Free WebDAV Client for Windows 11: A Dated Comparison

What Windows 11 already has, and what Microsoft said about it

Windows 11 ships a WebDAV client. Microsoft's own instructions are File Explorer, This PC, then More and Map network drive, pick a drive letter in the Drive list, type the address in the Folder box, optionally tick Reconnect at sign-in, and click Finish. No download involved.

The reason this page exists is a two-sentence entry on Microsoft's list of deprecated Windows client features, announced in November 2023 and still there when we read the page in September 2026:

Webclient (WebDAV) Service
The Webclient (WebDAV) service is deprecated.
The Webclient service isn't started by default in Windows.

The same page defines what that means: the features on it "are no longer being actively developed, and might be removed in a future update". Deprecated is not removed, and the built-in client still works once you start the service — but it will not gain features, it will not get performance work, and it carries limits that are now frozen in place. That is a reasonable basis for choosing something else, which is what the rest of this page is about. If your built-in mapping is failing right now, the fix belongs on WebDAV not working on Windows 11; this page assumes you have decided to stop fighting it.

The shortlist

Every figure below comes from the vendor's own site, checked in September 2026.

Two columns deserve a warning. Free tier means four different things in that table: a permanent open-source licence, an ad-supported cap, a timed trial, and a feature-capped tier. And mounts as a drive is the line that splits the list in half — a window you look at is not a volume your applications can save into.

Free, permanently, with no asterisk

Cyberduck is the one to try first if you do not need a drive letter. Version 9.5.4 was released on 25 August 2026, it requires "Windows 10 (64bit) or later", it is licensed under the GPL, and its protocol list includes WebDAV alongside FTP, SFTP, S3, Backblaze B2, OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox. There is a donation prompt after installing or updating; a registration key from a minimum $10 USD contribution "registers the installed application to your name and disables the donation prompt". Nothing is feature-locked behind it. What Cyberduck deliberately does not do is mount — its own site points you at Mountain Duck for that. The Cyberduck alternatives page works through the same field from its side.

WinSCP is free software under the GPL, version 3 or later, and Windows-only. WebDAV is one of its five supported protocols, and its own protocol comparison table is unusually honest about the trade: on WebDAV, transfer resume is unsupported, text (ASCII) transfer mode is unsupported, and checksum calculation is unsupported, while transfer cancellation and direct file duplication work. If you move large files over a flaky link, that first row matters more than any interface preference.

rclone is MIT-licensed and covers both sides of the protocol. rclone mount remote:path X: gives you a drive letter, and the docs are explicit that "to run rclone mount on Windows, you will need to download and install WinFsp" — a filesystem driver, with everything that implies. The other direction is more interesting on a machine you control: rclone serve webdav puts a WebDAV server in front of any of its 70-plus backends, with a default --addr of 127.0.0.1:8080. The driver question is worked through on rclone mount alternatives.

The ones that exist to give you a drive letter

RaiDrive is the free tier most people end up on, partly because Synology's own documentation recommends it to Windows users and describes it as "free for non-commercial use". Its own pricing page lists the Standard tier as free with 8 Drives and advertisements; paid tiers start at USD1.84/month, with the page noting that "pricing shown is per month on a 3-year commitment" and a 14-day trial. WebDAV, SFTP and FTP are all supported connection types.

NetDrive has no free tier we can find documented. Its store lists Personal at $3.9/month with a 7-day free trial, $29.9/year, or $69.95 lifetime, and Team at $4.9/month, $34.9/year or $149.0 lifetime. The current builds are 3.19.14 for Windows and 3.19.35 for macOS, and WebDAV is a supported service. It belongs on this page for completeness, not as a free option.

Mountain Duck 5 is the polished paid mount. It uses the operating system's own sync interfaces — File Provider on macOS, Cloud Files on Windows — and states that "no device driver installation or network mount required", which is a real advantage over WinFsp. Protocol coverage is inherited from Cyberduck and is the widest here. Both downloads are trial versions and the price is not published on the page; you buy a registration key.

AnyStorage, placed honestly

This is the app this site makes, so the facts come with the limitations attached. It runs on Windows 10 and later, WebDAV is one of more than 20 connection types, and it is currently 0.2.x — young next to Cyberduck's release history, with no command line and no offline sync.

The interesting part on Windows specifically is that it inverts the problem. Instead of relying on the deprecated redirector to reach your server, the app talks WebDAV over the network itself, and then serves a mount to Windows from loopback: sidebar, Services, WebDAV tab, Start, default address http://127.0.0.1:3211, HTTP Basic authentication always on with username anystorage and a 24-character password generated on first use. Every connection open in the app appears as a folder under that root, so a WebDAV server, an S3 bucket and a Google Drive account share one mapped drive. No WinFsp, no admin rights.

The limits, stated plainly: the free tier allows two connections and serves that mount read-only, so a drive letter your applications can write into is a paid feature; commercial use is allowed on the free tier. And because Windows still does the final mapping, the redirector's own rules apply to that loopback mount too — the WebClient service has to be running, and BasicAuthLevel has to allow Basic credentials on a non-SSL address. The broader argument for this shape is on mount cloud storage as a local drive.

How to actually choose

1. You only need to browse, upload and download. Cyberduck, or WinSCP if you prefer a two-pane layout. Both are permanently free with no caps, and neither asks Windows for a drive letter, which means none of the redirector's limits apply.
2. An application needs a path, not a window. You need a mount. RaiDrive's free tier if eight drives and an advertisement are acceptable; Mountain Duck if you want no driver and will pay; rclone if WinFsp is fine; AnyStorage if read-only is enough on the free tier.
3. You move files above 50 MB through a mapped drive. Any third-party client sidesteps the redirector's FileSizeLimitInBytes entirely. If you stay with the built-in client, the Windows WebDAV 50 MB limit has the exact value and the ceiling.
4. Your server has a self-signed certificate. Prefer a client that manages trust itself. The built-in redirector needs the certificate installed into Windows' trusted store before it will mount at all, and Synology, for one, requires "a valid SSL certificate" over HTTPS for native mapping to work.
5. You are automating. rclone, by a wide margin. It is the only entry here designed to be driven from a script, and rclone serve webdav also lets it act as the server.

Next steps

The protocol hub, with the cross-platform view: choosing a WebDAV client. If you came here because a cloud drive would not accept a WebDAV URL, does Google Drive support WebDAV answers that one.