There are several different secure file transfer protocols that are, unfortunately, named in a very confusing way that often makes it difficult to distinguish one from another. The aim of this page is to provide some guidelines to make it easier to determine which is which.

Communication protocols

Basically, the following file transfer protocols are around:

FTP – the plain old FTP protocol that has been around since 1980. The acronym stands for File Transfer Protocol. It's main connection usually runs over TCP port 21. However, each data connections requires a separate TCP connection on different ports, which makes FTP very firewall-unfriendly.

SFTP – another, completely different file transfer protocol that has nothing to do with FTP. SFTP almost always runs over an SSH session, usually on TCP port 22. It has been around since late 1990s. The SFTP acronym actually stands for SSH File Transfer Protocol and is not used in the protocol specification.

SCP – a variant of BSD rcp utility that transfers files over an SSH session. The SCP protocol has been mostly superseded by the more comprehensive SFTP protocol and some implementations of the scp utility actually use SFTP instead.

Secure communication layers

Additionally, there are several communication layers:

SSH – a protocol that allows establishing a secure channel between the local and remote computers. Serves as an underlying channel for associated protocols such as secure shell, port forwarding, SFTP or SCP. While it is possible to run the (slightly modified) plain old FTP protocol over SSH, this is not very common. File transfer over SSH is nearly always done using SFTP or SCP.

TLS – this protocol is almost generally known by its old name - SSL - and provides a way of securing otherwise unsecure protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, POP3 or FTP. Please note that SSL 3.1 is called TLS 1.0, and therefore TLS 1.0 is a newer version of the protocol than SSL 3.0, despite the lower version number. HTTP over SSL is often called HTTPS, and FTP over SSL is often called FTPS.
FTP over TLS/SSL has two variants, explicit (starts as an unencrypted FTP session and is secured on client request) and implicit (is secured right from the beginning and therefore needs a separate TCP port, usually 990). The implicit mode is deprecated, but still widely used.

Secure file transfer protocols, or fitting it all together

In an ideal world, the information above should be just enough. Unfortunately, this is not the case. File transfer protocols are also referred to by various other names, and even the names that only refer to a one single protocol are often mistakenly used for the wrong protocol by (understandably) confused authors.

FTP – usually refers to the plain old FTP protocol. However, since TLS/SSL support is quickly becoming a must-have feature, it might refer to its secure version as well.

SFTP – should only be used for SFTP, the SSH file transfer protocol. Unfortunately, people often shorten Secure FTP into SFTP - this is incorrect, because the S in SFTP stands for SSH, not for Secure.

SFTP2 – this confusing name is used by some vendors to highlight the obvious fact that their SFTP protocol runs over SSH2. For all practical purposes, consider this to be a synonym of SFTP, because SSH1 has been deprecated for many years.

Secure FTP – this name is confusing as well, because it is used to refer to either of the two different protocols. Whenever this name is used, it is necessary to specify whether the SSH-based or SSL-based file transfer protocol is meant.

SSH FTP, FTP over SSH – fortunately, these names are not used very often. They usually refer to SFTP, the SSH file transfer protocol. Even though it is possible to run (slightly modified) plain old FTP protocol over SSH, this is not very common.

FTP/SSL, FTP/TLS, FTP over SSL, FTP over TLS, FTPS – all of these names refer to FTP over TLS/SSL.

SFTP over SSL – although the SFTP protocol can utilize any underlying data stream, in practice SFTP over anything other that SSH is rare. It is much more likely the term was used by mistake instead of either SFTP over SSH or FTP over SSL.

SCP – should be only used for scp protocol/utility, a variant of BSD rcp. Some applications with SCP in its name now use SFTP by default instead - examples of this practice are WinSCP application and scp2 utility.

TFTP is yet another file transfer protocol not related to any of the above.