What is rTorrent used for?

rTorrent is a high-performance, ncurses-based command-line BitTorrent client for Unix-like systems, built on libtorrent. It is a good fit for running torrents from a terminal session over SSH and text-only environments.

Is rTorrent open source?

Yes. rTorrent is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rakshasa/rtorrent and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. rTorrent is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host rTorrent?

Yes. rTorrent can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What are some alternatives to rTorrent?

Similar open-source tools in the File Storage & Sharing category include qBittorrent, Transmission and qr-filetransfer. SaaS products in the same category include Acronis Cyber Protect, Akamai Object Storage and Amazon EFS.

Is rTorrent actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to rTorrent was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.16.24, published on 22 September 2026. The project has 4.9k stars on GitHub.

rTorrent: open-source file storage & sharing

About rTorrent

rTorrent is a BitTorrent client that runs entirely in the terminal, using an ncurses interface. It is built for high performance and is documented through a wiki and user guide. It is a long-running C++ project suited to people who prefer text-based tools over a graphical downloader.

rTorrent follows the development of libtorrent closely, so the two must be built at the same version. Building from source requires libcurl, libtorrent and ncurses plus the usual autotools build dependencies, and man pages can optionally be generated. The wiki's user guide explains configuration and day-to-day use.

The code is licensed under the GNU GPL, and its SHA-1 routines originate from Mozilla NSS. OpenSSL can be used instead of NSS, with an exception added for linking. The project accepts donations to support development. A related project, rbedit, is a dependency-free bencode editor.

Key features

Terminal-based ncurses interface
Built on libtorrent
Designed for high performance
Documented through a wiki and user guide

Good fit for

→Running torrents from a terminal session over SSH
→Text-only environments

Built with: C++
Tags: bittorrent; torrent-client; ncurses; cli; cpp; libtorrent; terminal

rTorrent: questions and answers

What is rTorrent used for?: rTorrent is a high-performance, ncurses-based command-line BitTorrent client for Unix-like systems, built on libtorrent. It is a good fit for running torrents from a terminal session over SSH and text-only environments.
Is rTorrent open source?: Yes. rTorrent is open source under the GPL-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at rakshasa/rtorrent and is written mainly in C++.
Is rTorrent free?: Yes. rTorrent is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host rTorrent?: Yes. rTorrent can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What are some alternatives to rTorrent?: Similar open-source tools in the File Storage & Sharing category include qBittorrent, Transmission and qr-filetransfer. SaaS products in the same category include Acronis Cyber Protect, Akamai Object Storage and Amazon EFS.
Is rTorrent actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to rTorrent was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.16.24, published on 22 September 2026. The project has 4.9k stars on GitHub.