SSH, transparency, tabs, windows, and !putty.

October 2, 2009 6:26 PM

Windows SSH Client for linux sysadmins that's not PuTTY? Transparency and Tabs needed!

I'm obviously missing something. I mean, I've got xterm and all of it's clones on x11 and I've got iTerm on Linux, and both support fast rendering, background transparency to desktop (alpha), and there are nice features in some like custom keyboard shortcuts for different servers and scripting command to run across a group of servers.

Unfortunately, putty seems to be the only free option on Windows that's any good. And it doesn't have tabs without a wrapper add-on, and the add-on doesn't support transparency. KiTTY has background alpha, but no tabs, and background alpha doesn't work with the wrapper. Epic fail.

I'm willing to pay. What are the best ssh clients for Windows Vista or 7 with tabs and background transparency? "Use Mac/Linux" is as much of a deal killer as "no transparency", I'm afraid. There just isn't any other option at work.

posted by SpecialK to computers & internet (9 answers total)

secureCRT meets your requirements. My university used to distribute it for this purpose (they may still, I just haven't checked in forever).
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:35 PM on October 2, 2009

Check out Terminator - I think it does what you need.
posted by jenkinsEar at 6:41 PM on October 2, 2009

I've also got Cygwin on my Vista box. Install ssh from cygwin, and use any other terminal program. I use Console (free and open source), which has transparency and tabs, and quite possibly your other requirements (I don't know offhand). Works like a charm, but I still prefer putty.
posted by cgg at 6:42 PM on October 2, 2009

We have an academic license of Tectia SSH, which I think is the "official" SSH? I just use putty and dual monitors. Transparent ssh windows mostly make shit harder to read.
posted by pwnguin at 7:12 PM on October 2, 2009

Poderosa is old but still good. No transparency, but tabs are your friends.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 7:15 PM on October 2, 2009

Seconding SecureCRT - it's a fantastic product, and worth every penny.
posted by ralan at 8:19 PM on October 2, 2009

I used cygwin and a build of mrxvt that worked quite well. Didn't quite get transparency to work, but I just used another transparency tool that worked for all windows.
posted by duckus at 9:19 PM on October 2, 2009

Thirding SecureCRT. It's commercial, but of all the ones I've tried, it's the one that actually feels like a proper terminal.
posted by TravellingDen at 8:44 AM on October 3, 2009

Fourthing. Between SecureCRT and its non-SSH predecessor (CRT) I've been using it for over ten years now. If you spend any meaningful amount of time on the command line it's a must-have.
posted by Lazlo at 11:08 AM on October 3, 2009