---
title: "FTP: fifty years and millions of FTP servers worldwide"
description: "It has been fifty years since the release of the FTP protocol . FTP (File Transfer Protocol) dates from April, 1971 (RFC 114). Its original specification was written by computer scientist Abhay Bhushh..."
url: https://www.stackscale.com/blog/ftp/
date: 2021-05-18
modified: 2023-11-03
author: "Marketing Stackscale"
image: https://www.stackscale.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/FTP_file-transfer-protocol-anniversary-Stackscale.jpg
categories: ["Computing"]
tags: ["Protocols"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# FTP: fifty years and millions of FTP servers worldwide

**It has been fifty years since the release of the FTP protocol**. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) dates from April, 1971 (RFC 114). Its original specification was written by computer scientist Abhay Bhushhan. After half a century of its release, the **FTP protocol remains widely used and has millions of FTP servers all over the world**.

## Fifty years since the release of the FTP protocol

The File Transfer Protocol has been reviewed sixteen times over these past fifty years. For instance, in 1980 NCP — the network protocol which had been used so far — was replaced by TCP/IP. Revisions over the years have also amended and upgraded FTP with security extensions such as FTPS, [IPv6](https://www.stackscale.com/es/blog/que-es-ipv6/) support, NAT, etc.

| **Specification** | **Date** |
| --- | --- |
| [RFC 114](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc114) | April 1971 |
| [RFC 697](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc697) | July 1975 |
| [RFC 765](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc765) | June 1980 |
| [RFC 959](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc959) | October 1985 |
| [RFC 1579](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1579) | February 1994 |
| [RFC 1635](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1635) | May 1994 |
| [RFC 1639](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1639) | June 1994 |
| [RFC 1738](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1738) | December 1994 |
| [RFC 2228](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2228) | October 1997 |
| [RFC 2389](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2389) | August 1998 |
| [RFC 2428](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2428) | September 1998 |
| [RFC 2577](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2577) | May 1999 |
| [RFC 2640](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2640) | July 1999 |
| [RFC 3659](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3659) | March 2007 |
| [RFC 5797](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5797) | March 2010 |
| [RFC 7151](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7151) | March 2014 |

## FTP: File Transfer Protocol

The File Transfer Protocol is **a standard communication protocol based on a client-server architecture** with separate control and data connections. FTP is used for transferring files between a server and a client over a network. For communication and data transfer, the File Transfer Protocol can run both in active and passive mode. The mode determines how data connections are established.

Besides, for ensuring a secure transmission, it can be secured with FTPS (SSL/TLS) or replaced with SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol). This way the content is encrypted and the username and password are protected.

### Data transfer types

There are four types for transferring data over the network:

- **Type A: ASCII**. It is used for text file transfer. As different platforms have different types of line endings, ASCII translates line endings to properly adapt them to each platform.
- **Type I: image or binary**. It is used for image and video file transfer. It transfers files without changes.
- **Type E: EBCDIC**. It is used for plain text transfer between hosts using the EBCDIC encoding.
- **Type L: local**. Data is transferred in logical bytes of the size specified by the obligatory second parameter.

ASCII and Binary/Image are the most commonly used and implemented data transfer types.

## Free and open-source FTP clients

| **Client** | **Release date** | **License** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **NcFTP** | 1991 | Clarified Artistic License |
| **FAR Manager **(File and Archive Manager) | 1996 | BSD |
| **lftp** | 1996 | GNU GPL |
| **cURL** | 1997 | MIT |
| **gFTP** | 1998 | GNU GPL |
| **tnftp** (formerly lukemftp) | 1999 | BSD |
| **WinSCP **(Windows Secure Copy) | 2000 | GNU GPL |
| **FileZilla Client** | 2001 | GNU GPL |
| **Cyberduck** | 2002 | GNU GPL |
| **net2ftp** | 2003 | GNU GPL |
| **Fugu** | 2003 | BSD |
| **FireFTP** | 2004 | MPL 1.1 / Charityware |
| **Rclone** | 2014 | MIT |
| **Macfusion** | – | BSD |

For further information, you can visit Wikipedia’s [comparison of FTP clients](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_client_software).

## Free and open-source FTP servers

| **Server** | **Release date** | **License** |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **WAR FTP Daemon** | 1996 | – |
| **FileZilla Server** | 2001 | GNU GPL |
| **Pure-FTPd** | 2001 | BSD |
| **ProFTPd** | – | GNU GPL |
| **vsftpd** (very secure FTP daemon) | | GNU GPL |

For further information, you can visit Wikipedia’s [comparison of FTP servers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_FTP_server_software_packages).