If you often download things like movies, music albums, video games, etc from the internet then possibly you know what is torrent. The torrent is a metafile that contains the information of files and folder that is to be distributed. Torrenting uses the BitTorrent communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing which enables users to share data over the internet in a decentralized manner.
A computer program that implements the BitTorrent protocol is called a torrent client. This allows you to easily download the large files and provide you the capability to pause or resume them.
In this article, I will discuss the best torrent clients for Linux operating system.
Transmission
Transmission is a lightweight, free, and open-source BitTorrent client which comes pre-installed with many Linux distributions. You can download a file or folder using Transmission by opening the torrent file ( a file with .torrent extension ) or magnet link provided by the creator.
Transmission is a simple and easy-to-use torrent client that comes with minimal configuration in a Linux system. It allows you to pause/resume a file and provide a web user interface so that you can access and control it remotely.
The key features of Transmission are –
- Free and opensource
- Lightweight and user friendly
- Support encrypted connections
- Supports torrent file creation and peer exchange
- Automatic port mapping, peer caching, and blocklist of bad peers
- It can be accessed through the web
- Allows tracker editing
qBittorrent
qBittorrent is a free and open-source BitTorrent client which is available for installation on different platforms including Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is natively developed for Linux using C++, boot, and Qt5 toolkit.
qBittorrent also offers a built-in search engine, RSS feed reader, and a downloader. Originally it was developed in March 2006 by Christophe Dumez.
The key features of qBittorent are –
- Free and opensource
- Cross-platform
- Bandwidth scheduler
- It has file and torrent prioritization
- It includes an integrated torrent search engine
- Integrated RSS feed reader
- Supports DHT, encrypted connections, LPD, UPnP, NAT PMP, and port forwarding.
Vuze
Vuze is one of the most popular BitTorrent clients which is written in Java and uses the Azureus Engine. It is lightweight which makes it useful to install even on older machines. It allows downloading large files as well as publishing your own content if you want.
By using the search engine given on its user interface you can easily find and download a file. Vuze is a cross-platform application that can be installed on Linux, Windows, and macOS.
The key features of the Vuze torrent client are –
- Cross-platform
- automatic virus and bad torrent detection
- Integrated search engine
- You can play video while a download is in progress
- Allows DVD burning
- Creates a bridge between I2P and Clearnet
Deluge
Deluge is a free and open-source, cross-platform torrent client which is written in Python. It uses libtorrent as its backend and uses a terminal, web interface, or desktop graphical user interface as its frontend.
The features of Deluge are extensible through the plugins. It was started by two members of ubuntuforums.org i.e. Zach Tibbitts and Alon Zakai.
The key features of Deluge are –
- Free and opensource
- Cross-platform
- Lightweight and secure
- Protocol encryption
- Has download scheduler
- Supports Local Peer Discovery(LSD) and Peer Exchange
- Web seeds and proxy support
- Speed Limit
- Functionality is extensible through plugins
Tixati
Tixati is a lightweight, proprietary BitTorrent client which avoids the problem of viruses, spyware, and malware. It offers the installation through a standalone or portable version of the installer.
Tixati provides integral chat rooms and private messaging which are being strongly encrypted.
The key features of Tixati are –
- Secure against spyware and malware
- Customizable user interface
- Detailed view of peers, files, tracker, etc
- Provide RSS support
- It contains an encrypted chatroom
- Strongly encrypted private messaging
WebTorrent
WebTorrent is a free and open-source BitTorrent client which is written in JavaScript. It is a peer-to-peer streaming torrent application that means you can play an audio or video while the download is in progress.
WebTorrent offers an easy-to-use, modern user interface, you can simply drag and drop a download link to start downloading a file.
The key features of WebTorrent are –
- Free and opensource
- cross-platform
- Multiple torrent download simultaneously
- Supports advanced torrent client features such as magnet URI and peer discovery
- Allows streaming while downloading
- Uses WebRTC
KTorrent
KTorrent is a free and open-source BitTorrent application developed by KDE. It aims to be lightweight and feature-rich and supports downloading of multiple torrents simultaneously.
It also offers a web user interface that can be accessed through the default port number 8080.
The key features of KTorrent are –
- Free and opensource
- Queuing of torrents
- Global and per torrent speed limit
- File prioritization for multi-file torrents
- integrated search engine
- Port forwarding with UPnP
- UDP tracker support
- Peer exchange (PEX) support
Frostwire
Frostwire is a free and open-source BitTorrent client and music player. Its development was started as a fork of LimeWire in 2004 now more features have been added to it.
It has a modern graphical user interface that is highly customizable. You can install it on different platforms including Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, etc.
The key features of FrostWire are –
- Free and opensource
- True In-App search
- Allow playing a partially downloaded file
- Built-in media player
- Mulitplatform support
- Multilingual support
- IPv6 support
Tribler
Tribler is a free and open-source BitTorrent client that allows anonymous p2p connection by default. It uses an overlay network for content searching and listing.
It has a simple and easy-to-use user interface. Tribler allows playing of partially downloaded audio or video files. It is available for installation on different platforms including Windows, Linux macOS, etc.
The key features of Tribler are –
- Free and opensource
- Cross-platform
- Simple and easy to use interface
- Anonimous
- You can stream while downloading
- Protocol encryption
RTorrent
RTorrent is a free and open-source text-based BitTorrent client. It is based on ncurses and libTorrent Unix libraries and written in C++. Since it doesn’t have a graphical user interface it is fast and needs fewer resources.
It is one of the first Bittorrent clients which was developed for the command line.
The key features of RTorrent are –
- Free and opensource
- Fast and requires fewer resource
- Text-based
- You can use URL to add torrents
- Quick and safe pause/resume
- Supports for distributed hash tables (DHT)
- Support for peer exchange (PEX)
libtorrent
littorrent is an open-source implementation of BitTorrent protocol which is written in C++. It comes with a simple BitTorrent client to demonstrate the use of the library.
It is lightweight fast and efficient. IYou need to download and build source code to install it on your system.
The key features of libtorrent are –
- Easy to use
- Requires fewer resources
- Supports mainline DHT, IPv6, etc
- Support Web seed
- uTorrent peer exchange(PEX) supported
- Available for different platforms
Which one is your favorite BitTorrent client?
There are so many other BitTorrent clients in Linux that you can install on your system but we here discussed only a few of them.
Now you can tell us which one is your favorite Torrent client and you are using it on your system.