Unlike uTorrent, one of the coolest things about rTorrent is that it’s open source, thus giving just about anyone the opportunity to develop a web frontend to support this popular BitTorrent client. Introducing Avalanche - a new web GUI for rTorrent that combines a simple yet sophisticated interface which so happens to be packed with features.

http://code.google.com/p/avalanche-rt

Avalanche’s main interface is designed in a style that’s similar to Transmission’s Clutch WebUI. One thing in particular that truly stands out is the option to use short cut codes (O for Open, Delete for Remove, R for Resume, P for Pause), as well as keyboard arrows and other special keys. This alone makes Avalanche a perfect choice as a mouseless WebUI. Below is a quick outline of the available features (refer to the Avalanche QuickGuide for advanced details).

The Avalanche Main Interface:

**1.

** **— Header Menu

:** Where all torrent jobs can be added, removed, paused, stopped & resumed. At the far right side there is an integrated torrent web search field (click the binocular icon to change default search engine).

**2.

** **— Filter Bar

:** Torrents that have been added can be filtered by status criteria (downloading, seeding, paused, completed), as well as a filter search field to be used primarily as a quick method for finding a particular torrent job.

**3.

** **— Torrent List

:** Here is where all torrent jobs are displayed in the main window. Info includes a progress bar, peers, size of job, percent completed, total uploaded, current upload rate and individual torrent ratio.

**4.

** **— Status Bar

:** Displays the global client settings. Users are able to sort torrent jobs by criteria (name, label, ratio, peers, etc).

• Click on the Name () button to show the list of available status filtering options:

• Further down the status bar on the right, global upload & download stats are reported. Users can edit the bandwidth cap for rTorrent in both UL & DL directions (note: this is global for rTorrent, and not torrent-specific).

**5.

** **— Details Pane

:** This is where Avalanche really excels over other rTorrent GUIs. There are four distinct tabs for which info is displayed for a selected (highlighted) torrent job:

• General — Displays general info about the torrent. (Name, create date, hash, tracker, current transfer rates & settings, save location… and more). One thing that stands out is that the total available storage (aka “Effect on Disk”) for the seedbox/server is displayed here, as well as how much space a certain torrent takes up in comparison to available storage.

• Files — Files in a torrent can be set to differing priority levels, but more importantly, individual files in a torrent can be skipped over.

• Peers — Peerlist info is shown for each torrent; which includes the BT client, current DL/UL rates, amount ‘taken’ and ‘given’ to each peer.

• Trackers — Trackers for the selected torrent are listed here, with the ability to remove certain trackers from the list.

A Review of Avalanche…

Avalanche is still under development (beta), and definitely needs a little more work if they’re looking to break into the private tracker scene. Thus far, torrents can only be added by URL - which is amazingly handy for browsing public torrent engines, but it’s not exactly private tracker friendly. In our tests, we were unable to successfully add torrents from any passkey-supporting private trackers, with Demonoid being the exception (if you count this as private). RSS feed support would also be a welcome addition.

Then again, it appears Avalanche isn’t intended (yet?) for the seedbox/private tracker clientele. Having said that; it could possibly turn into the next big thing in torrenting through Android phones, since downloading actual *.torrent files is not required, and neither is a keyboard or a mouse. All in all, Avalanche is a great effort with a ton of potential!

Advanced References: Be sure to check out the Avalanche Wiki for info about how to install & configure it, complete with video tutorials.

1. Julian Says:

   looks very nice, can see they were kind of going for the Mac/Apple look. I think I’ll stick to my ruTorrent though.

2. Seedbox Says:

   What is the best seedbox out there right now? Are there any OVH resellers that do not have upload caps and are reasonably priced?

3. omfg Says:

   thats 1:1 the transmission client web gui ?

4. Ryan Oberoi Says:

   Looks interesting, but the reason I switched to rutorrent and rtorrent, was that the torrent listings are small, I have 150 torrents seeding at any given moment and having each torrent take up an inch of vertical screen space = LOTS OF SCROLLING.

   Looks good though, good job guys, we appreciate all the work!

5. RaVeN Says:

   Seems decent, but i still prefer utorrent Webui over anything else - wtorrent/rutorrent/transmission.

   Haven’t tried out deluge yet >.<

6. Giwrgos Says:

   @2 check my link if u want. i have one of these and i am fully satisfied. its not ovh but it connects to ovh.net through chtix.eu.

   i am transmission so far but will like to give a try to that too!

7. dimits Says:

   Looks nice, but doesn’t really give me anything that rutorent wouldn’t do or I would need, so I’ll just stick to it for now.

8. Irtac Says:

   “5. — Details Pane: This is where Avalanche really excels over other rTorrent GUIs”

   Nah, rutorrent with plugins does it too. Seems nice tho, but I’ll stick to my rtorrent + ru

9. Gargamel Says:

   @5- I use Deluge. Its pretty sweet. Takes up more resources then UT2 but its alot nicer (and not banned or in the process of being banned on alot of trackers) xD

10. wonslung Says:

    This is a very nice client. I think the thing people need to remember is this: Part of the ADVANTAGE of unix is choice. I am a big fan of rutorrent and think it is by FAR the best option BUT i know plenty of people who like rtgui better. I know others who don’t like using a webui AT ALL and prefer to just use ssh+rtorrent.

    This gui fills a niche and it’s done very well. It’s a big win for the community in general because innovation anywhere in rtorrent helps the community. rutorrent has been around for awhile, and for a long time noone even knew about it or used it…you still have some people who think torrentflux is the best option…it’s all about choice.

11. Disposed Says:

    Way to completely rip off transmission…

12. g Says:

    I would have to agree with wonslung.

    Thanks for the review.

13. brawr Says:

    If they make a plugin or feature that allows me to create torrents, I’m down…

14. zefyx Says:

    I tried it out and so far, so good!

15. Chris Says:

    Just installed latest build from SVN. Now appears to have ability to add torrents from file!