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)
Previously: BitTorrent Inc expands server park
Next: Why BitTorrent Works
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hi i was wondering how do you install the Ktorrent client?? i hope that they make a installer for it so u dont have to get the code then compile and go thru the whole process.. its just an anoyance that most people dont wanna go thru so please give instructions on how to install it..
thanks
seb:
The only way to install KTorrent on a Mac is to compile it from source.
It’s not an “annoyance” at all, on the contrary, it can be very interesting watching your processor translate that source code to work on your particular machine only.
All you need is Fink installed.
Anyway, if you think compiling is not for you (”most people”?), then I suggest you try one of the clients mentioned on the article above.
So, still interested?
[quote comment="11448"]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 …[/quote]
Yeah…because Sun decided that Java should compile to PPC-specific binary all of a sudden…
DUDE. Java works anywhere. That’s the idea behind Azureus. I’m on a MBP, been running Azureus since the day I got it.
HI, I tried all the software presented here and never got good download rates. on azureus the best was 6-7 kbs. Then I discovered Xtorrent
http://www.xtorrentp2p.com/
it is still a beta version, but it work REALLY WELL, i got 70kbs! 10x faster than azureus.and I did put the right settings on azureus. The search feature is great, because you can find your torrents from within the software.
I love it!
If you want KTorrent for MAc, you can download a binary… via BitTorrent!
It’s a prerelease of KDE4 and doesn’t need X11, it’s QT on Aqua.
http://ranger.users.finkproject.org/kde/index.php/Home
I did not find ktorrent KTorrent in prelease of KDE 4… So, where is it? I guess is a joke, because developers of KTorrent never said that KTorrent for KDE 4 is ready.
From a random forum on BitTorrent clients:
“Well actually [...] Acquisition supports Gnutella and BitTorrent while Xtorrent only supports BitTorrent plus some nice torrent searching functions.
But one has to keep in mind that both apps use the libtransmission engine which has been banned on almost all good trackers.
So cutting it short: Xtorrent is pretty useless in most cases. And Acquisitions p2p protocol ain’t popular anymore.”
OMFG! On a whim I just downloaded BitSticks to see how it worked. I feel kinda silly saying this…but it is the CUTEST damn thing I’ve ever seen! Really, there is no other word to describe it..except maybe…adorable?
:D
I guess Transmission (finally 0.7) is getting better nowadays…
There’s no KTorrent with KDE4 so far.
Mr. “d r” is mistaken.
Unfortunately the newest ktorrent won’t build easilly against “/sw” anymore, ‘cos Fink is way too outdated. So, for now, stick to your client and wait ’till some good developer ports KTorrent natively to the Mac world.
Cheers.
Hi.
I’m a 20 year IT Guy, never had to use BT before, but variously forwarded ports for it for people who needed to use it over the last few years.
On the basis of this article I installed Transmission on my intel Mac. I spent about an hour playing with port forwarding on the router, tinkering with rules, etc, etc, all to no avail. All I got were ‘Port is Stealth’ and red lights. The forum is loaded with these sort of messages, some get resolved, but by the tone of the posters, most everyone over there is tired of asking the question, and tired of answering it. I gave up.
Installed Azureus. On first run, it checked the firewall and said everything was fine. “Yea, right”, I thought, watch this one stuff up too.
To my surprise, Azureus immediately started the download at about 500kbs.
So, be warned. If you like the sound of Transmission, try Azureus first, and if it works, forget Transmission.
Mike
I’ve been using Azureus on a quad g5, and have no problems with performance and love the way it works, but it causes serious stability problems: the mac will lock up nearly daily, sometimes in a few hours, if I’ve got Azureus running.
Azureus has the best feature set, but the GUI *is* sluggish, (Apple’s fault, for not keeping the Java implementation as slick as we know they are well capable of) and it often takes several seconds to respond to a mouse click.
There are many redraw glitches, especially when the app has been running for a while, the prefs panel is fairly hideously and (in some cases) illogically laid out.
It’s also missing ’standard’ user interface features (as seen on any platform) such as doubleclicking the border between two columns to get it to auto-resize the column width.
Most irritating non-Mac feature for me is that the Azureus app has no creator signature, so it’s impossible to write an AppleScript which will automatically set the ‘open with’ of a file to Azureus.
Context: I have a folder action which I’d like to use to make all my (e.g.) bitme torrents hook up with Azureus when I add/save torrents to that folder, but otherwise I use another client for bittorrent.
Yes, I know we’re supposed to have moved on from creator sigs, but AppleScript doesn’t yet fully support the more modern alternative.
BitsOnWheels is beautiful, but without more updates, it feels like abandonware.
I actually like BitTorrent (the app). Sometimes it chokes on ‘invisible’ files, and quite unglamorous and basic, but otherwise very solid.
there’s also sharktorrent, http://sharktorrent.com/ . Currently no binaries for mac, but they will soon come.
[quote comment="11356"]What about BitPump?
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/bitpump.htm/quote
I couldn’t find a Mac version of it. The article is about Mac clients, yes?
sharktorrent just got its first mac univeral binary out. http://sharktorrent.com/
Suppie Smaran,
which do you think is best?
do you know when utorrent is coming out for mac? and i dunno about dropping by at your house tonight.
Dano
Great review, thanks. After some playing around (I was using Azureus on my Mini, and the resource usage just is awful on such a ‘tiiny’ machine) with all clients people recommended here, there is only Transmission left, as you say. It has the native Apple it-just=works thingy, where basically all others loose. I don’t use private trackers, so I can’t comment on that, but my speeds are great. What does annoy me is that there is no encryption support - but the Author states it as one of the next feats - hope so!
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