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Up and Running in 30 Seconds
March 31, 2020

Up and Running in 30 Seconds

Jonah Dempcy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with FileZilla

We use FileZilla for FTP and SFTP transactions, primarily for accessing web hosts like DreamHost. We find that FileZilla is the perfect app for quickly uploading or downloading files, or browsing through the filesystem of a remote host. FileZilla is perfect for when you need to make a quick edit of a webpage, thanks to its edit-in-place functionality, or when you need to sync, back-up, or otherwise work with the filesystem of a remote server.
  • Easy to use - Some FTP servers bury their functionality in window after window of settings. Not FileZilla. You can get up and running in a few seconds.
  • Drag and drop - FileZilla allows easy uploading and downloading via drag-and-drop.
  • Edit in place - FileZilla allows users to edit a text file (or HTML, etc) in place and automatically upload the changes upon save. This is a great feature for making quick edits to a website!
  • Website slow to download from - This is a minor gripe, and only a one time thing, but in writing this review I decided to install the latest version of FileZilla just to make sure I was running the latest and greatest. Turns out that it takes 10 minutes to download from their website, on a 50 Mbit dedicated business line.
  • Some features locked behind Pro - The free version of FileZilla lacks some features that would be nice to have without requiring the upgrade to Pro. However, FileZilla Pro is quite affordable and so if you need integration with Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, Box, or many others, then it's definitely worth it.
  • Auto-update could be improved - I had a version of FileZilla installed and it would not auto update. In fact, Mac OS X required me to remove it, saying that it was malware. I re-downloaded FileZilla again after this, but it was odd. At other times, it seems that FileZilla auto-updates just fine.
  • Price is definitely a positive. The free version of FileZilla handles the vast majority of use cases, and the Pro version is quite affordable if you need the extra integration with filesharing services.
  • Time saved because of the simple user interface is another positive.
  • Time wasted having to re-download is the only negative I've found, but even that is a minor, one time thing. When auto-update works correctly, you don't need to spend any time updating the client.
I've tried so many FTP clients over the years I've lost count. WinSCP, FireFTP, CuteFTP, SmartFTP, Cyberduck, WS_FTP, and countless others. They all offer pretty competitive features. I do find WinSCP to have some extra features that I like, such as better SSH and SFTP support, in my opinion, as well as support for WebDAV out of the box. But WinSCP does not work on Mac OS at all. I am fairly agnostic with the other competitors, but I find that FileZilla's popularity leads to quick bug fixes from the developers and a stable user base of support.
I've never contacted FileZilla support directly, but they are so popular that there are countless tutorials online showing how to connect to any number of web servers, how to configure SSH/SFTP and so on. I feel that because of the popularity of FileZilla, the support from the general user community is sufficient.

Do you think FileZilla delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with FileZilla's feature set?

Yes

Did FileZilla live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of FileZilla go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy FileZilla again?

Yes

FileZilla is great when you need FTP or SFTP file transfer in a nice graphical user interface. It is especially nice on Mac OS X where many other competitors are either more expensive, not as user-friendly, or both. I always recommend FileZilla to people who need a simple FTP client for updating their webpages, as it is so easy to use and comes with everything you need to get up and running immediately with doing file transfers between local and remote storage.