When comparing ZOC Terminal vs SSH of Windows' Linux subsystem, the Slant community recommends ZOC Terminal for most people. In the question“What are the best SSH clients for Windows?” ZOC Terminal is ranked 3rd while SSH of Windows' Linux subsystem is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose ZOC Terminal is:
ZOC has a modern design.
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Pros
Pro Modern look
ZOC has a modern design.
Pro An actual "Terminal Emulator"
It's an actual terminal emulator (in the sense that it emulates a terminal) and not just a local console window app.
Pro Scriptable
Zoc provides complete automation of the client using its macro scripting.
Pro Flexibility in platform support
Originally developed for OS/2 (as Zap-O-Comm), Zoc is currently available for Windows and Macintosh.
Pro Can view and send to all sessions at once
Offers a thumbnail view of all session in thumbnails and type commands to all sessions at the same time.
Pro Supports serial and dial-up connections
In addition to telnet, ssh, and rlogin, ZOC supports direct serial connections, modem dialing, and named pipes.
Pro Tabbed sessions allows for easy navigation
Tabbed sessions mean that multiple items can be contained within a single window and can be easily navigated by the user.
Pro Hideable UI
Zoc allows for every UI component except the title bar to be hidden. All features are accessible through the context menu.
Pro Auto-Highlight feature
Feature to search for text bits in the data stream and highlight them with color/background.
Pro It's extremely easy to get running
All you have to do is go to the Microsoft store, choose a Linux distro you like, and install the client for free.
Pro Based on OpenSSH
OpenSSH is the reference for all ssh clients.
Pro Excellent way for Windows users to learn Linux
It is much easier and more convenient than dealing with a dual boot Linux installation.
Pro Full Linux shell
Uses all relevant Linux ssh commands as normal.
Cons
Con Hard to configure
It does not detect the installed shells (PowerShell, CMD, etc) automatically.
Con Options creep
It has so many options that it's hard to find the one you need.
Con Not free
Zoc requires a commercial license in order to use it, implying that it's not free.
Con Graphical problems
For example running Midnight commander (MC) makes terminal blinking.
Con Crontab and other background jobs don't work properly
Crontab only runs on ROOT, and it needs Windows to stay open. If you close it, you will kill the crontab. Some background jobs don't run on Windows WSL.
Con Command line editing does not work properly
Overrides chars instead of inserting them... depending on position and moon phase?
Con Does not install on PC virtual machines
Con Forces window to a certain size
Any other SSH client will render the remote server at whatever size the local client window is. The built-in SSH client on Windows, however, forces you to use a standard size, and it's small enough to cause problems.
Con Windows' SSH key agent service is broken
Attempting to use the built-in ssh-agent provided with Windows will cause errors and authentication failures due to an incompatibility between Windows' ssh-agent and OpenSSH on remote systems.
Con Cut & paste works like the Windows prompt
Older versions of the Windows Command Prompt select text in a rectangular region of the console, rather than starting at a character position and selecting forward or backward along with the logical flow of text. To copy a sentence, for example, would require that you select all content in the two lines that contain the sentence, then trim what isn't needed, rather than just selecting the sentence. In later versions of Windows 10, this may not be an issue, as the cut-and-paste behavior has changed.