qBittorrent vs uTorrent: Which Is Better, and Is uTorrent Safe?

The two clients look alike on purpose. qBittorrent's own site says the project "aims to provide an open-source software alternative to µTorrent", and its interface follows the same layout: a torrent list on top, details tabs below, and categories down the side. If you know one, you can use the other within minutes.

The real differences are in how each one is paid for. uTorrent is a commercial product: the free version carries ads, the installer has carried partner offers, and paid tiers remove the ads and add extras. qBittorrent is built by volunteers and funded by donations, so there is nothing to sell you inside the app.

At a glance

	qBittorrent	uTorrent (Classic and Web)
Price	Free	Free with ads; paid tiers $4.95 to $69.95 a year
Ads in the app	None	Yes, in the free version
Installer offers	None	Third-party offers reported in 2026
Source code	Open (GPL)	Closed (proprietary)
Made by	Volunteer project	BitTorrent Limited and uTorrent, Inc.
Built-in search	Yes, via plugins	Advertised in uTorrent Web
RSS downloads	Yes, with regex filters	Yes (Classic)
Play while downloading	Sequential download, free	HD streaming in Pro
Remote control	Built-in web UI; headless qbittorrent-nox	Remote access from a browser
Platforms	Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD, OS/2	Classic: Windows, Mac, Linux. Web: Windows, Mac. Android app

Is uTorrent safe?

uTorrent itself is not malware, and the copy on utorrent.com is the genuine program. The safety question is really about three other things: ads, installer offers, and a long history of bundling that has made security software suspicious of it.

Ads in the free version

The free version of uTorrent is ad-supported. The company sells the way out as a subscription:

Ad-Free: listed at $4.95 a year on the uTorrent Pro page and $6.95 a year on its home page.
Pro: $19.95 a year. No ads, plus malware and virus blocking, HD streaming and a file converter.
Pro+VPN: $69.95 a year. Everything in Pro plus a year of CyberGhost VPN on up to five devices.

You can switch some of the ads off yourself through hidden advanced settings, but the names of those settings vary between versions and reviewers report the process as fiddly. Cloudwards' July 2026 review calls it "a slightly arduous process".

Installer offers and antivirus warnings

This is the part that earns uTorrent its reputation. Cloudwards' 2026 review found the installer bundled with "multiple pieces of unwanted software, including McAfee antivirus and RAV Endpoint Protection". Gizmodo, writing in October 2026, notes that "Microsoft Defender also flags its installer as potentially unwanted software because of bundled offers."

Microsoft explains the logic in its published criteria. A potentially unwanted application (PUA) is not malware. One PUA category is "bundling software": software that offers to install other software made by someone else and not needed for it to run. Torrent software as such is only treated as a PUA on business (enterprise) machines, so on a home PC the warning is about the offers, not about BitTorrent.

The history behind the suspicion

uTorrent's bundling goes back a long way. Version 1.8.2 in 2009 offered the Ask.com toolbar, a Conduit toolbar followed in late 2010, and the Bing Toolbar was bundled in 2011. Ads arrived in the free version in August 2012. In March 2015 the installer began installing Epic Scale, a background program that mined the Litecoin cryptocurrency; after a public outcry it was removed from the installer on 28 March 2015.

None of that means today's installer will harm your computer. It does explain why many people would rather not deal with it.

If you keep uTorrent, install it carefully

Download it only from utorrent.com. Third-party download sites and mirrors are where real malware tends to hide.
Read every installer screen. Where you see an offer for other software, choose Decline, not Accept or Next.
If Defender raises a PUA warning, it is warning you about the offers. Check Settings → Apps afterwards and uninstall anything you did not mean to install.

Open source vs proprietary

qBittorrent's code is public on GitHub under the GPL (version 2 or later for the source; the binaries are GPLv3 or later). Anyone can read it, build it, or check what it does on the network. Every release on the download page is PGP-signed and has published SHA-256 checksums, so you can confirm your installer is the one the project built.

uTorrent is proprietary. You have to trust the company's description of what it does, and the company is a commercial one with a history of partner deals. Its owner, formerly BitTorrent, Inc. and now Rainberry, was acquired by the cryptocurrency company TRON in 2018.

Open source is not automatically more secure, but it removes the incentive to monetise you and lets other people check.

Privacy

Neither client can hide your IP address from the swarm. That is how BitTorrent works: every peer you trade pieces with can see your address. If that matters to you, read VPN for torrenting.

Where they differ is what the software company itself collects. The BitTorrent and uTorrent privacy policy (last updated December 2023) lists IP address, MAC address, cookie identifiers, device and usage information, and says the company may collect precise location. It also states that it "sells" and "shares" personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. To be fair, it also says: "We do not track which files you transfer with the BitTorrent Client."

qBittorrent has no company, no accounts and no advertising business. It is an open-source desktop program, and its network behaviour is visible in its code.

Features compared

Both clients cover the basics well: magnet links, DHT and peer exchange, encryption, per-file priorities, bandwidth limits and a scheduler.

Search

qBittorrent has a built-in search tab that queries several sites at once. It is off until you enable it (View → Search Engine) and install search plugins, which are small Python scripts, so you need Python installed. On the uTorrent side, search is pitched as a uTorrent Web feature: its download page says you can "search for torrents and play them right in your browser". Search results from public indexers are not checked for licensing, so what you download is still your responsibility.

RSS

qBittorrent's RSS reader supports download rules with regular expressions, which is handy for things like a podcast feed or a distribution's weekly Linux builds. uTorrent Classic also supports RSS feeds with filters by title, quality and episode.

Sequential download and streaming

qBittorrent lets you tick Download in sequential order on any torrent for free, so a video can be watched before it finishes. uTorrent sells streaming as part of Pro, and Cloudwards reports that its player does not handle x265 (HEVC) files. If you want to understand the trade-offs of downloading in order, read sequential download explained.

If watching is your main goal, neither is ideal, because both are download managers first. A dedicated streaming player such as TorrentStream starts playback in seconds and fetches the exact point you skip to. It is free and open source, but it is an early preview with unsigned installers, and it cannot yet play some audio formats such as AC-3 and DTS. It also has no RSS, scheduler or web UI, so it complements a client rather than replacing one.

Remote control

qBittorrent's web UI is built in and nearly identical to the desktop app. There is also qbittorrent-nox, a version with only the web UI, for running on a headless server or NAS. uTorrent Classic offers remote access through a browser too, although Cloudwards notes it "doesn't let you download files onto the device you're connecting from".

Resource use

uTorrent's name comes from "micro", and it has long been known for a small footprint. In Cloudwards' 2026 tests, uTorrent used about 35 MB of RAM, while qBittorrent used about 180 MB and rarely exceeded 1 percent CPU on a Ryzen 7 laptop. The same review found that uTorrent Pro's antivirus component alone used around 300 MB.

Those figures come from two separate reviews rather than a side-by-side test, so treat them as rough. On any computer from the last decade, the difference will not be noticeable.

Where uTorrent still has an edge

To be fair to uTorrent:

It is lighter on memory, as measured above.
It has an official Android app. qBittorrent offers desktop builds only.
uTorrent Web runs in the browser, which some beginners find simpler.
qBittorrent's Mac version lags. Its download page says "the macOS version is barely supported", and the Mac build was a version behind Windows and Linux when we checked. On a Mac, Transmission is a better free alternative to both. See the best torrent clients for more options.

How to switch from uTorrent to qBittorrent

You do not need to download anything again. qBittorrent can pick up your existing files as long as it is pointed at the folder they are already in.

The simple way: re-add your torrents

This works for a handful of torrents and needs no extra tools.

In uTorrent, note where each torrent is saved, then close uTorrent completely (right-click its tray icon and choose Exit).
Find your .torrent files. uTorrent Classic keeps them in %APPDATA%\uTorrent. Paste that into the File Explorer address bar.
Install qBittorrent from qbittorrent.org.
Open each .torrent file in qBittorrent. In the add dialog, set Save at to the exact folder uTorrent used.
qBittorrent checks the existing data and carries on from where uTorrent left off. If a torrent shows the wrong progress, right-click it and choose Force recheck.

For finished torrents you are seeding, the add dialog has an option to skip the hash check and start seeding at once. That saves time if you trust the files are intact.

The thorough way: bt2qbt

If you have dozens or hundreds of torrents, the community tool bt2qbt converts uTorrent's records (resume.dat) into qBittorrent's format, keeping save paths, labels and tags. It is not an official qBittorrent tool, so read its instructions first. In short:

In uTorrent, turn off Append .!ut to incomplete files so partly finished files keep their real names.
Close both uTorrent and qBittorrent.
Back up your uTorrent folder (%APPDATA%\uTorrent), your qBittorrent folder (%LOCALAPPDATA%\qBittorrent) and the qBittorrent.ini settings file.
In qBittorrent 5.x, set Tools → Options → Advanced → Resume data storage type to Fastresume files before you migrate.
Run bt2qbt.exe. By default it reads from %APPDATA%\uTorrent and writes to qBittorrent's folder.
Open qBittorrent. Partly downloaded torrents show as 100 percent until you right-click them and choose Force recheck, so do that for anything unfinished.

Coming from uTorrent Web

uTorrent Web stores its list differently, and bt2qbt does not cover it. A workaround described in a qBittorrent GitHub issue is to read the infohashes from uTorrent Web's database file, then add each one in qBittorrent as a magnet link with Add Torrent Link, pointing it at the folder where the files already are. With only a few torrents, it is quicker to re-add the original magnet links or .torrent files.

Once everything is running in qBittorrent, uninstall uTorrent from Settings → Apps.

Verdict

Choose qBittorrent if you are on Windows or Linux, which covers most people reading this. It does everything uTorrent does, plus free sequential downloading, a proper search plugin system and a headless server version. It has no ads, no upsells and no installer offers, and you can read its code.

uTorrent only makes sense if you need its Android app, already pay for Pro and are happy with it, or have very little memory to spare. If you do keep it, download from the official site and decline every offer.

On a Mac, look at Transmission before either of them. And whichever client you use, downloading copyrighted material without permission is usually illegal, even though BitTorrent itself is not. The details are in is torrenting legal?

Sources

Checked on 20 October 2026.