When comparing Vuze vs Deluge, the Slant community recommends Deluge for most people. In the question“What are the best Torrent clients?” Deluge is ranked 3rd while Vuze is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Deluge is:
As is, Deluge is very stripped down, but its functionality can be increased via [plugins](http://dev.deluge-torrent.org/wiki/Plugins). As such Deluge can have only the functionality that is needed and skip any other reducing resource usage.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Extensible via plugins
Vuze has a lots of plugins available that are capable of performing a wide variety of tasks including automatically categorizing torrents, adding remote access solutions and even playing games such as Sudoku.
Pro Built in search
You can use built in search to find your torrent. Type torrent hash, name, or a tag in search box next to "open torrent" in main UI and Vuze will search in both Swarm and Web for your torrent file.
Pro I2P support via plugin
I2P or Invisible Internet Project is a decentralized anonymizing network. Vuze has a plugin accessible from the plugin wizard that adds support for I2P downloading, seeding, and I2P DHT support.
Pro Swarm merging
Combines the swarms of multiple torrents that have the same file, allowing for faster downloads, and completion of torrents lacking available pieces.
This means if a torrent is stuck at 99%, Vuze can add another torrent with the same file, and only have to download the 1% from other other torrent's peers.
Pro Full-featured
Vuze covers basics such as Prioritization, Selective Downloading, DHT, PEX and Magnet URIs as well as Broadcatching, Sequential downloading (paid) and Search. It includes MSE/PE for security. It has graphical and web interfaces. Has UPnP, NAT-PMP, NAT traversal for automatic router configuration. Has UDP tracker and µTP data transfer protocol support. Even covers IPv6, web seeding, Embedded tracker, Super-seeding and proxy servers. And it auto-updates.
Pro Ability to run thousands of torrents at a time
Because you can select how much memory is allocated to Vuze it is possible to run far more torrents on it than on other torrent programs. Many users report being able to run in excess of 3,000 torrents with no problems.
Pro Allows easily customizing a torrent's tracker list
It's possible to edit the tracker list to add or delete trackers. Vuze allows saving a list of preferred trackers as a "template" which can then be either merged with existing trackers or used to replace them.
Pro Can bind downloads to VPN
Vuze can detect if it's running over a VPN. Once a connection to the VPN is lost, all traffic becomes public. To avoid this Vuze can be set to run only over a VPN.
Pro Device playback
With device playback on, it's possible to convert and transfer media for playback on a designated device by simply dragging and dropping the desired file. Device playback supports game consoles, Tivo, and iTunes.
Pro Built-in video player
Vuze has a capable video player built-in with reasonable support for most common video formats, subtitles and audio switching.
Pro Fast
Fast and intuitive to use.
Pro Easy subscriptions
Follow your favorites type of torrents such as movies, songs, and apps. Just add the torrent file and look for the RSS icon next to it and subscribe to find all new related to your favorites type.
Pro Built-in virus protection
Scans all Vuze downloads for malicious files.
Pro User friendly interface
Pro Perfect for Tivo
The way it works hand and hand with Tivo is awesome. It allows you to have all your media in one box.
Pro Extensive wiki for support
Although an ongoing work, almost everything one needs for proper config is there.
Pro Cross platform
Usable in Linux, as well as Windows and MAC OSx
Pro Watch it working
You can track what's going on easily in the app thanks to its UI.
Pro Vuze is a reliable client with many plugins that actually work. intuitive interface and seamless operations make it an easy choice
Pro Control download priority
You can control which files are downloaded, in what priority, and not have to go searching for the features.
Pro Swarm Discoveries function
Vuze uses Swarm Discoveries, which allows you to search for similar downloads the user may be interested in.
Pro Ability to run thousands of torrents at a time
Because you can select how much memory is allocated to Vuze it is possible to run far more torrents on it than on other torrent programs. Many users report being able to run in excess of 3,000 torrents with no problems.
Pro Ability to run thousands of torrents at a time
Because you can select how much memory is allocated to Vuze it is possible to run far more torrents on it than on other torrent programs. Many users report being able to run in excess of 3,000 torrents with no problems.
Pro Easy open and find torrents and fast
Pro Functionality can be extended with a variety of plugins
As is, Deluge is very stripped down, but its functionality can be increased via plugins. As such Deluge can have only the functionality that is needed and skip any other reducing resource usage.
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.
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.
Pro Good web UI
Deluge has a web interfaces that can be used to remotely control torrents.
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.
Pro Lightweight
Deluge weighs under 15MB.
Pro Has a command line interface and a daemon
Deluge can be run in text-only mode via the deluge-console
command. Requires first running the deluge daemon deluged
. Utilizing the deluge daemon deluged
allows remotely connecting to it, and using any front-end interface.
Pro Portable
µTorrent can be run without having to be installed. It can be put on an external storage device (such as a USB drive) and run directly from it. A portable version of Deluge can be downloaded from SourceForge.
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.
Pro Utorrent compatible
You can download using both clients µTorrent and Deluge on any supported operating system.
Cons
Con Pushes crapware
The installation bundles a lot of useless pieces of software. While they can be opted out of, it is not a pleasant experience.
Con Has ads
The free edition of Vuze includes ads. Ads can be removed by purchasing the $29.99 Vuze+.
Con Bloated
Con Requires Java
Vuze requires installing Java Runtime Environment on the users PC to function that's known for being naggy.
Con No built-in local peer discovery
Local peer discovery requires a plugin.
Con Enclosed sequential downloading support is behind a paywall
Sequential downloading can be used to stream media files such as video and audio while the download is still in progress. This can be streamed via the html protocol into another video app for free, but doing it with the built in video player is pay-locked.
Con Subscription options are lacking
Although Vuze supports subscriptions (RSS feeds) the custom options are seriously lacking. In uTorrent you can set it up so that it only downloads the most recent episode of a show and only one copy of it, with Vuze if you have Auto Download turned on you get everything you didn't manually filter out. In a TV series with 30 episodes per season you need to manually add every episode that you've already downloaded to the "do not download" list and if there are multiple versions of the latest episode you can expect to have Vuze download them all. There is a plugin that promises to make this process simpler, but it seems that there are a lot of unnecessary hoops to jump through.
That said it's a small price to pay to get the functionality back. uTorrent/BitTorrent's feeds have suddenly stopped working for many due to the recent shutdown of Torcache
Con Can't bind to VPN
If VPN drops, BSOD comes.
Con No tracker exchange
Tracker exchange functionality allows peers to exchange information about trackers of a given file. It is another way of ensuring that the file is downloaded from the optimal source. µTorrent lacks this functionality.
Con Can't go back
When you get linked to a torrent page and want to go back to the search results - you can't. So you have to recommence your search again.
Con Can no longer see larger files
No movies and no green files.
Con Upgrading is equal to manually downloading the latest version and installing it
It can't be done silently in the background without notice.
Con Not the most intuitive interface
Con Slow and heavy app
It's just too much for people who just want a torrent downloader. The app is difficult to understand, but above all is very slow. uTorrent would download films, games, etc so fast (up to 3.5mbps), this app is too slow.
Con Old
It looks older it needs to look more modern.
Con Causes kernal panics on OSX (Mac) almost everytime
This is extremely irritating and this has been an issue for some time. Apple isn't in a hurry to fix it. Vuze should have taken care of this a long time ago.
Con No built-in search engine
Built-in search engines allow finding torrents to download right from withing the torrent client. Deluge lacks such functionality.
Con No super-seeding support out of the box
Super-seeding is an algorithm used to allow downloaders become uploaders quicker. Deluge lacks support for this functionality out of the box. However, the ltconfig plugin can enable this setting: http://forum.deluge-torrent.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=42887.
Con Hasn't been updated in a while
As of writing of this, there has not been a new release in ~1.5 years.
Con Files can't be downloaded sequentially by default
Sequential downloading can be used to stream media files such as video and audio while the download is still in progress. By default, Deluge requires waiting until the complete file is downloaded before it's ready for use.
But it should be mentioned that there exists a plugin: https://github.com/JohnDoee/deluge-streaming for video streaming from Deluge.
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.
Con Includes minor UI issues
Deluge has minor UI issues such as presenting "delete with data" as the most prominent button when removing a torrent from a list of downloads, or the way it resets its size when maximized from tray forcing a resize each time.
Con Does not preload magnet data
If a magnet URI is used there's no way to get information about contents or perform any kind of actions (such as selecting what to download) before the download has started.
Con No web seeding suport
Web seeding support allows downloading file parts from an HTTP source alongside the swarm. It's usually used for long-term seeding and easing some of the load on web hosts that supply direct downloads by offering a BitTorrent download as an alternative while still ensuring that the file is always available in its entirety regardless of the swarm. Deluge lacks this functionality.
Con Keeps Unwanted Files (Poor selective Download)
Deluge creates all the files even those that you marked "not download". Making your directories messy.
This is very bad when you want to create a drive specific for large files and you are unable to delete or move small and unwanted files, such as a video partition with large allocation unit.
[qbittorrent doesn't do that]
Con Doesn't shows all time uploaded and downloaded data
Con Can't "force start" downloads
There's no way to manually override settings for download queuing that's available in other torrent clients. For example, if there are 2 files in the download list and the software is configured to queue just one at a time there's no way to force a download of both without changing the settings. A workaround plugin can be found here.
Con Lacks µTP transfer protocol support
Con Naive search function
Searching for torrents or files within torrents is difficult because it relies on the user to input the exact title with the right index for each character.
Con CPU usage does not scale well with number of torrents
Deluge uses ~10% of one Core i7-2600 core with ~1700 torrents loaded, even if all the torrents are idle.
Con No tracker exchange
Tracker exchange functionality allows peers to exchange information about trackers of a given file. It is another way of ensuring that the file is downloaded from the optimal source. Deluge lacks this functionality.
Con No embedded tracker
An embedded tracker allows turning the client into a server offering an easy way of sharing files with others. Deluge lacks embedded tracker support so another method of sharing or different client has to be used to share files.
Con Doesn't seed
Con No built-in broadcatching support
Broadcatching is a method of automatically downloading content as soon as it's available. Broadcatching in BitTorrent clients is usually implemented via RSS. Deluge requires manually selecting each download by default. Fortunately, there are multiple plugins available that add this functionality with the possible caveat of plugins not having the same quality standard as the client itself.