Remote Desktop & Access Tools comparison between 4 great open source, self hosted options!

[@mrfoodarama]

I appreciate the longer format videos and all the detail you get into. Your videos are a wealth of information

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Awesome, thank you!

[@yiltang842]

Thanks for putting this comparison together. I'm a big fan of Meshcentral, the developer continually adds new features, my favorite is web relay, it allows you to access local devices and services (ie - camera, printer, etc) through a local agent connected device. Also support is great, developer and community responds quickly...

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Indeed, he is Awesome! And the community around it has grown, and continues to grow and that makes a project really great over time.

[@Tandy625]

Dude, you rock! Just getting deeper into Linux VMs and containers. Not only are you always on point, I was JUST trying to find a best remote access for me yesterday so your timing is spot on!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I hope the information is useful!

[@louislectric]

Having watched a few of your videos, your vocal and visual presentation is remarkably good. Keep up the good work. You're the reason I tried my hand at Rustdesk as an alternative to Teamviewer. It worked straight away. Perhaps I'm ready for Remotely. No buts and ifs when I reaffirm OSS is awesome.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Super glad my videos are helpful!

[@blindside995]

Excellent video as always. Just wanted to say personally don’t mind the long format. In-fact I think it is just kind of a staple of your content and videos. While I understand this is hard for some do to attention spans and the short videos ruling the world it seems. The longer form is appreciated.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

So happy you like my format!

[@JuanDiaz-h5z]

Great comparison! Choosing the right tools for business is key: a solid RMM, reliable cybersecurity tools, and for telecom, we trust our favorite, Thirdlane Multi Tenant PBX. It’s all about having the right toolset.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

100%

[@hiddenpcmaster]

Brian, I'm always learning. Your a great teacher! Thank you.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I appreciate that!

[@shytv2721]

Many thanks for the video. I was expecting to see Guacamole on that list.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Didn't leave it off intentionally, just felt like these 4 were enough for 1 video. But after looking at Tactical RMM again, i think I"ll do a follow up with Guacamole and Tactical included. I'll also add them to the comparison chart when I get a chance to really check all their features.

[@tiruliru7931]

Your comparison is very helpfull ! In corporate environments and their networks there are many restrictions. My corporate environment allows using only TCP ports 80 or 443. So, it would be helpfull to add to your table also the column about the ports that can be used.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll see what I can do. I can say that MeshCentral and Remotely will be your best options for ports 80 and 443 only access.

[@micturatedupon]

Incredibly helpful! Only wish your Show Notes rendered on mobile but that's not your problem, I blame Blink!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Sorry about that.

[@micturatedupon]

@@AwesomeOpenSource def not your fault - love your content!

[@Steven_nevetS]

This is a very very good video! Loved the comparisons

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Glad you liked it! Thank you.

[@pr0way]

From my point of view Meshcentral is the best. The rest of remote desktop software allow you to manage already running pc but what happens when Windows won't boot up properly? With Meshcentral you can start up pc (boot to BIOS / change boot order) and with WDS(and PXE) remotly reinstall os. If you have VPN tunnels (site-to-site) within all remote location you can easily re-deploy whole computer even which resides in diffrent country.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Amazing use case for sure! Thanks for the pro tips!

[@farmeunit]

Only with vPro/AMT enabled. Very seldom do I need to touch the BIOS on managed machines except servers, then there's iDrac and iLo.

[@sonictech1000]

I tried MeshCentral along with AMT on a small test network but gave up. One problem was that only a few of the machines had the remote desktop feature of AMT. Another problem was that each machine effectively takes 2 ip addresses on the network (one for the OS and one for the AMT hardware). Also, even though I was dealing only with Dell machines built within a few years of each other there was still quite a bit of difference between how to set up the AMT stuff and the whole process seemed like it would take a lot longer than just installing an agent on a Windows machine.

[@SunbrightShinobi]

It’s unfortunate that meshcentral and meshcommander have shutdown. I did find very quietly intel took their work on commander to make an intel release (I use the intel nuc9 pro a lot) but it seems buggy and they add a drastic price diff to nucs and things with intel vpro/amt enabled. I’ve given up and moved to having a pikvm device at each remote site that I can have someone connect up when needed

[@taylorbornyk4146]

This is great! I’d note that you can disconnect the remote session as the end user with admin configuration.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Absolutely. I love the tools making sure that the end user still maintains ontrol over the PC with several of these products.

[@XSpImmaLion]

Been using RustDesk, not sure if the others would fit what I use it for, but perhaps it's an interesting thing to point out - you can remote to an Android phone with it. My use is the most basic one - extra tool to support family and friends on mostly Windows desktops and laptops, and Android phones. I used TeamViewer for this previously... well, in fact I still use it sometimes, but my intention is to migrate completely. Overall, RustDesk extreme simplicity is both a blessing and a curse I guess... it's great because it's pretty simple for anyone to start using, a great replacement for TeamViewer. But you don't have several of the advanced features you have on other options.... it's more for simple support rather than managing a bunch of servers and whatnot. Great comparison though!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Great insight from you as well, and remoting to mobile devices is huge. I wish apple would make the barrier a little lower.

[@Glatze603]

Hi Brian, thanks for this! That´s very interesting and insightful!

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kbit8473]

FINALLLYYY I love this. thank you soo much.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Glad you like it!

[@khalidelgazzar]

Great walkthrough. Thank you 😊

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

My pleasure!

[@hotstovejer]

I have 3 out of the 4 set up in house. I abandoned Remotely when the project was left, but I'm glad to see it's been picked back up, so I know what I'm doing later. Some quick thoughts. Rustdesk is great as an anydesk alternative. Being able to set up unattended access is nice, especially for the non technical people in your life. Rport is like the sysadmin DevOps remote control software. I could easily see being able to use it as an Ansible alternative with the scripts and libraries. Not a bomgar replacement. Meshcentral I've used a little, but I need to tie it into my LDAP server. Seems like the most polished product, but it "looks" old. Been trying to get rustdesk web working, but to no avail lol.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'm interested to see how RustDesk web comes along, but love seeing progress on all of these tools. It's truly awesome!

[@jeffherdz]

This stuff looks great ! Granted you are within your home network doing this. But I was wondering if you could try these products from outside your home network and show the results of the connections ? Also, would you consider these better than Guacamole ?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll be doing some update videos on install, configuration, and usage for each of these in the coming weeks. I'll make sure to set them up locally as well as to remote (outside my local network) machines, so you can see the performance. Honestly, i use these now for supporting family that are in different citites and states, and the performance is almost the same as what you see in this video. A lot of it is their connection speeds too.

[@BevanAgard]

I have setup and have been using MeshCenteal for over a year in a corporate environment to manage and access end users PC at over 20 remote locations. My team and I love it and have zero complaints. It is integral to allowing my team to fully function from home as well

[@kevinhughes9801]

Excellent breakdown thank you. I have RustDesk running but might checkout some of these now

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Glad to help

[@couldsleep]

Man, you are so knowledgable. If I'm willing to pay for a remote desktop, because I really need low latency and efficiency, what would be your top pick?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

If you're looking for low latency for Game streaming, or things like that. You should check out the Steam Link setup. It's not just for gaming. There are a bunch of videos that show how to use it for your own remote desktop access as well.

[@couldsleep]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Thanks for the tip

[@JzJad]

FYI the windows session in remotely is for incase you connect to a terminal server with multiple user sessions, you can swap user sessions

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Indeed! and Thank you.

[@russelldye5506]

Thanks Keep up great work

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Absolutely will do! Thanks for watching!

[@TeeDub]

1st time on your channel... awesome breakdown!! Wuz just looking for this info on RUST or alternate to connect between my Mac & Windows machines!! Thanks, ..."Liked & Subbed"!!👊🔥

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Super glad it was helpful!

[@jb-9x]

Rport is now private and Meshcentral has a lot of limitations for mac that make it unusable as an admin/MSP for a mixed environment

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

RPort is sadly no longer open source. I've not noticed limitations on Mac, but haven't tried it on mac in a few years, so not sure. Maybe RustDesk is the tool for you.

[@mesutdemirci7933]

Great video, thanks..

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

My pleasure, glad you liked it.

[@iowawizkid1]

Please review tactical rmm. It integrated with Mesh Central and provides a great RMM solution.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Coming in the near future.

[@MikeNugget]

Nice! Make an IP KVMs review

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll see what I can do.

[@DesertGardenPrepper]

one more category I would like to see on your spreadsheet. iOS and android, or maybe any other common os's one would like to connect to.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll see what I can do. iOS is pretty much a non starter for remote connections. There are some projects I've seen in the past, but you have to build the ability into your app. None that I know of that let you remote into the entire device. Android, I'm sure has a bit more flexibility there.

[@DesertGardenPrepper]

@@AwesomeOpenSource it seems like your sheet shows that remotely is better on a lot of areas, and their reddit does have some requests for a macOS agent, and talk of a bounty. I found nomachine, which I am going to check it out. not open source, but they have a very capable free version, and fairly inexpensive paid versions too. as an IT support guy that specializes in Mac support, it would be awesome to have such a tool.

[@ShadowManceri]

Chart should also include support for ARM. It's becoming more and more mainstream but not everything works there, such as rpi.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Good idea. I'll try to research and add that. As I recall, RPort has an arm agent, RustDesk may also, but Remotely didn't, and I'm not sure about MeshCentral. Don't quote em on any of that though.

[@KILLERTX95]

We use Remotely at work, I actually provisioned it and we deploy it over intune and saltstack. The windows install is pretty straightforward, the Linux however.... It's clear that whoever made it doesn't know Linux very well. I had to hack it to make it install in the correct location for example. However... I can't say we had toooo much trouble getting it to work on Linux outside of that. What im trying to say is it's very doable

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I 100% agree. It is doable, but for me to tell a family member, go download the linux version and now do what it takes to make it run...not really ideal.

[@KILLERTX95]

@@AwesomeOpenSource fair, I can see your point in that respect. Great video btw, there was another "issue" with remotely that meant we were looking for an alternative. I had been hoping for a video like that for a while :)

[@ruedist]

Hi, depending which executable one use it's possible for the user to cancel the remote-connection with Mesh Central.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Good to know.

[@larrymason9967]

Have you looked at a program called nomachine? I have been using it for while. When install the client, it automatically detects other nomachine systems and connects them. The only catch is that machine has to have the video connected, which for headless machines just get a video dummy plug and you are good to go.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I have used NoMachine a good bit in my life. It's really great, and while based on open source software, NoMachine itself is not open source. That's why I don't cover it on my channel. But as I always say, if a tool works for you, then use it until it doesn't, and you know where to come if you want to find an open source option when it's time. Thanks for watching! BTW, RustDesk does a pretty good job of discovering other machines on my network, and even when I connect via VPN to other networks. There's a Discover tab on RustDesk just for this.

[@FacelookHK]

One of the most important feature is to be able to get pass company firewall.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Just don't tell them I told you how.

[@fuseteam]

Rustdesk also has remote elavation on windows :D

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

It does, but it requires the remote user to allow it. It's super useful. I was helping my brother in law with a printer driver issue the other day, and I was able to elevate so I didn't have to ask him to provide the affirmative response all the time.

[@hfislwpa]

Thanks for the video! Any insights for remote control on mobile apps? Or web ui?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

RustDesk has mobile apps to control other devices from. The WebUIs are MeshCentral and Remotely. RPort has a web interface, but the connections are made through tunnels generated in the web ui, then using normal RDP apps.

[@hfislwpa]

@@AwesomeOpenSource appreciate the response 😄 going to look at your previous videos and try them out!

[@scottc2211]

Great information and perfect timing. I’ve been looking for a comparison of the different products for awhile. One question that comes into play regarding the ones that have agents installed on the systems. Do the system agents automatically update when new revision’s/patches come out for the specific products? Or do they require manually being updated on each system individually? I was searching through the chart and didn’t notice anything pertaining to the subject.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

RustDesk is a manual update for now. I believe the Remotely Linux client is manual, but the resident agent may get updated on it's own. MeshCentral gets updated automatically as I recall, as does RPort. It really just depends on how you install the client as well. RustDesk may get auto updated, but I think the installed version would be on the stable releases only, not the nightlies.

[@davidcave5426]

I prefer to use X2Go as my remote access tool. It's built from NX.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I love X2Go, it's really good stuff. Just not sure if they are going to support Wayland. I"ll dig in a git.

[@alexandretravi]

hello ! Great work, I'm having trouble installing on Windows 8.1 clients, can you give me a tip?

[@stanisthemooseful]

Used rustdesk through their server. Loved it until I didn't. Apparently the server crashed and stayed down for days.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Yeah, their goal is for us to setup our own server. They have public servers, but they state that they are only for demo, and should not be relied upon for business. I've been running mine for several years now with consistent updates, and no issues thus far (knocking on wood for luck as I type it).

[@silsed]

Great video, thanks. I appreciated the worksheet, it must have taken a lot of time to do it!! btw do you know some alternative of x2go? in other words, remote control of Virtual screen in Order that multiple users May rdc on their screens in the same server.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

The Session function may kind of let you do that in Remotely, but not 100% that it would. X2Go is a super awesome project. I should have covered it by now, and kind of ashamed i haven't.

[@djhaystack]

MeshCentral vs Rustdesk... which wins with latency? which is easiest to use from an iPad?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Latency is not bad on either. For iPad support as a client looking at another machine, I would say RustDesk, but to me RustDesk and MeshCentral really server different purposes. If you are doing remote support, RustDesk. If you are managing the remote machines, MeshCentral.

[@iopqu]

Remotely is impossible to Google, it autocorrected to remote. It's also in every article about remotely connecting

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Yeah, the name is seriously difficult to google on it's own. I just google 'remotely github', or 'remotely immense', and that brings up the info.

[@jherreromail]

Hi, thanks for this greats video. Do you will add android client comparación in the spreadsheets?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I don't have an android device, so no way to test. I can say that RustDesk has an iOS client, so you can view other desktops from your iOS device, and I believe they have it for Android as well.

[@mziminski]

This is a great comparison! In the beginning you included in your chart, Mesh Central can act as a remote support only portal. I’m interested in this. Any guides how to set it up?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I'll be doing follow up videos for each product for install, configure, and use in various use cases.

[@northpoint1039]

I have meshcentral setup to admin over 70 clients. The thing to consider when setting it up is register a domain name (easy) and point it to your external ip address. Then setup nginx reverse proxy, Setup 'letsencrypt' . I run meshcentral in a VM on the server to make things easy as per a once a month image is taken (should the worst happen). In the meshcentral config right now I have it set for no outside connections to it. So, If anyone tries to login to meshcentral outside my network it gets denied.

[@bzmrgonz]

In your opinion, which is best for self-hosting and/or white label??

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Remotely has White Label, they are all great for Self hosting, just depends on what type of OS you are trying to manage / support.

[@bzmrgonz]

@@AwesomeOpenSource thank you for your reply.

[@efen88]

Hmm i would like comper to Anydesk and Teamviewer. Becouse opensourse software is freeware most time but sometimes you give something away. In Anydesk sessions can be recorded automatic and you can draw on client screen. For me it's key. For somebody it's no deal.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Totally understand. And yes, sometimes the proprietary softwrae does have other features that are missing from open source, but keep in mind Anydesk and TeamViewer have been around a lot longer than any of these open source options, so give them time and they'll catch up. As for items that may be missing that you would like to have, make sure to drop a request on their github. That's the best way to gain interest from others, and often moves an idea to the top of the list for a project.

[@lizardspock4746]

The web page / spreadsheet isn’t working on mobile (iOS) for me. The whole page is one tall skinny column. You can only see the left column and can’t scroll to the right.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Sorry, yeah, I'm not sure it will resize appropriately for mobile in portrait. I'll try to make it do something more nice, but can't guarantee. Maybe I can make it a pdf and put it there as a link too.

[@spexpl]

In any of the programs supports remote access to windows "locked", that is, where the user is currently logged out.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Do you mean the user is unable to use the mouse or keyboard while you are on their system? Remotely kind of has that. The remote user can lock user input.

[@spexpl]

@@AwesomeOpenSource No, I mean the case when there is no user at the computer. And you have to "remotely" login to the machine to unlock it.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I think most of them can do this. For instance if I log into a Windows machine from RDP it will unlock the current user session if I use their credentials, same for Rustdesk, Meshcentral, Remotely, etc. If I log in with different user and password it prompts that someone else is logged in on Windows, and waits for them to not respond that I'm about to boot them, then will eventually log me on. I believe Rustdesk, Meshcentral, Remotely can also do this.

[@wongnengming]

any info on remote printing? also anything about apache guacamole?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I have a video on Guacamole. I added it to the table of software. I will do an update video on it soon as well. As for remote printing, haven't tried that specifically. There are some cool projects that would allow for remote printing without needing a remote desktop, so I'll study up a bit.

[@ricardog2165]

Can you give an idea of how well they stream video/audio? Does KZbin work without stuttering? I tried the vdi remote viewer with Proxmox but it is laggy. RDP was still better in this regard.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

These are really remote support tools, not meant for streaming games, or video / audio.

[@NoEgg4u]

In your spreadsheet, cell "A2" it reads: "See Constant Machine Details" Maybe I missed it, but I did not see you explain what that is. Rust Desk looks like it would be my choice. But I would like to know what "See Constant Machine Details" means -- especially because Rust Desk does not have that feature. Thank you. Good video.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I should update that. It means, A system that will give you constant (really more like regularly updated) details about a machines state: CPU, Mem, Disk Space, Temps, etc.

[@NoEgg4u]

@@AwesomeOpenSourceThank you.

[@zygfrydmatusiak1906]

Which version of RustDesk it is? I have the latest from website (1.1.9) and it looks very different. Tools tab is not floating, it's built in the window on top, icons are different and there's no visible setting for dark theme.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

So, you need to pull the nightly build for your server, and then go to their releases on Github and get the nightly there as well. The deal with nightly releases is they are not as certain to be stable, so it's kind of a Use at your own risk situation.

[@TheDarius1968]

Hi - As of this typing, I'm using the latest version (on both my Windows 11 PC and my S22 Ultra Android). I'm still a novice at this. Right now, my immediate problem is my attempt to control my Android device via my Windows 11 PC: My PC mouse works just fine when I try to control my S22 Ultra via RustDesk. However, my hardware PC keyboard won't control my Android device. So, I'm forced to make do with just the keyboard that is on my phone. How can I fix this? Thank you.

[@cameronkeenan7766]

can you get libre office dark mode on windows and if so could you please link to a how to or simply explain please?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Maybe this article will help. itsfoss.com/libreoffice-dark-mode/

[@cameronkeenan7766]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Its's not exactly dark mode but it's much better. Thank you for the help :)

[@mojo1989be]

RPort doesnt seem to be opensource anymore, Sadge :(

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Sadly, it's been closed source by the group who bought it.

[@sonictech1000]

Do any of these tools have the ability to scan for and tunnel to non-PCs (printers etc)?

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Mmmmmm... not sure about that one. I don't think so, but I'd say definitely check the RPort docs to be sure. Does the printer have it's own webserver?

[@sonictech1000]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Yes, that's a common scenario. In Connectwise one of the PCs scans the network on a regular basis and reports back a list of detected devices and you can open an http(s) tunnel to any of them. It's pretty handy.

[@dwaynelarose278]

Anyone know if anything other then Mesh central give remote phone support (as in see the user phone screen)

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

RustDesk will let you see Android screens, but nothing open source for iOS that I'm aware of.

[@80robina]

if the enduser isn't logged in as admin ie standard user and when you remote in and try to install apps it blanks the UAC prompt to enter the admin password, what one can show the UAC please

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

RustDesk, Mesh Central, and RPort will all display the UAC as far as I know.

[@80robina]

@@AwesomeOpenSource is there any one that doesn't need the user to install a client for you to connect ? Ie can it be just a run file instead of installed

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

RustDesk runs on Linux in an AppImage for some distros. Remotely on Windows isn't "installed" for the desktop client either as far as I know, only the resident agent is instlled.

[@medichill9235]

Intel has ended support for these tools.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Intel has, but I think the devs still work on it on their own occasionally, but it's not their full time job anymore, sadly.

[@MelodicMurder]

Tactical RMM is my favorite.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Was just looking at it, as promised, and it seems like they've added Linux support, so I'll be taking a look at that one soon.

[@MelodicMurder]

@@AwesomeOpenSource Linux client support is behind a 50 dollar a month subscription. Along with a signed executable windows client. The project needs to make money 💰

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I get that they need to make money, just not sure i could pay $50 a month.

[@MelodicMurder]

@@AwesomeOpenSource it’s more for business at that point. 50 a month for a feature complete rrm that will support unlimited devices is not a bad price for a business.

[@KelvinReddy-w4v]

i need remotely software ready to pay thanks

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I, unfortunately, don't have the time to provide contract services. Barely have time for my family, full time job, and KZbin as it is now.

[@JuliánMejiaSuaza]

ok

[@RonaldBartels]

Rport has gone to the dark side.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Sadly it has.

[@Thromby]

Do the SSH connections in each accept key based auth?

[@Thromby]

Also, it woulda been nice to put whether it handles multiple screens or not.

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

I think in my table I show multi-monitor support. I'll check on the key based auth vs. password.

[@ChiekoGamers]

open source guy

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Awesome!

[@Eksalih]

Rport is no longer Open source

[@AwesomeOpenSource]

Yep, RealVNC bought it, and closed sourced it almost immediately. It's sad.