FTP vs FTPS: Which Protocol Meets Your File Transfer Needs?

Deciding Factors for Choosing a File Transfer Protocol

Determining which file transfer protocol to choose to transfer your organization’s business-critical files is a matter of determining what requirements the task needs or requires. Let’s take a look at how to make the decision between FTP and FTPS.

First, here’s the basics:

• FTP, or File Transfer Protocol, is used to exchange files over a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP) network.
• FTPS is FTP over Secure Sockets Layer/ Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS). This protocol offers secure file transfer.

There are dozens of other protocol comparisons that can be made including, HTTP vs TCP, HTTPS vs SFTP, AS2 vs AS4, TFTP vs SFTP, SCP vs SFTP, and FTP vs MFT, to name just a few secure protocols to consider. But let’s stick with comparing FTP vs FTPS, starting with a few key questions:

Read More: 11 Popular File Transfer Protocols Explained

5 Questions to Ask When Comparing FTP and FTPS

1. What are your organization’s security requirements?

• Does the information need to be encrypted for confidentiality?

2. Do you need to meet compliance requirements?

• Compliance for HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS require data be encrypted during transfer to protect sensitive or personal information.

3. Do you need a scalable solution?

• As business needs ebb and flow, it’s important to have protocols in place that can meet those needs.

4. What speed and performance level is critical for your file transfers?

• Organizations requiring higher speed or multi-file transfers need to consider that in weighing FTP vs FTPS.

5. How important is authentication and user management to your organization?

• Consider your overall cybersecurity policies when choosing a protocol to ensure it aligns.

Here’s How FTP and FTPS Meet File Transfer Needs

• FTPS wins when it comes to security. Organizations needing to encrypt sensitive or compliance-subject data benefit from FTPS, which encrypts through SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security). This ensures that during file transfer, both the data and any credentials are protected.

  FTP sends data in plain text minus critical encryption, so it’s a no-go for confidential or sensitive data.

• FTPS is the choice to meet compliance regulations. As the “S” in FTPS stands for “Secure,” FTPS beats FTP when it comes to meeting industry requirements for compliance and is the best choice for government, healthcare or finance if you need to choose between the two protocols.
• FTPS is more scalable. While FTP is fine for simple, non-sensitive use cases, enterprise-level organizations with more complex use cases and security and compliance needs require FTPS.
• FTP is speedier than FTPS. But this comes with a catch – a lack of encryption in that raw transfer speed. FTPS can slightly slow file transfer speed in environments with limited bandwidth or with large files, but data is encrypted for security.
• FTPS adds more robust authentication. With FTPS, authentication can be achieved via two-factor authentication and SSL certificates and keys. FTP requires usernames and passwords, which can be more easily compromised.

Why FTP is Inferior to FTPS

To start, FTP simply has not kept up with, nor can it meet today’s cybersecurity needs, lacking many of the security safeguards that customers, trade allies, and compliance requirements demand, such as:

• No encryption for data as well as authentication details
• No compression of large files, so sending speed can be slow
• More modern protocols (FTPS included), feature file integrity, auto-retry and secure authentication
• Lack of integrity checks, meaning when data is in transit it is more vulnerable to tampering
• No automation functionality
• FTP requires multiple ports be opened for transfers, which opens the door to security threats
• There are no new FTP security features that have been added or updated since it was created

Read More: Compare the Top File Transfer Protocols

Is there a Reason to Use FTP?

If the only information you exchange are files without sensitive data, FTP may suit your needs. However, this older, open-source technology might not be supported by newer systems and may be frowned upon by your trading partners.

It’s just not worth the risk. FTPS, as well as many other protocols supported by robust Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions, offer organizations a wide range of security benefits that FTP simply cannot.