New SFTP vs FTPS benchmarks: well, I didn’t expect that

Laura-ann Burgess — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:54:24 +0000

I’ve always heard people say FTPS is faster than SFTP.

Turns out, that’s not really the whole story.

When I first read this new benchmark, it flipped a few assumptions on their head: SFTP vs. FTPS benchmarks: file transfer speed comparison 2025.

What made it interesting wasn’t just the numbers, but how different things affected the outcome. For example:

With lots of small files, SFTP actually handled the workload better.
When it came to one big file, FTPS had the upper hand and sometimes by a wide margin.
Switching the client from curl to LFTP totally changed the picture. SFTP suddenly looked way better, while FTPS lost some of its shine.
Add in cross-region transfers with more latency, and the balance shifted again.
So the whole “FTPS is faster” line doesn’t really hold up. It depends on the workload, the client (to a great extent), and even the distance.

What I’d really like to see next are tests with parallel transfers, since most real-world setups don’t move files one at a time. Also curious how things would look with other clients or libraries, or at larger scales like 10GB batches.

But that’s just me. I’d love to hear from others:

What use cases do you run into?
Any nuances with certain scenarios or clients?
Do you mostly deal with tons of small files, or big chunky ones?
Have you run your own SFTP vs FTPS tests, and did you see similar results?
Anything specific you’d want to see tested in future benchmarks?
Other protocols you need to see up against SFTP/FTPS? Thoughts?

LA.

DEV Community: Laura-ann Burgess

New SFTP vs FTPS benchmarks: well, I didn’t expect that