chillymasterio/puttyalt

PuttyAlt is a fork of PuTTY, the long-standing Windows SSH terminal program, based on PuTTY version 0.83. PuTTY itself lets you connect to remote computers from your machine over protocols like SSH, Telnet, and serial. This fork keeps that core and adds a large set of features on top: tabs so you can keep several sessions open in one window, an SFTP panel for moving files, a session manager with groups and bookmarks, themes, split views, macros, and over a hundred other modules. It ships as a portable EXE for Windows, and the README also lists Linux and macOS as supported platforms. The README leads with a SmartScreen notice because PuttyAlt is unsigned. Windows will warn you the first time you run it, the same way it warns about most new free software that has not paid for a code-signing certificate. The README walks through clicking More info and Run anyway, or unblocking the file in PowerShell, and explains that the source is open if you would rather build it yourself. You can install it by downloading the released EXE from GitHub, or by cloning the repo and building from source with cmake and make. The command line accepts the usual options for port, username, key file, saved session name, and switches for Telnet, serial, or portable mode. A long version history lists what each release added: tabs and SFTP in 0.2.0, split view and macros in 0.3.0, workspaces and plugins in 0.4.0, and a full GUI redesign with the warm blue theme in 1.0.0. Later 1.0.x releases added a hex viewer, fingerprint manager, port forwarding, tab completion, accessibility features, a network scanner, a command palette, and more. The current 1.1.0 line adds a cell-based terminal engine, scrollback search, jump hosts up to eight hops, session replay, and a setup wizard. A version 2.0 is announced as a complete UI rewrite with a GPU-accelerated rendering engine to replace the current Win32 GDI backend. The license is MIT.