Hello selfhosters, I’ve been using different remote desktop apps to support few friends and family members with their Windows or Linux desktop machines. Sometimes I also use phone (Android) when I’m away from home.
I tried 3 services so far:
- TeamViewer - its amazing, but it recognized me as non-private user and asking for money…
- AnyDesk - even better experience than TeamViewer. It also started with non-private use and messages to buy a license (after creating account it stopped doing that). It works perfectly fine, but sometimes it gets super slow and it tends to reduce stream quality by too much
- RustDesk - finally found open source solution and it has the same features like others I tried. The problem with RustDesk is simmilar to AnyDesk, sometimes its super slow, laggy and with reduced stream quality and sometimes connection breaks. It has permanent message on the bottom:
Ready, For faster connection, please set up your own server.
Sounds like a perfect task for my server on fiber network.
I checked self hosted RustDesk service, but it requires opening ports. I have open wireguard port to my home server to connect to home network when needed. I don’t like idea of opening more ports just because it doesn’t feel safe in my hands, but maybe I’m wrong. Am I missing something? What do you use for remote desktop? Do you have the same experience with any service I mentioned here? Is anyone selfhosting RustDesk server? Are there better (free or affordable) alternatives available? I prefer selfhosted if possible. 10$ a month is kinda steep for me and my needs. I don’t need super high quality stream, but would be nice to have simple solution that just works
All tips are welcome
I’ve been using Parsec for support given I’m the only dedicated Linux user (Linux isn’t a supported host-type in Parsec, only client). Its WebRTC based and uses STUN/TURN to build the connections. Its a very straight-forward solution. If open ports is that much of a concern (like opening TCP/22 for SSH or even just having SSH running externally accessible on non-standard ports) then you could always ask to put the machines you support on a tailscale or zerotier network or whatever SDWAN sorcery exists out there. Then you could just RDP to the machines without going over publicly routable addresses.
Thx