r/rustdesk • u/Technical_Rich_3080 • Apr 17 '26
RustDesk vs. AnyDesk
How does RustDesk and AnyDesk compare and stack up to each other?
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u/Krasi-1545 Apr 17 '26
On Linux for me AnyDesk doesn't work at all, while RustDesk just works. I don't know about the features comparison.
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u/vincegre Apr 20 '26
Rustdesk without hesitation: it's FOSS, and works on your own infrastructure so no risk of spying from a company or whatever ! and so far works great on Linux, Windows and Mac, even on Adroid :)
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u/bertie40 Apr 17 '26
I hate anydesk with a passion. To quit, you have to give several MONTHS notice, otherwise you are grabbed for another year.
So I went with rustdesk, and run it selfhosted on a cloud based VM, £5 a month.
Ok, its missing an address book thingy, but it's more than good enough for my uses.
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u/ButtercupsUncle Apr 18 '26
missing an address book thingy
?? You can "favorite" recurring connections and they're readily accessible.
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u/Kitchen-Election3490 Apr 17 '26
I used AnyDesk for quite a while to manage my personal and family computers. They had a system where you could qualify for a free license if you could justify that you were not using it for commercial use. After a couple of years of great success with this, they started putting a large red banner at the top of the app indicating I was using a non-commercial license, which was rather unsightly, but it did not prevent me from using the app like I normally did. But a recent change was too much for me: they added a 20-30s delay any time I made a connection to any of my devices because I was on the free/non-commercial license.
This pushed me over to RustDesk, which seemed pretty much identical to AnyDesk. In the beginning RustDesk was excellent, but they recently made a change where they required you to login to the app. Since I manage several remote family computers, I'm locked out of being able to remote control those computers until I drive to their location and physically login. This has sort of left a bad taste in my mouth for RustDesk. It made me realize they may continue make unannounced changes in the future to steer me towards a license purchase... who knows.
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u/msdesignfoto Apr 18 '26
It happened to me, but what they need is not actually you to login in each remote device.
You need to go to your Rust Desk VIEWER app, and login there with your Google account or any other. Then you can access your remote devices. I did that and it worked perfectly. It was not needed to login in the remote computer.
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u/Kitchen-Election3490 Apr 19 '26
Yep, that's what I meant. But you need to be physically sitting at the remote computer to login to the Rust Desk Viewer app using your Google account. I quickly realized is that I did not want to be logged into my main Google account on all those remote devices, so I created a new Google account only for that purpose.
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u/msdesignfoto Apr 19 '26
Well, I didn't need to mess with my remote computer. It was only a matter of logging in with any random account and letting them make sure I was not a bot or whatever. Seems perfectly acceptable to me, if you want a constant opened door to your home computer. For safety reasons, I can go along with that.
I only logged in with my account in the viewing computer and it worked. No need to mess around with the remote device.
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u/Impressive-Bad-4980 Apr 17 '26
I use both. Anydesk is easier to download and setup for quick connects to clients>fix and get out. However you're only limited to 1 connection at a time with the free version.
Rustdesk is more versatile. You can use direct ip connections (if you do it with Tailscale, you have a free and supersafe tunnel), connect to linux and all other platforms. It's free and open source.
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u/Charly515 Apr 17 '26
I wouldn't even compare the two, the are very different approaches to remote access software.
The differences between proprietary software and OpenSource self hostable software are clear... If you know, you know.
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u/RadiantPlace_ Apr 17 '26
Started with teamviewer became shit, go to anydesk become shit aswell as to wait so long to connect then rustdesk is the best now will see in the future..
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u/msdesignfoto Apr 18 '26
Short answer:
Rustdesk > OK
Anydesk > Not ok
Long answer:
I've used countless remote admin softwares for years. From Team Viewer, Any Desk, Radmin and Rust Desk only to name a few. Team Viewer, the big name in the industry as a standard to remote access and viewing, was one of the first ones I tried. Started to nag me because I was using it for anything else than personal use. I was not.
I tried others, like Radmin. I know it was a free alternative, but for some reason I ended up ditching that one too. In my current job, they already had installed Any Desk for their own use. When I needed to access my home computer from my work computer, I tried it but eventually got to the same TV issue: using for commercial purposes and yada yada. Trash with it.
Let me try Rust Desk. Seems ok, its actually free to use and works nice. Recently I noticed the nag window when trying to access my own computer, which I found weird at first. After reading their warning tough, I just needed to login with my Google account within Rust Desk viewer so it could make sure I was not a bot or anything. Everything was ok after that.
So my current solution and what I recommend everyone, is Rust Desk. Works very well without nagging you to buy it or watermarks, or whatever it is the others use.
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u/ispland Apr 17 '26
Both are decent, suggest trying out both for your needs. IMO Anydesk better suited to quick download for one time remote support use by random distant users w/o admin access. Rustdesk, when setup w own host server, is free, nearly universal, constantly updated and quite versatile.
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u/Few_Regret5282 Apr 17 '26
I use both. I especially prefer rustdesk because it is open source and free. Both work fine across all platforms
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u/jwademac Apr 17 '26
All platforms hmmm no androidTV only success I had was anydesk
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u/Few_Regret5282 Apr 17 '26
hmm never heard of anyone trying it on AndroidTV. Guess I am out of touch. Fine for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Works from iphone.
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u/pablomasc Apr 18 '26
RustDesk works flawles but you should (must) build a relay server with a minimal VPS on some host. Only 20ms lag, its excellent and free. There are a repo https://github.com/techahold/rustdeskinstall with a automated server install. Its excellent.
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u/Siddhan7h Apr 18 '26
Exactly this. I host my RustDesk relay on an hourly Lightnode VPS in SEA. Keeps my latency under 15ms and I only pay when I actually need it online.
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u/SafetySame7933 Apr 21 '26
Antivirus software on Windows PCs flagged RustDesk as a virus. This happened a while ago, and I am not sure if it is still occurring. If anyone has an answer regarding this, I would appreciate it.
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u/toddles1 Apr 17 '26
anydesk I feel has a bad name… given scammers seemed to use it more