The discussion centers on the trade-offs between using macOS Secure Enclave for SSH keys versus traditional methods, with users praising the hardware-bound security but criticizing the lack of portability and backup capabilities. Strong disagreements arise regarding whether the biometric requirement is a feature or a bug for automation, and if the perceived security benefits outweigh the usability friction compared to passphrase-protected keys.
139 readable replies · Supporting reply 1 · Supporting reply 2 · Supporting reply 3 · Supporting reply 4PowerShell
Win32-OpenSSH
Mobile & Desktop2015–2025
PowerShell / Win32-OpenSSH
Win32-OpenSSH
Win32 port of OpenSSH
33Distinct people
52Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
8.4KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Win32 port of OpenSSH
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- powershell/openssh-portable · linked in 3 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 6:01:08 PM UTC.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year52 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2015-10-19 20:50:50 UTC to 2025-03-09 14:23:41 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 0 | 6 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 13 | 2 | 11 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 18 | 3 | 15 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 12, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
As of Nov 1st 2016, active development on "Windows for OpenSSH" is being done in https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable.
This repo (https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH) is being maintained to keep track of releases and issues
and because it contains the wiki
which has instructions for building.
Release History
Date
Version
Release with source
2026-10-20
10.4.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/tree/v10.4.0.0
2025-10-27
10.0.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v10.0.0.0
2025-04-18
9.8.3.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.8.3.0
2025-04-08
9.8.2.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.8.2.0
2024-10-10
9.8.1.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.8.1.0
2024-10-08
9.8.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.8.0.0
2023-12-18
9.5.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.5.0.0
2023-10-10
9.4.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.4.0.0
2023-04-17
9.2.2.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.2.2.0
2023-02-21
9.2.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.2.0.0
2022-12-13
9.1.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v9.1.0.0
2022-03-22
8.9.1.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/V8.9.1.0
2022-03-17
8.9.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v8.9.0.0
2021-05-26
8.6.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v8.6.0.0
2019-12-17
8.1.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v8.1.0.0
2019-06-23
8.0.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v8.0.0.0
2019-01-11
7.9.0.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v7.9.0.0
2018-07-26
7.7.2.0
https://github.com/PowerShell/openssh-portable/releases/tag/v7.7.2.0
Code of Conduct
Please see our Code of Conduct before participating in this project.
Security Policy
For any security issues, please see our Security Policy.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
13 sourcesI'd wait til ssh.exe is a little more stable: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/issues
I'm just about sick of PuTTY, though, ready to just drop a copy of MSYS2's ssh.exe in my DropBox\bin folder and leave it at that.
In KiTTY – A fork of PuTTY 0.67 with many additional featuresOpenSSH for Windows Sep 30 release (major release fixing keyboard shortcuts)
6 points · Open discussionhttps://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases
Microsoft has an SSH server for Windows right now.
[Edit] Here is a guide from the WinSCP peeps on how to get it running. https://winscp.net/eng/docs/guide_windows_openssh_server
The native SFTP works well!
In PowerShell is open sourced and is available on Linuxsee: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH. ssh is coming, likely in an official capacity in the future (this is an official MS group on github)
In PowerShell is open sourced and is available on Linux>We will be extending the PowerShell Remoting Protocol (MS-PSRP) to use OpenSSH as a native transport. Users will have the option to use SSH or WINRM as a transport.
Is possibly an even bigger announcement (this means there's actual momentum behind https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH)
In PowerShell is open sourced and is available on LinuxIt's getting there: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH
In Running I3 Window Manager on Ubuntu for WindowsAnd there's openssh as a Windows binary that will eventually ship with Windows in the future. https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/releases
In Ubuntu on WindowsIt's not redundant, and that's why our work is continuing to go forward. We're definitely not cancelling our plans[1] to deliver native Win32 OpenSSH any time soon.
[1] https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki/Win32-OpenS...
In Ubuntu on WindowsIf I was still stuck using an OS X box, I would definitely switch. If I was using Linux, I wouldn't. I've been forced into developing using Windows for the last few years, and for my use case (SSH to remote server to develop there), it's not that bad. There are some annoyances, but from a usage perspective, Windows 10 is actually really nice. Getting native terminal and SSH[1] support actually handles a bug chunk of my annoyances.
> - What about lack of all the Linux/OS X GUI software?
What about the lack of windows software on those platforms? It goes both ways.
> - What about lack of all the UNIX OS features?
Which features? What about the Windows OS features you do't get on a UNIX OS? Again, it goes both ways.
> - What about all those billions and billions of Windows malware, viruses, adware etc.
There are plenty of windows Viru
Read the rest
ses and malware, but I will say the most problematic security problems I've had have all been on Linux boxes. I would still count Windows as more problematic overall due to the quantity, but I believe the focus on security from Microsoft in the recent years has paid off, and it's nowhere bad as it used to be. Also, to some degree, the prevalence of malware and viruses are because of the popularity, and the popularity comes with it's own advantages (more supported software). It's a trade-off using a platform where some software you like may not be available (e.g. games).
> - What about the fact that OS X and Linux have always been at least decent from developers point of view but Windows has always had problems and then things like Vista and Win8 happen.
Am I supposed to know what this means? People have been using Windows as a development platform for a long time. Those that want to use Visual Studio still do. Windows Vista was crap, but I didn't find Windows 8 bad at all. Around Windows 7 is when it started actually being viable for me to run, and I think it's gotten consistently better over time. The biggest problem I know of that people had with Windows 8 is the start menu change, which to be honest is a really small thing, people just didn't like it and it was front and center.
- What about the advertisements served to you in the login screen?
I haven't seen any.
> - What about all the future shit MS will throw at you?
I'm not sure how this puts Windows in any different light than OS X.
> - Other stuff can't remember now
Seriously?
> - What about all the spying and restrictions that Microsoft has integrated into the Windows? (e.g. cannot block Microsoft spy server in the hosts-file, forced updates etc.)
This is valid, and would be my number one reason for not running Windows at this point if other considerations didn't outweigh it for me.
1: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH
Things are changing:
* https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/10/07/console-im...
* http://www.nivot.org/blog/post/2016/02/04/Windows-10-TH2-%28...
* http://www.hanselman.com/blog/Windows10GetsAFreshCommandProm...
No, it's not perfect, and PuTTY isn't always the answer, but who'd have thought https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH would ever be a thing.
In Cash: a cross-platform implementation of Unix shell commands in JavaScriptSee https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/issues/57.
For some reason putty works but iTerm has the backspace issue. Putty user: what's your $TERM?
Ctrl H works as a workaround BTW.
In Install Win32 OpenSSH test releaseSee also https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/wiki/ssh.exe-exa... once you've got it running. To work around a bug, you'll currently need to run `powershell -File -`
It's still way too early to us as a daily driver - lots of small bugs - but nevertheless interesting.
In Install Win32 OpenSSH test releaseInstall Win32 OpenSSH test release
49 points · Open discussion