Top 5 Torrent Clients for Linux

Here is a list with the most used torrent clients for Linux. While a few other exists and are listed elsewhere, I think the software presented here represents the big players, and a wide range of interfaces and features. I’m just sharing, I don’t profess to be an expert. Anyway, I hope this list will be of help to you in choosing a better torrent client.

Azureus (now Vuze)

The most future rich torrent client for Linux, but being based on Java, is also a memory and performance hogger.

“Azureus implements the BitTorrent protocol using java language and comes bundled with many invaluable features for both beginners and advanced users” read more…

30 Responses to “Top 5 Torrent Clients for Linux”


  1. 1 arrrrrr October 6, 2008 at 12:36 am

    Azureus works very well. Get the Cubit plugin for search as well while at it for easy lookups.

  2. 2 meh October 6, 2008 at 1:40 am

    rtorrent is incredible, I used it over ssh and its very easy and feature-rich for a console app

    BTW, Deluge has plugins, my favorite being the bandwidth scheduling, pretty much like utorrent’s, but seems to allow 2 speeds…

  3. 3 ultra October 6, 2008 at 1:52 am

    I personally run a copy of TorrentFlux off my home server. it does an awesome job and it always there, once it’s done I just read the stuff off over NFS. I’ve also quite liked BitTornado.

  4. 4 Tofusensei October 6, 2008 at 3:04 am

    No btdownloadcurses.py? For shame, bruh

  5. 5 Tofusensei October 6, 2008 at 3:05 am

    No btdownloadcurses.py? What kind of lunix geek are you? :(

  6. 6 lukemcr October 6, 2008 at 4:05 am

    Good list. I think you’ve forgotten about Torrentflux and torrentflux-b4rt, though. Especially on linux’s strength as a server, these two clients can be invaluable.

  7. 7 Eric October 6, 2008 at 6:46 am

    Hey, why do you have pictures of Deluge next to Azureus and Transmission?

  8. 8 aronzak October 6, 2008 at 8:05 am

    Some of the screenshots are old. Ktorrent now has a KDE 4 interface, and Vuze has a dark interface, with a web browser built in. I wouldn’t recommend it.

  9. 9 Ovidiu C. October 6, 2008 at 8:21 am

    Azureus screenshot shows Deluge. Transmission screenshot shows Deluge.

  10. 10 chestyle October 6, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Deluge has served me well for quite some time now. Didn’t like transmission, couldn’t choose the files I didn’t want to download. Azureus is kind of unstable and eats up loads of memory. Really want to try out rtorrent. Thanks for a great list.

  11. 11 kotnik October 6, 2008 at 11:12 am

    Dude,

    Transmission has Deluge’s screenshot.

    Otherwise, nice summary ;)

  12. 12 Bob Robertson October 6, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    I’m using BitTornado, specifically because it has a console “curses” mode which makes it much easier to run over a remote SSH login session.

    Still, I’ll be checking out Deluge. Thanks for the reviews.

  13. 14 nongeekboy October 6, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    First of all, sorry for the image error. Now it’s fixed.
    @meh:
    Yeo, that is why I choose rtorrent too.
    @ultra, lukemcr and sam:
    torrentflux needs apache, php and mysql, that’s why I didn’t include it on the list. I thought that, a regular user wont install apache&co in order to use torrentflux. Anyway, for a server torrentflux is the best choice. That’s why I will make an update with torrentflux.
    @tofusensei:
    I consider rtorrent as being a better alternative than btdownloadcurses. Of course, I may be subjective.
    @chestyle:
    You can choose the files you want to download in Transmission. If you are comfortable with the console, you’ll love rtorrent ;)
    @Bob Robertson:
    I never used BitTornado, but I did used Deluge and I liked, it’s somehow like utorrent.

    Regards,
    Marius

  14. 15 Binny V A October 6, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    My favorite is KTorrent. Never have used the others.

  15. 16 Andrej Novak October 6, 2008 at 10:46 pm

    Nice summary. I’ve used all of the mentioned clients (and a couple more). Today I only use the two that work the best in my opinion. KTorent for local downloads (the new version 3.1 especially rocks) and rTorrent on my remote server where I mostly share Linux distros and various other stuff.

  16. 17 Mitko October 7, 2008 at 7:52 am

    I am for a long time a huge fan of Azureus. However I begin to find the latest (Vuze) versions too cluttered and full of unnecessary options. If this goes on I would consider using Deluge.

  17. 18 desss October 8, 2008 at 5:10 am

    where is qbittorrent ? :/

  18. 19 Linux user October 16, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    Azureus is feature rich but crahes occasionaly(plugins?), and eats alot of system.
    Ktorent reasonable features, and very stable.
    Ktorrent is more useful when run by excuting as:

    nnice -n 10 ktorrent %i %m -caption “%c” %u

    for lower CPU usage/more as a backgound activity.
    NB nice -n 0 is default. Never run a program as n 10,
    as this assumes n is preceeded by a Plus, and will domonate your CPU, until
    your system is slows to a crash.

  19. 20 Linux user October 16, 2008 at 11:59 pm

    Sorry about last instruction.

    Should be:

    nice -n 10 ktorrent %i %m -caption “%c” %u

    (not with extra n)

  20. 21 nongeekboy October 17, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    Very useful tip! Thank you alot.

  21. 22 golfswingdigest October 19, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    I was a big fan of ktorrent but found that transmission serves my torrenting needs perfectly. Lightweight and very fast. Nice list.

  22. 23 kisho October 27, 2008 at 2:44 am

    thank you, great post

  23. 25 Zeeded January 27, 2009 at 6:49 am

    Wait, where the hell is Transmission?

  24. 26 nongeekboy January 27, 2009 at 10:52 am

    @Zeeded:
    I have moved my blog; you can find the full version of the article at http://linuxnongeek.com/2008/10/05/top-5-torrent-clients-for-linux/ Transmission it’s listed 5th.


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