When comparing PuTTY vs Konsole, the Slant community recommends PuTTY for most people. In the question“What are the best terminal emulators for Windows?” PuTTY is ranked 10th while Konsole is ranked 23rd.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free
Pro De facto standard client for SSH, Telnet and Rlogin on Windows
PuTTY is one of the oldest and most popular clients. It has earned the trust of a great number of users over a long period by being reliable, offering useful features and helpful support. It got into the 15 Essential Open Source Tools for Windows Admins list by InfoWorld.
Pro Can be used on any Windows computer, even without admin rights
Pro Source code available
Full source available. Compile and modify it yourself.
Pro Lightweight and portable
Doesn't require much resources (memory and hard-disk). Can even be run on a system by just downloading without install.
Pro Directory and SSH bookmarking
Konsole can bookmark ssh and telnet sessions, directories, and it can open tabs in a folder for easy access.
Pro Supports split-view
Konsole supports split-view which splits the window into two (or more) konsole instances. This is very useful for people who work a lot on the terminal and don't want to spend time navigating between different windows or tabs.
Pro True color and Smooth font
Konsole supports true color and smooth font. This made konsole more fanstatic than other terminal emulators.
Pro Embeddable into the desktop
Konsole can be embedded into desktop so it's always easily accessible, but not in the way of other windows.
Pro Export of output in plain text or HTML format
By going to file > save output, you can send all screen output to a text file.
Pro Support in Dolphin file manager
Konsole can be accessed by pressing F4 in Dolphin, which is convenient for when the user needs to open the terminal in a particular spot of the file structure.
Pro Supports font ligature
Most terminals in Linux don't support font ligature, while many modern fonts such as PragmataPro or Fira Code already have decent coverage of font ligature. Support for font ligature makes user experience and font management much easier (i.e. you don't need to keep two copies of the same font just to use in the console)
Pro Helps to identify tabs using custom icons
Users can associate each bookmark or SSH session with a custom icon, thus giving a visual hint to quickly identify a tab when a lot of tabs are open.
Pro Supports advanced color schemes
In particular solarized.
Pro Notification alerts about activity in a terminal
Konsole can monitor activities and notify the user through system notifications when a certain activity happens. This is a very customizable feature too: you can write scripts that can use this feature and notify you for whatever you want.
Pro Exceptionally fast
Konsole is usually very fast. It boots up very quickly and takes less than a second (averages to 0.25-0.59 seconds) to display files of up to 600 MB.
Pro Customize and save profiles
Profiles containing different settings can be created, saved, and loaded. Color schemes, window transparency, scroll bar, key bindings, start-up commands, window border, and menu bar can all be customized according to the user's needs.
Pro Allows CTRL-SHIFT-c/v within WSL Ubuntu as well
Good menu to customize.
Cons
Con Only one session per window
Cannot open a second session in the same window (you need multiple windows).
Con Can not save passwords
Anyway, you can use "PuTTYgen" to generate a key pair, then use "Pageant" to do a password-less SSH remote login.
Con Lacks features
It is JUST an SSH client. There are many other options with built in X-servers, Multitabbing, etc.
Con Ugly design, too simple
Looks very dated. Does the basic functions very well, but not much more.
Con No global settings
If you want to change a setting for all your connections, you'd have to do it individually.
Con Organizing sessions
Does not have features for organizing session connections (like folders). If you have 5-10 connections that's fine. But if there are 30-50 connections - that becomes a nightmare.
Con Tedious logging/tracing
Its tedious to set up logging and tracing (e.g. for serial connections).
Con No login scripting
Con KDE Library dependencies
While not an issue if using KDE, when trying to use this terminal in other desktop environments or window managers, there will be a large amount of dependencies tied to the app, making for a large install size. For those trying to keep their desktop lean, this may be an issue.
Con Uses a lot of memory
Although it's very fast, konsole has to use a lot of resources in return. It may use up to 30 MB per instance, depending on the number of tabs and the task at hand.
Con No good support for powerline character even with patched fonts
Con Can mess terminal keybinds
Most the of the time, the terminal keybinds are just ignored to obey the kde keybinds. Can be configured though.
Con Lack of DECSCUSR support
Konsole don't allow changing the cursor shape with extended DECSCUSR sequences, using instead the temporary-profile hack. This causes pain when working in (neo)vim inside Konsole.
Con No support for double-width characters
Konsole no supports double width characters. For powerline users, you need to add a space after powerline glyph.
