Torrent client rankings

Whoever designed that seems like they have something against transmission lol.

For me personally: it gets the job done, is allowed by most private trackers, fast and responsive, has a functional webui, and a very vast selection of third party apps (in addition to the cross platform first-party offering)

It's simplicity is kind of its selling point. Only real criticism I have is that it's unfortunate some of the supported features aren't accessible in the first party apps, and especially from the lightweight web interface

Yeah, seems weird that simple "it downloads torrents" client gets a D. It gets the job done, is easy to figure out, and doesnt fuck about with features I would never touch. Maybe thats not enough for a power user but for me its exactly what I want.

(but then why is Tixati in B, seems to have mostly downsides?)
- It's gone the job done for me, for over 16 years now. It was the only real option for Mac computers back in University. I still use it to this day.
- (but then why is Tixati in B, seems to have mostly downsides?)
  
  You need to read it again more carefully. Lightweight, highly customisable and feature-rich is why it is that high.
- They say "barely lacks any features" which I think they mean it's full featured. I feel like Transmission and rTorrent are good clients for their niche though.
Yeah, I've used qbittorrent, deluge, utorrent, and a number of other clients over the years. I greatly prefer transmission. I don't need my torrent client to do anything but download and seed.

I bet this person hates GIMP too.
Came here to defend transmission. Glad to see so many compatriots.
And Qbit also has network binding, which is the single most important feature for me as a VPN user.
It made by /g/, what could you asked for, haha
I use transmission because I can install it from Ubuntu repos and it runs from the command line in Ubuntu server.
I dropped Transmission because I found it had severe performance problems with very large torrents. qBittorrent has been great.
- Never had an issue with anything

Transmission is awesome because it's simple. It only does what you need and has the best UI for doing so.

I'm caught between the dual urges of "reject tierlist, embrace tradition" and "I've been sleeping on over a decade of FOSS torrent client development, maybe it's time to up my game".
- Nah, someone is just using their torrent client as an F grade *arr and nbz360 solution.
  
  All the "features" listed as Pros is just bloat.
- I will say, as someone who used rTorrent some time ago to automate torrent downloading and whatnot, it was awesome. I’m glad to see it still going and gaining popularity.
  
  Stable software doing its job out of the way is what I want.
Given the community we're in, majority of us are power users and transmission is just way too feature light for most of us
- if the community we're in puts rtorrent in C tier because it's "UNIX only" then you and I have a different meaning of "power users".
- CLI controls are the ultimate power user feature :)
- If you need extra features you use extra programs which are tailored to those features. Unix philosophy.
And if you wanna put on your naughty shoes you can theme transmission just drag flood-ui files in and tada

qBittorrent is indeed the best, but ranking Transmission so low just screams edgy kid trying to dislike the "normie" alternative.

The "normie" alternative in this case is uTorrent. Only Linux users know about transmission lol

I feel like Transmission is getting unnecessary hate from this chart. It works very good, is stable, efficient...

its the perfect client for arr or just simple torreting
- I disagree, qbitorrent is better. Had problems with transmission in my arr docker VM.
It's lthe only one I'd use but...

It really is lacking basic functionality. Hell, o can't even order torrents that are currently running by size or % done, which would be really helpful if it existed

Also, I don't think it's actively developed anymore, I haven't seen an update in its functionality in at least 5 years, maybe even 10
- It's definitely still actively developed
- Hell, o can’t even order torrents that are currently running by size or % done
  
  Sure you can, click the gear icon and do it. Not hard.
  
  Also, I don’t think it’s actively developed anymore
  
  fud fud fud https://github.com/transmission/transmission/releases/tag/4.0.0
- Hell, o can't even order torrents that are currently running by size or % done, which would be really helpful if it existed
  
  Alright I'll stick with qbittorent
The only downside is no BEP 52 support.

This triggers me. Transmission is perfect.

Transmission is good precisely because it does one thing and one thing really well - download torrents. No other crap, spam and non-related garbage required.

It does not do it very well (no sequential downloads, tracker scanning etc) and others like qBitTorrent also do not come with spam nor unrelated garbage, only μTorrent does that.
- I get what you mean, but none of those downsides to Transmission are just "downloads torrents". So yes, it does do that very well, outside of special circumstances...

rTorrent “UNIX only” and c-tier. That says all you need to know about this list.

UNIX only has vague meaning. BSD is true UNIX, Darwin is butchered UNIX, Windows has POSIX compatibility enviroment(cygwin), Linux is POSIX.
- That was my point. Also BSD is not true Unix, it is Unix-like. Only Unix is Unix.
- MacOS is UNIX certified https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

I have seen this same image circulated for years. We need a new one because transmission in D tier is unacceptable.

Yeah "it does nothing but downloads torrents" is the selling point. It's the reason I exclusively use Transmission.
Transmission used to be my preferred app hands down but recent updates have negatively impacted its performance on my end. If all it needs to do is download torrents, why does it now sometimes seem incapable of connecting to a given (popular) swarm ?

Particularly unfortunate is that once it does connect, the download speed has now become arbitrary: it keeps alternating between 'incredibly fast' and 'surprisingly slow' and takes three or four times as long to complete. I've become so exasperated with it that I've been forced to move on (deluge instantly connects and consistently downloads at five times the speed).

Transmission as a server is very good and lightweight, specially if you pair it with something like Flood and the *arr apps

very bad at stuff like having set seed times before removing torrent, which is nice with qbittorrent
I've had an issue on a recent install in an LXC where it consumed more memory over time until a reboot. It hasn't really been an issue yet, but I will have to investigate and maybe switch to another webgui client.

This is out of date and Deluge is S tier.

It was rewritten and 2.0 came out in 2022 to address the slowdown issues when seeding a thousand plus torrents

qbittorrent all the way :)

I love the built in http server for remote control. It's literally a clone of the desktop window with all the same controls/options.

Is there an equivalent to "thin client" mode of Deluge, where you can connect the desktop version to a server and control it as if it was a local install, but the server does all the legwork?

It really makes the whole thing seamless.
- That would require installing client software though, no?
  
  Qbit is just a web app accessible from anything with a browser. (I keep mine behind a vpn for auth, but it's got http form based password auth aswell.)
Except the ability to create torrents.
- That's one of the only things you can't do via the web app, but there is a 'torrent creator' under the 'tools' menu. I haven't used it though so I can't really say how good it is.

BiglyBT having a chat feature boggles me, why would anyone want that in their torrent client?

To get in those private trackers
- Pretty much. It’s the “hey we’ve been chatting for a while now. Happen to have an invite?”
- Also once in, it's used for automatic downloads. So you immediately get the latest episodes of your shows.
I believe Tixati also has a chat feature

This post made me nostalgic for the days when uTorrent was the shit. Man, how the mighty have fallen.

Qbit has been around almost as long and has almost always been better. Qbit got apl the nostalgia i need lol

Transmission is probably one of the best clients to use in a headless setup. I think it usually ranks lower because it doesn't do a lot of things for you. What it does it does well, but nothing beyond that. Technically there is network binding, but by IP address and not interface. That means you have to script it which I know most people aren't going to want to do. As far as searching, again you have to rely on other services that probably do it better anyway. Still I rank it alongside qbittorrent. It just takes a less user or beginner friendly route.

I use it specifically for headless because of the convenience of many pre-made docker containers set up to use a VPN with Transmission.

Everyone sleeping on qBittorrent with the search plugin enabled. I never have to go to websites ever again, I can just pull from various domains with one search built into the program.

I use transmission because the arr's handle all searching. I never even see the torrent client.
- the arr's
  
  Wait, is the whole *arr naming scheme a joke around the pirate slang word, and thus pirating?
  
  How did I not realize this before???
- Yeah I find it odd that dedicated pirates would use anything else these days.
Yes but oftentimes is better to check the comments for issues/procedures
- Can still visit the download page from there
never got it working for me personally, but then again I have *arr apps so dont need it anywah
Which plugin do you use?
- You can enable it in the View menu at the top if I recall correctly.

Why would I want those extra features in my torrent client? My transmission runs in a container and does its job

Yep my other packages manage everything else, transmission is rarely logged into on the GUI side. KISS
Just the option to not have the new torrent dialog pop up every time is reason enough for me. And just proper sorting. And quick content overview.
Transmission is considered the worst. Blocked by most people and private trackers.
- My private tracker has multiple transmission versions on their approved list 🤷‍♂️

I think quite a few of us use torrents on a remote server, so the thin app / remote client combo mode that deluge/transmission support puts them ahead of any other for consideration.

Are you taking about remotely accessing the ~~insurance~~ interface from the web interface? Qbittorrent offers that, and honestly I think most of the clients on this list do as well?
- Nope, I mean a remote client. You get a full GUI on your local machine, but that actually is connected to a remote server, where the downloads actually take place. This has the extra responsiveness of an app vs a web UI, and you can also associate magnets/torrents as if it was a local app.

Transmission does have network binding. At least, i'm pretty sure it does. At least on Linux. It also has a cli interface and is a "full" client so it should at least be on par with rTorrent in that sense. It's not a great cli interface but it works.

It's got a web interface too.

rankings from /g/

everyone who is seriously replying to this: LOL

What's g?
- I believe it's 4chan
- 4channel's Technology board
  https://boards.4channel.org/g/
- Technology section of 4chan.
- I believe it is the gaming board from 4chan
- G-or mama
  
  spoiler
  
  Dont have a clue
Toxicity aside some of the generals on there are very informative

I like Transmission, it's minimal and downloads torrents.

May I also mention aria2? I don't think it counts as a torrent client but it supports torrenting.

Same. I never needed those bell & whistles from other apps and found Transmission to get the job done.

I switched from rtorrent to Transmission. It's the only one with a ready-to-use web server so I can add and monitor my torrents remotely.

I would never run a torrent program on my main computer. Not that there's (more) risks, it just feels wrong to me.

Does qbittorrent not have a ready-to-use web server? I don't recall setting mine up
- I was about to say. qBittorrent has the best web UI out of all IMO.
- Problem with that it's that it has Qt as dependency, therefore it's a bit of a hassle to run in a headless machine.
  
  But it's still a very solid option.
Good web UI and great client apps for multiple OS.
qbittorrent-nox mate. Its command line based. I run it as a service on a debian machine. WebUI as soon as you run it will all the features of qbittorrent. The default ui isnt great for mobile but you can replace it with VueTorrent which is so sleek.
- That's a great suggestion! I'll try this one, thank you!

I'd like to give PicoTorrent a shout-out on Windows. Small, lightweight, and open source.

https://github.com/picotorrent/picotorrent

A properly setup rTorrent is S tier.

Although rtorrent is a masterpiece, there hasn't been any development in years... of course it got behind and it's outdated now. Qbittorrent on the other hand really easy to work with and frequently updated.
- I'm using Qbittorrent now. Had a really slick rTorrent+Pyro setup that I lost and could never be arsed to figure out again ;)

Used qBittorrent for a long time now. No complaints. Ever since I've set up a home server, I almost exclusively use qBittorrent-nox now. Its qBittorrent, but headless! Runs all the time. Just use a web ui to access it. I can even run a reverse proxy and access it from afar!

Do you have to manually add magnet links?

I'll never understand the FOSS mentality of "There's already a quality project out there with active development and most of the user-share. Perfect, so I'll utilize my off-time to create my own inferior competitor and fragment the users instead of contribute to the existing one".

I mean, I get it if the existing project maintainers start acting with shady interests - the threat of the fork can be a powerful tool. But it seems like many of these alt projects do it right out of the gate. Meanwhile, it took linux desktop how long to get a functional wifi driver out of the box??

Likely what happens is that while the existing options are fine for the masses, a power user has a specific use case that is not covered by said options, so they create their own program to fit their specific needs. Eventually this new program evolves into something that is also useful to the masses, and that's how we get to where we are now with several good FOSS options.
A lot of it is just difference in vision. FOSS projects often have an owner and they might not be open to switch the direction of their project or be willing to maintain a large feature that someone wants to contribute.

there is also the “I rewrote it using Rust/Go/whatever because that makes it better” people.

has anyone ever heard of mottix?

I find it great, has a nice UI and it gets the job done.

also transmission is an S tier

Seconded for Transmission. It's light on features because (as far as I know) it's the only ine in this list that's built to run unattended in a Docker container, with a web interface.
- Qbitorrent, rtorrent and deluge can be run via docker with a web interface.
I used to use it but then I just downloaded aria2 (what motrix is using) and it's as fast as motrix with a little bit of configuration. aria2 supports both direct downloads and magnet links, it's a command line tool though

Does anybody know why Tixati is banned on private trackers? I switched from it quite a while ago but they didn't really say why.

It has a really easy to use User-Agent switcher so it can fake being a different torrent client. I'd love to use it however because of this it is a pretty much universally based client. It is possible to do on other clients however it isn't a dedicated menu in settings.
Your tracker should tell you why
- That's what I hoped but the FAQ doesn't say why. All it says is that it only accepts two clients, the S-tier ones on this list.

I switched from Transmission to qBittorrent a while ago, and I have some regrets: mainly that the qBittorrent web ui is extremely hard to navigate on mobile. Everything is tiny, and I can't zoom in and navigate around the page without right-click menus popping up

I use qBitController to check my torrent status, it works quite well for my needs. If you're on Android you could try it out..
- I use Tansdroid, I don't know how it compares to alternatives but I like it.
- If you use the 'arr suite of software, NZB360 is invaluable for controlling them from android.
  
  Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Prowlarr, your torrent and usenet clients, as well as any web app you want to add, all in the same place with a really smooth interface.
  
  It even combines the release calendars from them together into one. :)
Try the VueTorrent web UI. I use it on both mobile and desktop

ruTorrent makes rtorrent a lot more usable if you dont like the CLI.

I mean, it really is the only client that makes sense when you get more serious. It can seed 1000+ torrents without problems.

I use rtorrent+rutorrent for a web UI, and it’s starting to show its age…

Is there anything else out there that can handle 10,000+ torrents? I seed a lot of ebooks 🤓

Zero issues with Transmission. I seed way more than that. Putting it so low really indicates who put together this chart. Definitely an Ubuntu GUI-only user.

Torrent client is supposed to handle torrents. Transmission isn't lagging behind on any protocol features. All the other (very optional) features are trivially handled by docker/podman.
It's always like that, features over stability. I love seeding ebooks!

edit: if you use rtorrent, check out https://github.com/saltyorg/Saltbox it's an Ansible based solution for management and development

Welp, the lesson I have learned from this thread is that I should feel fine with transmission in my container set lol

Ranked by what?

(Features*(IsOSS+1)*EaseOfUse)/(1+(Ads))

just my guess

I guess Porla isn't in any of those tiers because it's in completely different league. It's still in early development, just give it some time.

https://porla.org/

Excuse me? Is that a torrent client with a proper API? Impossible.

Transmission can run as a daemon, that alones makes it S tier.

So can rTorrent
- should be S tier also, then.
I run Transmission on a VM that is permanently connected to a VPN. It dumps the completed files on an NFS share. I'm open to trying something different. Transmission seems like the best option.
What are the advantages to running it as a daemon outside of the obvious malicious ones?
- I run it headless in a small pc in my basement that I use as server. it also has an http api so other systems can integrate with it (eg another program that looks for torrents and pushes the torrents into it.

I forget what I use. I set Radarr/Sonarr and now it just happens.

I have to use it every once in a while when Radarr and Sonarr don’t know how to properly search for a show. How do I get it to recognize s01-s05 packs when I’m requesting s01-s05?

You forgot to include Tribler. Since it has some tor-like privacy features, it beats all of the mentioned ones.

Why do I feel like the home page is quietly flipping me off?

Not a great ranking imo, but the S tier is good

I love and use qbittorrent exclusively but it gets bogged down when it has lots of torrents going. A-tier at best.

It really doesn't.

Any of them also supports WebTorrent?

Why is Tixati banned?

Good list. Honestly, if it doesn't have network interface binding it's not a even an option for me. It's so important to keep your IP from leaking, it should be a priority feature.

I switched an old delapidated version of QBit a few years ago for Deluge, they're both cool I guess.

I am still using the last (ancient) version of Azureus (Vuze) because it has great plugins. I have the plugin to allow it to use the Mainline DHT, and I use the i2p plugin too (because the default i2p torrent UI is bad). Azureus is (was) the only client that can download/seed a torrent on clearnet and i2p at the same time.

Having said that, I didn't know that BiglyBT has i2p support, so I need to check that out.

The Vuze devs forked the code and went on to create and continue developing BiglyBT. So technically if you want to keep using that client best to switch over to BiglyBT.

You can stay with the old Vuze if you want but it's no longer developed since it lost its devs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuze#Development_hiatus

https://torrentfreak.com/former-vuze-developers-launch-biglybt-a-new-open-source-torrent-client-170803/
- Ah, thanks, I didn't realise it was a fork of Vuze. That explains the big overlap in features.

I'm still liking DS Get. I choose torrent files on my phone then hand off the download to the NAS.

This is also possible using QBit's webui though I mostly just have radarr/sonarr handle everything these days.
- My little NAS is too feeble to run the 'aars :-(

I want to use qbittorrent, but my Mac won't let me install it - says it's too old for the operating system and/or that it can't be verified.

I've just installed bigly bt, and I have three questions: 1) is it possible to set the seeding ratio 2) do we really need to confirm the deletion of every torrent via the pop up? (I have RSI, and the less popups or clicking the better) and 3) why does searching for a torrent via the internal search engine result in a captula.?

I'm not familiar with Macs, but are you able to download the source and compile your own version?
- Random gentoo user take right there.
I want to use qbittorrent, but my Mac won’t let me install it - says it’s too old for the operating system and/or that it can’t be verified.

You can fix that verification check like this. If it's saying it's too old then you might have an Apple silicon Mac while the app could be for x86. Even then, it should automatically emulate.

qBittorrent is great, but Transmission also works well on Mac.

Is there a docker container for BiglyBT that handles java and has a webUI, similar to qBittorrent? And can it integrate with the *arrs in the same way?

I was just looking for one myself and stumbled onto this one. Looks like the best out there. Jinx moment.

EDIT

Link was busted, weird markdown issues.
- This contains a so called „Extreme“ mod which seems to be about faking upload stats on trackers. Sooo not such a great recommendation.
Bigly

The fact that it doesn't have a docker/headless install automatically disqualifies it from S tier. This tierlist is junk anyway. Use any tool that suits your needs while living up to FOSS ethos
- Yeah that's an immediate hard pass from me. I don't miss the days of manually searching and adding every single torrent by hand. Though jfc could Sonarr hurry up and add multi-season pack support.

It's completely overkill for pretty much everyone but I have been thinking about building a kubernetes native client for months now.

Like the torrent should be treated as a normal resource with a Torrent CRD. It should be scheduled onto whichever node has available capacity and rescheduled onto a different node if it goes down. If allowed by the tracker, multiple instances could be run. You could set resource limits programmatically, easily configure block storage, build dashboards, export logs/metrics.. It would be open ended enough that you could have interfaces built as browser extensions, web ui, mobile app, tui, cli and be unopinionated so much that the method for torrent ingestions could be left up to the used. HTTP request, watch directory, rss client, download manager.. You could even do stuff like throw magnet links into a queue.. etc, etc..

I keep thinking it would be a great project but I just do not have the spare time to dedicate to it.. I imagine it could be used for large scale deployments for something like the Internet archive or whatever.

Does anyone have recommendations on configuration for qbit? I'm a casual user and I have been using out of the box for years now, but I've been wondering how it could be improved.

On android I'm currently using Libretorrent, how does biglybt's android app compare to it ?

Finally real content

Oh, so I wasn't going crazy after all, when my antivirus started getting hostile at uTorrent.

I really like biglybt, but why is it so... slow to add torrents or shut itself down? It seems as if the app does so many different things simultaneously that it doesn't do them seamlessly or instantaneously. I mean, why does it need 'up to twenty seconds' to close after you've downloaded something? Is it bloat? Is there a way to streamline its running?

Can someone help me with qbittorrent? After a couple of days of running the docker container all my torrents get stalled until I restart the container.

I'd look at the container's networking, if I were you.

Deluge has so much potential but it just crashes so often on windows.

I am interested in some of the features of BiglyBT, but don't love the .sh installer for Linux - they should have rpms and debs IMO. I'm a little concerned they don't end up in EPEL or whatever like qbittorrent is.

Flud gang

Yesss

How come tixati is banned, lol. I use qBittorrent.

I'm not in any private trackers so it doesn't really matter, but why is tixati banned? I use it because it's the only client that worked on the crusty old computer I use to run my torrents. Is it evil or something?

I have some custom scripts which kinda do what the *arr apps do.

I download torrent files into a folder. My script picks it up, identifies whether it is movie, TV, music, Games, ebooks, or something else. Based on this it selects the right folder. Then calls Transmission API and adds the torrent with the relevant path.

In case of movies and TV shows, it then calls the transmission APIs to rename the files properly. This way I can have my folders well organised and continue seeding without the need of creating duplicates.

This setup works quite well. The only fear I have is the transmission remote GUI for Windows hasn't been updated in 4 years. It works quite well, but it's only a matter of time before it stops working.

Should I consider another client?

I have some custom scripts which kinda do what the *arr apps do.

I download torrent files into a folder.

But that's like the main thing the arrs do for you and you are doing it manually.
- Yeah. I wrote this script wayyy before I found out about the *arr apps. After almost 4 years of tweaking and fixing, now it works so well, I don't really want the hassle of configuring the *arr apps. Also, I download everything from just a couple of trackers, so there's no searching involved.

I should upgrade to a vpn that doesn't throttle dls

So, no one talks about Ktorrent? It just works perfectly for me. Kudos to the developers!

It's one of the top ones on that list
- I was referring to the comment section. No one talks about it.

there is Trimbler

You are bullying my client of choice here, Transmission.. :P

I don't think qbittorrent could choose what files to download from inside a torrent, and which to ignore, or which to prioritize?

It can and has since I started using it about 3 years ago.
- Ok i will look again... Thank you.
I thougt this is a standard feature, at least deluge and qbittorrent can do it.
- Yeah I could be wrong.. I just remember looking for that before and couldn't find it. In transmission I doubleclick on a torrent to get that view.
Sure it can, I use that feature all the time.

I’m still on utorrent2, can get it oldversion.com or something like that. It’s too well made, never found a reason to switch.

2.2.1. For 15 years.

Meh. uTorrent version 2.1.8 works fine, and has no adware.

I've tried most of these clients, but I keep going back to the old uTorrent 2.2.1 (the newer versions are indisputably awful). I find that it still has the best UX to date. On nix machines I use qB.

Edit: Warning: newer versions of uTorrent are malware. I recommend people pick a different client, as uTorrent actively tries to trick people into downloading the newer versions.

I haven't updated utorrent since 2012 and I've never noticed any differences. I have it setup how I like it and it works.
- Yeah, 2.2 was like 2010 IIRC. It looks like they've since released a 2023 "2.2.1" to trick people in to downloading the updated spyware version.
  
  Incidentally, this is the kind of behavior why I never personally recommend it to anyone I know.
- Not updated since 2012? How is it not full of security holes?

I don't understand why everyone shits on uTorrent. Maybe new versions are bloated with miners and ads, but for example on Rutracker a custom version of uTorrent 3.2.3 is the most popular one and i've been using it for like 3 years without any problems. The only downside of it is that it has no dark mode, but that's it.

When i tried using qBitTorrent i couldn't set it up to use 100% of my traffic, it was very abrupt. So i just stick to uTorrent. Am i missing out on something?

Yeah, you're missing the part that it's proprietary, and you have no real way of knowing what's running on your system. It could be mining bitcoin at night or forcing ads on you.