ftp vs sftp

Be aware that there are few "secure" ftp implementations...

sftp is ftp across an SSH connection (which is preferred) and ftps which litterary is FTP over SSL. With firewalls involved FTPS is a nightmare because the FTP (and FTPS ) protocol use 2 connections (1 = commands & status, the other = data xfer).
and needs Firewalls too snoop the command channel... The command channel is also the one where the passwords go unencrypted.

Opt for SFTP.

What do you need it for? The main difference is just that the S stands for Secure. For @home you can use FTP just fine, for work and WAN networks, I'd use SFTP.

One could argue the opposite; @work, the network is probably secured by other means, but @home, you don't have professionals managing your network!

Plus setting up an FTP server takes additional work, whereas SFTP is supported out of the box for any decent OS.

i guess sam_2012 was asking because he has to convert some ftp scripts to use sftp. The most significant difference is that sftp doesn't allow .netrc files to supply the password.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21290267/Convert-ftp-scripts-to-sftp.html

Then again sftp can use certificates (SSH Certificates, not the x509 ones) to authentcate without passwords if needed.

Hi,
The main difference between FTP and SFTP is One uses plain text and SFTP uses Secure .
The port used for FTP and SFTP are following respectively, 21 and 22. SFTP uses SSH connection to make more secure .

Hope this helps you

@Pabhi, for FTP port 20 is needed as well, and the local system MAY act as server, unless it is forced into passive mode.
(This port 20 thingy is troublesome combined with Firewalls  and FTPS (FTP over SSL, which can be 21 or 990)

If you are using Linux machine use SFTP with port 22 .

If you are using windows machine to setup SFTP, i prefer you to install openssh server in windows which is easy to install and maintain

Thank you all , for wonderful discussion on FTP and SFTP.
I really appreciate.