Support Start > Managing Your Web Site > FTP Publishing > Slow FTP

Sometimes people report that their FTP program is slow to upload or download a large number of small files, even if they have a fast Internet connection.

This is usually due to the limitations of FTP itself. With most FTP programs, each file transfer requires a new connection. The overhead of establishing each new connection can significantly limit the number of small files you can transfer per second.

If you experience this problem, we recommend switching from traditional standard “FTP” to SFTP, which doesn’t need to make a new connection for each file. (It’s more secure, too.)

If you can’t switch to SFTP for some reason, another option is to use an FTP program that will make multiple simultaneous connections when it transfers files. For example, the settings of the FileZilla program let you increase the “Maximum simultaneous transfers” to 10:

Doing that will probably help a great deal if your FTP program allows it.