Comparison of FTP servers

The File Transfer Protocol is an old previously very commonly used method of transferring files to and from servers on the Internet as well as LANs. It was popular for hosting file mirrors with an "anonymous" login account and was also used for private files even though FTP uses inherently insecure plain-text logins.

Many ftp clients have not been updated in ages and have been dropped from most distributions. Some are still maintained.

The two best FTP servers

• proftpd: This is a very advanced FTP server and perhaps the best choice if you want advanced configuration options. It has support for bandwith limiting, SQL auth, chrooted jail, different rulesets based on group and more.
  • Homepage: http://www.proftpd.org/ | manual

• glftpd: For running a ftp site with a large number of unknown users who are encouraged to upload a given amount once in a while, you are looking for glftpd. It is/was popular for those kind of ftp services which enforced with a "ratio". glftpd is very secure and the shared folder is in a chrooted jail. The glftpd server is VERY configurable.
  • It is possible to have proftpd running on the ftp port and glftpd on say 150.
  • Homepage: https://glftpd.io

So what's wrong with Pure-FTPd?

Absolutely NOTHING.. Pure-FTPd is fast, stable, more than good enough for production systems and even easy to get up and running.

It's simply not.. well. NOT highly configurable. There. Got'ya. Apart from that, Pure-FTPd is great.

The very light-weight alternative

vsftpd (126 kB) is a very tiny and compact ftp server written with speed and security in mind. It performs really well on high-speed local networks. It is not very configurable. And it's not meant to be. It is small and efficient.

• Homepage: https://security.appspot.com/vsftpd.html | manual