Frequently asked questions

NixSCP is a native Linux file transfer client for SFTP, SCP, FTP/FTPS, WebDAV and Amazon S3, with the two-panel Commander interface, dialogs and keyboard shortcuts of WinSCP. It is a C++/Qt 6 rewrite of WinSCP's code base, not a Wine wrapper, so it starts fast and fits in with GNOME, KDE Plasma and XFCE on Wayland and X11.

WinSCP itself is a Windows application and has no official Linux version. You can try to run it under Wine, but it then shows your Linux files under a Windows drive letter, uses Windows-style dialogs and does not use your Linux ssh-agent or ~/.ssh/config. NixSCP gives you the WinSCP interface natively instead: it is a C++/Qt 6 rewrite of WinSCP's open-source code with the same Commander layout, keyboard shortcuts and WinSCP.ini settings, so you can import your WinSCP sites and keep working the way you are used to.

It depends on what you need. If you want the WinSCP experience itself (two-panel Commander, F5/F6/F7/F8 shortcuts, Synchronize, the transfer queue, PuTTY .ppk keys and WinSCP scripting) and to bring your existing sites along, NixSCP was built for exactly that and installs on Ubuntu 26.04 from a .deb package. For occasional transfers, the file manager's built-in sftp:// support or command-line tools such as sftp, scp and rsync may be all you need; FileZilla is another popular graphical client.

Both are free graphical file transfer clients with local and remote panels. FileZilla is a mature, cross-platform client focused on FTP, FTPS and SFTP, with WebDAV and cloud storage offered in the paid FileZilla Pro. NixSCP follows WinSCP instead: it also supports SCP, WebDAV and Amazon S3 in the free version, uses WinSCP's Commander interface and shortcuts, includes WinSCP-compatible scripting with nixscp-cli, and reads and writes WinSCP.ini. If you are moving from FileZilla, NixSCP can import your Site Manager entries.

Yes. NixSCP uses WinSCP's own WinSCP.ini format, key names and password encoding. Import a WinSCP.ini (portable WinSCP) or a registry export (reg export "HKCU\Software\Martin Prikryl\WinSCP 2" winscp.reg) from Login › Tools › Import. Sites, folders, stored passwords, workspaces, bookmarks, custom commands and preferences carry over, and an export from NixSCP imports back into WinSCP. PuTTY sessions, ~/.ssh/config and FileZilla sites can be imported too.

No. NixSCP is an independent project by CodeWiz, based on WinSCP's GPL-licensed source code. WinSCP is developed by Martin Prikryl; WinSCP is his trademark and is used here only to describe compatibility.

NixSCP runs on Linux and Windows. For Linux there are packages for Ubuntu 26.04, Debian 13 and Fedora 42/43, an AppImage for other distributions, and a build from source (libssh 0.11 or newer is required). For Windows there is an installer and a portable zip for 64-bit Windows 10 and 11. A macOS version is planned. NixSCP Pro sync works between all of them. Download options.

Yes. nixscp-cli is the Linux counterpart of winscp.com: it runs WinSCP scripts with the same commands, switches and exit codes, including open, get, put, synchronize, keepuptodate, call and option batch. In most cases you only replace winscp.com with nixscp-cli, for example nixscp-cli /script=deploy.txt /log=deploy.log, which makes it easy to move scheduled jobs and deployment scripts to cron, systemd timers or CI on Linux.

SFTP and SCP over SSH; FTP and FTPS with explicit or implicit TLS; WebDAV and WebDAVS (WebDAV over HTTPS); and Amazon S3 as well as S3-compatible object storage. All protocols use the same two-panel interface, transfer queue and Synchronize function.

Yes. NixSCP reads PuTTY .ppk private keys in format versions 2 and 3, with RSA, Ed25519 and ECDSA keys, so there is no need to convert them with PuTTYgen first. OpenSSH private keys and keys loaded in your ssh-agent work too, as do passwords and keyboard-interactive authentication.

Yes. Choose Amazon S3 as the file protocol, enter your access key and secret key, and browse your buckets like folders. You can upload, download and synchronize files just as with SFTP. Other storage services that offer an S3-compatible API can be used by entering their endpoint as the host name.

Yes. You can import hosts from OpenSSH ~/.ssh/config and known_hosts, as well as PuTTY sessions. Connections can go through SSH tunnels (jump hosts) and SOCKS4, SOCKS5 or HTTP proxies, configured per site as in WinSCP.

Yes, for free. Synchronize compares a local and a remote folder and updates either side or mirrors one to the other, with a preview of every change before it runs. "Keep remote directory up to date" watches a local folder and uploads changes as you save them, which is handy for web development. This is different from NixSCP Pro, which syncs your NixSCP settings and sites between computers, not your files.

Yes. NixSCP is free for personal and commercial use, with every file transfer feature included and no time limits, ads or nag screens. NixSCP Pro adds encrypted sync of your sites, settings and open sessions between computers, and it is free for everyone during the public beta.

Yes. The NixSCP application is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3, like WinSCP itself. You can read, build and modify the source code, including the code that encrypts your data for NixSCP Pro, so anyone can verify how it works.

The sync service: the servers and storage that keep your encrypted settings and sessions in step across computers, plus support. During the public beta it is free. The application stays free and open, and NixSCP Pro never locks file transfer features.

Your sites and site folders, stored passwords, preferences, workspaces, bookmarks, custom commands and transfer presets, and the sessions you had open: close NixSCP on one computer and the same tabs reopen on the next. Window sizes, local histories and other per-computer details stay where they are.

Yes, during the public beta. NixSCP Pro sync is free for everyone with a NixSCP account: create a free account, then sign in from NixSCP on each computer. After the beta, sync becomes a paid NixSCP Pro feature; the NixSCP application itself always stays free and open source.

NixSCP will notify you inside the app when the beta ends. After that, sync becomes a paid NixSCP Pro feature. Nothing is lost: your synced data is kept, NixSCP keeps working with everything on your computers, and you can still download your synced settings, for example to a new computer. The free application is not affected.

Nothing is overwritten silently. Every upload carries a version tag, so a computer that was offline cannot replace newer settings. If both computers changed something, NixSCP asks which version to keep; the other one stays in the cloud history (the last 30 versions) and in a local backup.

NixSCP keeps working with everything on your computers. Syncing stops uploading, but you can still download your synced settings to a new computer. We will never delete the synced data of an account without notifying you first.

With end-to-end encryption. Before anything leaves your computer, NixSCP encrypts it with AES-256-GCM using a key derived from your sync password with Argon2id. Our servers and the Cloudflare R2 storage only ever receive encrypted data; your sync password and the keys made from it never leave your computers. How it works in detail.

No. We store your e-mail address, a hash of your account password, your NixSCP Pro status, the names of your signed-in computers and encrypted snapshots with their size and time. Without your sync password the snapshots are unreadable, to us and to anyone who could get hold of them.

The account password signs you in to this website and can be reset by e-mail. The sync password encrypts your data and never leaves your computers, so nobody can reset it. Keeping them separate means that even a reset account password or a compromised account gives no access to your data.

Use the recovery key NixSCP shows when you set up syncing, then choose a new sync password. Without the sync password or the recovery key your synced data cannot be decrypted, by design. Your settings on your computers are not affected.

No. During the public beta NixSCP Pro is free and there is nothing to buy or cancel: create an account and sign in from NixSCP. When the beta ends, NixSCP tells you inside the app and you decide then whether to continue with NixSCP Pro.