Mac BitTorrent Clients Reviewed
Written by Smaran on September 03, 2006The number of user-friendly, appealing BitTorrent clients available for the platform are very few in comparison to the number of those available for Windows.
In this article we will highlight the most popular Mac BitTorrent applications and compare their features.
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Mac OS X is heralded as the most appealing operating system on the market and one of the most capable as well thanks to its BSD (Unix) core.
Sadly, the number of user-friendly, appealing BitTorrent clients available for the platform are very few in comparison to the number of those available for Windows.
In this article we will highlight the most popular Mac BitTorrent applications and compare their features.
Let’s start with the granddaddy of them all, Bram Cohen’s self-titled BitTorrent application. It’s gotten kind of confusing since he named the protocol, his company and his application all BitTorrent. BitTorrent OSX is a very (and I mean very) basic application. It’s as feature-full as Safari’s download box and that’s not saying much. Now some people wouldn’t mind something like that, but if you’re looking for simplicity Transmission is a much better choice. BitTorrent OSX also takes an age to start up on my MacBook Pro.
Transmission is my current Mac B.T. client of choice. 
It’s an Open Source project, maintained by the developer of the popular Mac DVD ripping application, HandBrake. Transmission does its job well. A neat feature it offers is the ability to view download and upload rates in the dock, so I don’t even have to open up the program to check how my downloads are going. Another great thing Transmission does is copy the .torrent file to its support folder, then trash the original file from my desktop thereby leaving no mess of files behind for me to clean up. Now just like everything Transmission has its flaws, the biggest of which is that Demonoid, a leading BitTorrent directory has banned it on ocassion! They say it doesn’t adhere to set standards.
Azureus is a cross-platfrom BitTorrent client written in Java. It’s slightly slower than all the other native Mac B.T. applications, but has features none of the others can boast of. Therefore it remains one of the most popular clients, even on the Mac. The one reason I have both Azureus and Transmission installed at any given time is because Transmission doesn’t allow me to select which files I want from a particular torrent. We call the feature ‘Selective Downloading’ and Azureus is sadly the only popular Mac B.T. client that lets me do that! There are also a number of great plug-ins for Azureus that let you do all sorts of things like subscribe to RSS feeds with .torrent enclosures.
Tomato Torrent is a very plain alternative, seriously lacking in eye-candy and begging for a new icon (and maybe a new name too). It’s based on the official BitTorrent client. I think it desrves a mention because I know a few people who swear by it. It comes with an AppleScript file that you can place in folders you want to download to. When you want to download a torrent to a specific folder, you just drag the .torrent file onto the piece of AppleScript to initiate the transfer. One pro is that it’s an extremely light client that hogs very little RAM. It’s the closet thing to uTorrent on the Mac.
Bits on Wheels is a slightly out-dated (last updated Sep. ‘05), yet popular Mac BitTorrent client. It claims to be “the first 100% native BitTorrent client for the Macintosh” as it is written in Objective-C and Cocoa.
Bits on Wheels is freeware but not Open Source. One of its main features is a visual 3D Swarm with which you can observe what’s actually going on under the hood, how many seeders and leechers you’re connected to and the bits transferring between everyone. Bits on Wheels is very OSeXy (heh!), it’s how I’d imagine the default OS X BitTorrent downloader to look if there was one. 
If not to use the first native OS X B.T. client, I’d download it just to fly around in 3D chasing bits.
Conclusion
Clearly, feature-wise Azureus is the winner. Bits on Wheels and Transmission are both great alternatives to BitTorrent OSX. If only Bits on Wheels would be updated more often and Transmission become standards-compliant and both of them allow Selective Downloading, they might start taking back some market share. And lets not forget the light weighted tomato. Tomato Torrent could use a few more features and better interface, but it too is a great BitTorrent client.
Worthy Mentions
Acquisition is a Mac p2p program like Limewire that accesses popular file-sharing networks like Gnutella to search for files. It also doubles as a BitTorrent client. Although I have never been able to achieve superior download speeds that I do with Transmission or Azureus, it’s iTunes-integration is sweet.
From version 9 Opera the popular cross-platform browser has implemented a simple, built-in BitTorrent client. It’s supposedly “targeted at novice users.”
.torrents are OSeXy.
Windows Clients Comparison
BitTorrent Client Features (wiki)
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Hi ! I’m bits on wheels’ developer.
I’d just like to correct one of your assertions which says “an Azureus-like visual 3D Swarm”. I wrote the 3D swarm before azureus implemented it. I showed some prereleases to gudy (one of AZ’s devs), before BoW hit version 1.0. He thought it was a good idea and gracefully accepted not to implement it himself before my client was out.
So for the more dumb among us, what is the reasoning of the developers for keeping the issues in transmission? I mean, I can gleam from you guys that they seem to get high off their own farts, but what exactly leads them to believe that bailing out on standards is a good idea?
Yeah, selective downloading is a deal-breaker for me, but I dislike Azureus; it’s just too RAM and CPU-heavy, and it’s not just un-Mac-like, it’s un-everything-else-like. That’s why I use µTorrent, which runs fine in Darwine (1.3 does, anyway; 1.6 is supposed to work in Crossover but I haven’t tried it).
For those of you slamming Azureus, take a look at the new stable version or even better, the CVS one.
I’m -really- surprised that no one has mentioned Az’s plugins for SafePeer as well as bandwidth shaping. NONE of the other clients even comes close.
Yes, it’s Java, but it’s threaded very well. I’ve used my machine to torrent and run VLC / MPlayer at the same time with no problems. And this is a humble PPC Mini.
I’ve asked five (5) Transmission users I know: none has ever had a problem with demonoid. Is there a source for this “occasional banning,” or is it just a matter of occasional conjecture?
I am aware that Transmission is banned on OiNK, but that is a completely private tracker full of Freemasons. (Now that’s conjecture!)
[quote comment="11433"]I’m -really- surprised that no one has mentioned Az’s plugins for SafePeer as well as bandwidth shaping. NONE of the other clients even comes close.[/quote]
SafePeer is the reason why I only use Azureus. Much like Adblock on Firefox, it’s an essential feature to me.
I wish I could also praise Transmission, but I cannot.
Yes, interface is good, speed seems good, features are all I need, but: almost every finished download has some files that I then can’t de-compress. So I got to trash those & download them again - in BitTorrent, and bingo: no problem to de-compress them!
It is very Interesting that no one has mentioned Torrent Station. Not that I like the application, but it is a UB Cocoa/Obj-C app which in my book is miles ahead of any of the Java based ones. (Sorry but I find Java to be hell in regards to good Ux and design standards… if only people would follow the Apple published best-practices).
hello …
i dont like transmission as i find it diffcult to use …
i cant run Azureus … dunno why …
guess i’ll have to wait for Azureus universal …
coz i have a mac book pro …
torrents r good … hehe ..
laterx …
It’s a shame that Bits on Wheels is now bitrot. I prefer it’s interface over the others.
I found another Transmission bug- it somehow keeps lots of connections open in CLOSE_WAIT state. This eventually makes it impossible to open new connections so the app has to be restarted. None of the other clients listed here, nor the libtorrent-based BitRocket and BitSlug, have this problem.
Well I know I’m way behind the curve on this one…..
I would love to try out this Bit Torrent deal….but I haven’t been able to fiqure it out on my own…
Could someone simply explain how I would use one of these clients to find stuff I would like to download.
Thanks a ton.
Jeff
[quote comment="11433"]
I’m -really- surprised that no one has mentioned Az’s plugins for SafePeer as well as bandwidth shaping. NONE of the other clients even comes close.
[/quote]
If u read the Azureus optimization wiki page it says to uninstall safepeer cause its a performace hog.
I have a g3 and AZUREUS literally kills it. I’m unable to browse or do anything with reasonable speed.
for those who have mentioned bitrocket, not all of it has been open-sourced. for instance the upnp/nat-pmp component is the commericial framework PortMapper which costs the developer $200. that indicates to me that he’ll eventually charge for the app. and you can’t build your own app from the sources he provides, since it’s incomplete. note that doesn’t mean he’s doing anything wrong.
List of Free/OpenSource BitTorrent clients with screenshots:
http://www.freesmug.org/review/bittorrent
There is also Hurricane.
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