About

SmarTTY — built by developers,
for developers.

Sysprogs made SmarTTY because the tools available weren't good enough. This is the story of what we built, why it's free, and what we believe a developer tool should be.

SmarTTY started because we kept jumping between PuTTY, WinSCP, and a text editor to do what should be one job.

Sysprogs — makers of SmarTTY

Sysprogs is a small software company focused on developer tooling for Windows. We're best known for VisualGDB, a cross-platform development extension for Visual Studio, and for BSFit, a fitness tracking tool. SmarTTY came out of our own daily frustration with the SSH workflow on Windows.

The philosophy is straightforward: if you need to SSH into a machine and also move some files and also edit a config, you shouldn't need to open three separate applications. We built SmarTTY to collapse that stack — terminal sessions, file transfers, and remote file editing all in one window, connected over a single SSH session.

SmarTTY has been available since 2012. Version 3.0 introduced Smart Terminal mode, which brings auto-completion, directory awareness, and a file browser side panel directly into the terminal. It has always been free, and it will stay that way. SSH access is a fundamental part of development work, and we don't think it should cost money.

What we stand for

Three things we won't compromise on.

Free, without limits

No trial periods. No nag screens. No gated features.

SmarTTY is free because SSH access is part of the basic toolkit of software development. Every feature — tabs, Smart Terminal, SCP transfers, X11 forwarding, hex terminal — is available from the first launch with no account required and no expiry date.

One tool

Terminal, file manager, and editor in a single window.

Context-switching between PuTTY, WinSCP, and a separate editor costs real time and breaks concentration. SmarTTY handles all three over one SSH connection — open a remote file, edit it, and push it back without ever leaving the application.

Made for Windows

A native application that respects how Windows users work.

SmarTTY is a native Win32 application — not an Electron wrapper, not a web app. It supports Windows Credential Manager for key storage, proper HiDPI display scaling, and keyboard shortcuts that feel at home on Windows. X11 forwarding works out of the box because we ship XMing and VcXsrv alongside SmarTTY.

Under the hood

What SmarTTY is built on, and why.

The technical choices behind SmarTTY reflect a few clear priorities: stay native, keep the dependency footprint small, and never require the user to install extra software to get a working setup.

  • Why native Win32, not Electron Native code means startup in under a second, no Chromium memory overhead, proper Windows accessibility APIs, and full integration with system credential storage. The application behaves like the OS it runs on.
  • Why libssh2 libssh2 is mature, actively maintained, and gives us fine-grained control over the SSH session lifecycle — important for multiplexing up to ten sub-channels per connection without protocol-level surprises.
  • Why bundle X11 instead of depending on it Most Windows developers don't have an X server installed. Shipping XMing and VcXsrv alongside SmarTTY means X11 forwarding just works the first time, with no separate download or configuration step.

Try it for yourself.

Free for Windows 10 and 11. No account required. No trial period.

Download SmarTTY free Read the FAQ

Windows 10 / 11 · x64 · Free · v3.0