Swarm vs Transmission
Transmission is a much-loved, open-source Mac torrent client — lightweight and trusted for years. Swarm is the modern take: the same native feel, plus live charts, one-click streaming, RSS, and richer privacy controls.
✓ Full support
– Partial / limited
✗ Not supported
Where Transmission shines
It's open-source and audited, remarkably lightweight, has years of proven reliability, and includes a built-in web interface for remote control. If you want the simplest possible, fully-open client, it's a great choice.
Why people switch to Swarm
- Live throughput charts — global and per-torrent, not just a number.
- Stream while downloading — sequential mode plus a Play button.
- RSS auto-download with filters — Transmission has none built in.
- Full SOCKS5 proxy for peers, trackers and DNS.
- A genuinely modern UI — Liquid Glass on macOS 26, pick-your-own accent color.
Swarm is free, no ads, Apple-notarized. macOS 14+ (Apple Silicon).
Download Swarm Full 4-app comparison
* Swarm omits a built-in search/scraper by design, to stay a clean general-purpose client.