DevelopmentLinux

What are the best BitTorrent clients for a Linux server?

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Transmission (daemon) vs Deluge vs aria2

 vs rtorrent vs KTorrent vs qbittorrent-nox

Specs

License

GPL/MIT

Platform

OSX Linux BSD Solaris OpenWrt Windows (unofficial)

Search

No

IPv6

Yes

Auto update

Yes

Proxy server

No

Selective downloading

Yes

GUI

Yes

CLI

Yes

Embedded tracker

No

Magnet

Yes

NAT-PMP

Yes

Web seeding

Yes

UPnP

Yes

Broadcatching

No

NAT traversal

Yes

Daemon

Yes

Prioritization

Yes

DHT

Yes

Sequential downloading

No

PEX

Yes

UDP tracker

Yes

µTP

Yes

LPD

Yes

Super-seeding

No

MSE/PE

Yes

Web UI

Yes

Tracker Exchange

No

Platforms

OSX Linux BSD Solaris OpenWrt Windows (unofficial)

License

GPL

Platform

OSX Linux BSD Solaris Windows Mac

Search

No

IPv6

Yes

Auto update

?

Proxy server

HTTP HTTPS SOCKS4-5

Selective downloading

Yes

GUI

Yes

CLI

Yes

Embedded tracker

No

Magnet

Yes

NAT-PMP

Yes

Web seeding

Yes

UPnP

Yes

Broadcatching

plugin

NAT traversal

Yes

Daemon

Yes

Prioritization

Yes

DHT

Yes

Sequential downloading

No

PEX

Yes

UDP tracker

Yes

µTP

Yes

LPD

Yes

Super-seeding

No

MSE/PE

Yes

Web UI

Yes

Tracker Exchange

No

Platforms

-

License

GPL

Platform

OSX Linux Windows Android

Search

?

IPv6

?

Auto update

?

Proxy server

?

Selective downloading

Yes

GUI

No

CLI

Yes

Embedded tracker

?

Magnet

Yes

NAT-PMP

?

Web seeding

Yes

UPnP

?

Broadcatching

?

NAT traversal

?

Daemon

?

Prioritization

?

DHT

Yes

Sequential downloading

?

PEX

Yes

UDP tracker

Yes

µTP

?

LPD

Yes

Super-seeding

?

MSE/PE

Yes

Web UI

Yes

Tracker Exchange

-

Platforms

-

License

GPL

Platform

OSX Linux BSD Solaris Windows (via Cygwin)

Search

No

IPv6

No

Auto update

?

Proxy server

No

Selective downloading

Yes

GUI

Yes

CLI

Yes

Embedded tracker

No

Magnet

Yes

NAT-PMP

No

Web seeding

No

UPnP

No

Broadcatching

?

NAT traversal

No

Daemon

?

Prioritization

Yes

DHT

Yes

Sequential downloading

No

PEX

Yes

UDP tracker

Yes

µTP

No

LPD

No

Super-seeding

Yes

MSE/PE

Yes

Web UI

3rd-party

Tracker Exchange

No

Platforms

-

License

-

Platform

-

Search

-

IPv6

-

Auto update

-

Proxy server

-

Selective downloading

-

GUI

-

CLI

-

Embedded tracker

-

Magnet

-

NAT-PMP

-

Web seeding

-

UPnP

-

Broadcatching

-

NAT traversal

-

Daemon

-

Prioritization

-

DHT

-

Sequential downloading

-

PEX

-

UDP tracker

-

µTP

-

LPD

-

Super-seeding

-

MSE/PE

-

Web UI

-

Tracker Exchange

-

Platforms

-

License

-

Platform

-

Search

-

IPv6

-

Auto update

-

Proxy server

-

Selective downloading

-

GUI

-

CLI

-

Embedded tracker

-

Magnet

-

NAT-PMP

-

Web seeding

-

UPnP

-

Broadcatching

-

NAT traversal

-

Daemon

-

Prioritization

-

DHT

-

Sequential downloading

-

PEX

-

UDP tracker

-

µTP

-

LPD

-

Super-seeding

-

MSE/PE

-

Web UI

-

Tracker Exchange

-

Platforms

-

Pros + Cons

Pro
 Full-featured

Transmission covers basics such as Prioritization, Selective Downloading, DHT, PEX, LPD and Magnet URIs. It has graphical, web and command line interfaces. It includes MSE/PE for security. Has UPnP, NAT-PMP, NAT traversal for automatic router configuration. Has UDP tracker and µTP data transfer protocol support. Even covers IPv6, Web seeding and Local Peer Discovery. And it auto-updates.
Comment

Con
 Written in Python, uses a lot of CPU on fast downloads

Apparently, the speed bottleneck is Python.
Comment

Pro
 Very minimalistic, straightforward design philosophy

Transmission is great for getting things done without looking too much under the hood. It still has advanced options, they're just tucked away from sight.
Comment

Pro
 Very lightweight

Transmission-gtk uses only 17 mb of RAM in idle state and 24 mb in download state.
Comment

Pro
 Headless support

Comment

Pro
 Commonly supported API interface

Tons of Android/iOS clients can communicate with it via the remote API.
Comment

Pro
 Many features

Comment

Pro
 Can encrypt traffic

MSE/PE or Message Stream Encryption/Protocol Encryption is BitTorrent traffic encryption method designed to improve privacy. It also attempts to make it harder to identify BitTorrent traffic by third parties such as ISPs that can choose to throttle it.
Comment

Pro
 Full-featured

Deluge covers basics such as Prioritization, Selective Downloading, DHT, PEX, LPD and Magnet URIs. It includes MSE/PE for security. It has graphical, web and command line interfaces. Has UPnP, NAT-PMP, NAT traversal for automatic router configuration. Has UDP tracker data transfer protocol support. Even covers IPv6 and proxy servers.
Comment

Pro
 Neat and clean look

The GTK elements aren't the best looking in the world, but they are very tidy, minimal and easy on the eyes.
Comment

Pro
 Free, ad-less and open source

Deluge is free, ad-less and open source software licensed under GPL with source code available here. Being open source allows anyone to check if the software has no malicious code, is secure and respects privacy.
Comment

Pro
 Good web UI

Deluge has a web interfaces that can be used to remotely control torrents.
Comment

Con
 Demon not lightweight as expected

While it has been improved a lot in the last years, when it's used in "headless" mode, the python demon still tends to use more resources than expected. It's noticeable especially on devices like the raspberry, and for instance, rtorrent and transmission use much less CPU.
Comment

Pro
 Supports multiple download protocols

Has support for lots of download protocols including BitTorrent, Metalink, HTTP, HTTPS and FTP.
Comment

Pro
 Small memory footprint

Due to aria2 being a CLI only tool it uses very little memory.
Comment

Pro
 Free and open source

Comment

Pro
 Remote control over simple standartized RPC

XML or JSON-based RPCs can be used to control aria2 remotely with both APIs completely documented. Simplest client that uploads torrent to be downloaded is 3 Python lines long (no 3rd-party libraries, only stdlib). Run aria2c --help=#rpc to see more.
Comment

Pro
 Third parties offer a clean web interface

Some web interfaces consist of pure HTML+JS, no server-side needed (except aria2c of course). It uses the same RPC that can work even over WebSockets.
Comment

Con
 No native graphical user interface

While there is a web-based GUI, there is no native interface.
Comment

Pro
 No extraneous functions

Torrent is a CLEAN client. Meaning there’s no search engine, tools, or other things to bloat the program.
Comment

Pro
 Reasonable feature set

rTorrent covers basics such as Prioritization, Selective Downloading, DHT, PEX and Magnet URIs. It includes MSE/PE for security. It has graphical and command line interfaces. Has UDP tracker and µTP data transfer protocol support. Even covers Super-seeding.
Comment

Pro
 Supports thousands of torrents easily

Comment

Pro
 CLI interface

Comment

Pro
 Very compact

Leaving a small footprint, it is easy to leave on for long periods of time with no real impact on the system.
Comment

Pro
 RUTorrent is a great web interface for rTorrent

Comment
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