RustDesk
Provides secure, cross-platform remote access and file sharing with no registration needed. Offers end-to-end encryption, self-hosting, multi-monitor support, screen sharing, and portable use, all with a lightweight, ad-free interface.
Cost / License
- Freemium (Subscription)
- Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- iPad
- Self-Hosted
- Flathub
- F-Droid
- Flatpak
Features
Properties
- Lightweight
- Privacy focused
Features
- No registration required
- Unattended Access
- Low Latency
- Screen Sharing
- Ad-free
- Desktop Sharing
- End-to-End Encryption
- Stream audio
- Portable
- Dark Mode
- Support for Multiple Monitors
- Real time collaboration
- Two-factor Authentication
- Wake on LAN
RustDesk News & Activities
Recent News
- POX published news article about RustDesk
RustDesk 1.3 brings multiple clipboard formats, enhanced security features, and moreRustDesk, a free and open-source alternative to remote desktop tools like TeamViewer and AnyDesk, h...
- POX published news article about RustDesk
RustDesk 1.2.6 released with dual screen support, AV1 codec and many Wayland-related fixesRustDesk, a popular remote desktop software and alternative to TeamViewer and AnyDesk, has released...
Recent activities
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What is RustDesk?
The open source alternative to TeamViewer and AnyDesk. Display and control your PC and Android devices from anywhere at anytime. Works out of the box, no configuration required. You have full control of your data, with no concerns about security.
Features:
- Security: End-to-end encryption.
- Privacy: Own your data. Easily setup RustDesk self-hosted solution on your infrastructure.
- Simple: We keep things simple and try to make simpler when possible.
- Lightweight: No administrative privileges or installation needed for Windows.
- Console: Track access log and manage permissions from a modern UI.
- File Transfer: Remote File Transfer on all Devices and Platforms.
- Cross-Platform: Works on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Web.
- Self-hosted: You can use our public rendezvous/relay server, or self-hosting, or write your own server.
RustDesk Videos
RustDesk information
Developed by
Purslane Ltd. Licensing
Open Source (AGPL-3.0) and Freemium product.Pricing
Subscription ranging between $10 and $170 per month + free version with limited functionality.Written in
Rating
Average rating of 4.4Alternatives
130 alternatives listedSupported Languages
- English
AlternativeTo Categories
Remote Work & Education, Security & Privacy, Audio & Music, Network & Admin, OS & UtilitiesApple AppStore
- Updated
- 4.06 avg rating
GitHub repository
- 104,522 Stars
- 15,406 Forks
- 94 Open Issues
- Updated
Comments and Reviews
Fully open source (including relay server although it's a minimal implementation lacking security) remote desktop software alternative to TeamViewer, works very similarly, easy for both parties to use. Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android). No need to create an account, it works by sharing an automatically generated ID and password. Very fast and good quality streaming remote desktop agent (tested with 1080p YouTube videos), 2nd only to Remotely in open-source remote desktop agents. It also streams audio. Supports transparent bidirectional clipboard.
If you want an exactly similar experience to TeamViewer but using a FOSS software, RustDesk is the one. I highly recommend, and it has become my backup software for remote desktop control or for people who have a hard time dealing with agents that are different from TeamViewer's ID/password system.
Tip: reduce bitrate (custom graphical options in RustDesk options) and reduce the target machine's resolution and you'll have streaming performances similar if not better to the NX protocol (NoMachine), but RustDesk does not have a native option to do that.
Not fully open source. See discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/14kjvkg/community_consensus_on_rustdesk_with_all_the/
Also 11 / 74 engines identify rustdesk as some kind of malware or riskware: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/23b661d7bc171cd500d5096456905283ffe06479582b62d3bd5066633935d43e
That VirusTotal is riskware, basically marking it as potential risk as a lot of clueless people have it installed by PC, not aware that someone controlling their PC remotely.
No it's not completely open source anymore. The server component is closed source and pay2use. But what's more important is that the author is not only anonymous, but also refuses to talk about security concerns regarding the paid server component.
His/her behaviour was openly rude on GitHub and seemingly also on Teamspeak.
When talking to other people involved it was rather obvious that the author doesn't want to speak about certain questions.
Since there's only an anonymous author and no real people or company involved in this - the security risks for the software is much too big to use it productively.
The software/server component would be able to control everything within the remote networks including direct port forwarding to any outside services. Seeing that Rustdesk is an unprofessional and anonymous one man show with a rather strange behaviour to user requests I would definetely advise against using it for now.
That's false, on 2 counts:
it was never more open-sourced than it is now, the fully-featured server is not open-source, but there is a minimal server that is open-sourced, so yes you can self-host and run the whole thing on your own if you are worried about security, you won't have all the features or security of the fully-featured server but you won't depend on their servers.
the guy didn't delete the messages, he doesn't speak english well (seems to be a chinese dev). You can crawl the github issues to see the past questions. People asked the dev to open-source the server, but the dev doesn't want to since this is the only source of income to fund future development and maintenance of the software. But he released an open-source minimal server for anyone to use or fork and further develop. Lots of well respected open-source softwares have free "community editions" versus paid pro versions (but closed source). This business model is nothing shady, the guy could have kept everything closed source, he's the dev, he can do whatever he wants.
I would love to see the fully-featured server being open-sourced too, but you can't accuse the dev of being shady just because they don't want to. There is a minimal server, please feel free to develop it further to reproduce all features and release it for free for everyone's benefit.
Where can I download the minimum version of the server?
It's not minimal. It's demo that support only one relay connection and without NAT and encryption. So it's not usable. Just as demo within closed LAN.
For reference, the mentioned demo server can be found here: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server-demo
Maybe things have changed since your comment. I just discovered the software and it's fully open source, both the client and the server.
Adding to above, server software here: https://github.com/rustdesk/rustdesk-server/releases
This negative rating is no longer valid. Can that be reflected somehow?
Very uncomplicated setup and connection. The only problem is that after remote connection, RustDesk takes control over my PC too. If I want to do something on my PC, I have to disconnect from the remote PC and then reconnect again. Maybe there are setting to fix it, but they are not obvious in settings.
Works exactly as intended. I use to it to assist a client from a macOS machine to a Windows 11 machine. Great application.
For your safety, do not use this software!
Knowing the above three points, are you still willing to use this software that can control your computer remotely with administrator privileges?
If he was anonymous in April, he is no longer, here's his LinkedIn (set up in September 2010, last updated a year+ ago, possibly with RustDesk details) https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhouhuabing/
Also, just redownloaded the exe app from github, and only two malware detections pop up, both from very dodgy vendors, MaxSecure (India) and Bkav Pro (Vietnam) - the latter with an unlinked AVTest icon on its site.
Fully open source, fast and reliable, and simple to use just as the alternatives - Teamviewer, Anydesk, and Chrome Remote Desktop
It works better than Anydesk (my experience) and it has so clean UI. Thw worst thing about Anydesk and TeamViewer was that I could not understand if the connection failed. So I'd keep on going, realizing later that the screen was frozen. Sometimes this caused it later to execute everything I had done when it unfroze and that could mess up stuff. But Rust just has the "Show quality monitor" option and now I see if it is frozzen and the delay that helps to immediately identify well, the delay. I really like it.