: CPU, memory, disk and processes with live graphs, bandwidth per interface, latency and open connections, and a log viewer that tails several sources at once with level filters and regex.
Two machines, one host list
This is the part that costs money, and it is the only part. Carrying your saved connections between your own machines is $19 once, an introductory price that rises to $29. It is a purchase rather than a subscription, updates are included, no limit counts your machines, and the key is checked on your own machine without a network.
It works by mirroring the encrypted store into a folder you already sync, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git checkout, so nothing of ours sits in that path and there is nothing to sign into. The honest limit: without such a folder only the first copy travels, by reading a code off the desktop screen.
Worth moving if this is your week
- You have switched to a Mac and Homebrew's command-line tools are not what you wanted.
- You have more hosts than fit in one alphabetical list, with no folders to put them in.
- You open WinSCP daily and would rather drag the file across in the terminal window.
- There is an FTPS server or an NLA-enabled Windows host in your week.
- You have two machines and no wish to move the host list through the registry again.
What you give up by leaving
- Serial lines, Telnet, Rlogin and raw TCP. Conchshell has none of them. A console cable, a switch or a BMC is still PuTTY's job, which on its own is reason to leave it installed.
- Port forwarding, X11 forwarding and GSSAPI single sign-on, plus OpenSSH host and user certificates. Conchshell has proxies and a jump host, and no tunnels of any kind.
- Pageant. Conchshell talks to no key agent, so it is a password, a private key, or an encrypted key with its passphrase, typed into the application.
- A 1.7 MB executable that needs no installer and no administrator rights, runs from a memory stick and clears up after itself with putty -cleanup. Conchshell is a 9.1 MB download and 18 MB on disk on Apple silicon, measured 20 August 2026, its Windows installer fetches Microsoft Edge WebView2 from the network when the machine has none, and beside each release it publishes SHA256SUMS with detached .sig files only on the packages the updater installs, never on either .dmg. On plenty of corporate builds PuTTY is already on the approved-software list, which no new client clears quickly.
- Post-quantum key exchange: NTRU Prime since 0.78 and ML-KEM since 0.83. Conchshell is on russh 0.44 with its default set, led by curve25519-sha256, which is not post-quantum.
The move, step by step
- Before touching anything, dump what PuTTY holds: regedit /e %userprofile%\Desktop\putty-sessions.reg HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY. Open it in a text editor; hosts, ports, usernames and the SshHostKeys fingerprints are all readable. On Linux the equivalent is the ~/.putty directory.
- Convert the keys you actually use: PuTTYgen, Conversions, Export OpenSSH key, once per .ppk. The .ppk file stays where it is, so PuTTY keeps working while you decide.
- Install Conchshell and add the hosts by hand from that file, or write the JSON bundle it imports, which is quicker past thirty hosts. There is no PuTTY importer and there is not going to be one, because a .reg is a registry dump.
- Type each password once, then reconnect to check it comes back. Anything saved against the wrong port, proxy chain or jump host will not be offered again, since that is what a credential is bound to.
- Confirm host keys against the SshHostKeys fingerprints in your .reg as you go. The prompt comes from the operating system rather than from the application.
- Give it a fortnight before you uninstall anything. Serial, Telnet, port forwarding, X11 and Pageant stay with PuTTY, the two share no settings, and nothing collides.
Questions people actually ask
Is it really free, or does it ask for money later?
The application is free on macOS, Windows and Linux, with no trial clock and nothing that greys out. One feature costs money: syncing saved connections between your own machines, $19 once, an introductory price that rises to $29. It is a purchase rather than a subscription, updates are included and no limit counts your machines. PuTTY is free in a stronger sense, being MIT-licensed with no paid feature at all, and that is worth saying plainly.
Do I have to make an account?
No, and there is nothing to make one with. There is no cloud, no sign-in and no vendor server in the path; the licence key is verified on your own machine, offline. If you buy syncing, the encrypted store is mirrored into a folder you already sync, such as iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git checkout, and it travels by that route rather than through us.
Does PuTTY have a built-in SFTP file manager?
It does not. SFTP comes as PSFTP and PSCP, separate command-line programs; the PuTTY window has no file pane and takes no dragged files. A graphical client is a low-priority wish, and the project's own links page recommends WinSCP and FileZilla, both of which grew out of PuTTY's SSH code. Conchshell has the two panes in the terminal window.
How do I move my PuTTY sessions to a new computer?
PuTTY has no export, so you dump the registry: regedit /e putty-sessions.reg HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY, copy the file over, import it there. Coming to Conchshell, that .reg is your reference sheet rather than an import file, because Conchshell reads its own JSON bundle. Passwords are not in the dump, since PuTTY stores none.
Will it open my .ppk key files?
Convert them first. In PuTTYgen, use Conversions and Export OpenSSH key, which writes an ordinary private key file. Conchshell authenticates with a password, a private key, or an encrypted key together with its passphrase. Keep the .ppk as well if you are staying on PuTTY for serial work, since the conversion does not remove it.
Can I keep using PuTTY as well?
Yes, and most people should. They share no settings, so nothing collides: PuTTY reads the registry, Conchshell keeps its own store. Serial lines, Telnet, port forwarding, X11 and Pageant stay with PuTTY, because Conchshell does none of those. The point is not to remove it but to stop asking it to do things it was never built for.
Is there a PuTTY for Mac I am missing?
There is no official one. The FAQ says Mac ports have been started over the years and never finished, and doubts the core team will finish one. Homebrew has a third-party formula that gives you plink, pscp and psftp; the project does not build or support a macOS GUI. Anything in a store calling itself PuTTY is somebody else's work, which the FAQ says about the mobile stores too.
Before you download anything
Be clear about what you are replacing. If PuTTY is your serial console and your tunnel builder, none of this touches that, and the sensible outcome is two clients on one machine rather than one.
If it is the SSH window you use because it was there in 2009, and you now keep two other programs open beside it, that is the part Conchshell replaces. The application is free to try against your own servers and nothing expires; the only money involved is $19, once, and only if you want the same host list on more than one machine.