Net::FTP should not be any slower than any other FTP client. I would try to diagnose this as a problem. Attempt to FTP out from the same machine. If you continue to get slow connections, perhaps it's the connection for this machine. If you're getting through fine, try turning on some of Net::FTP's debugging options and see if you can diagnose the problem. It's designed to be a simple and efficient FTP mechanism for Perl. I would expect it to be faster than any GUI FTP client.