1. Best Windows Remote Desktop Manager
2. Best Free Rdp Client For Windows

Teamviewer supports Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS, and is free for personal use. It's probably the most obvious alternative to LogMeIn, and the most popular contender from the nominations. TigerVNC’s open source credentials, intuitive interface, and exemplary performance during an active connection make it a very capable VNC client for all kinds of remote desktop tasks.

How to make Remote Desktop more efficient? Have you ever asked yourself if there is a way to manage Remote desktop connections? Instead of manually opening every session?

There is a way, it’s free and it’s from Microsoft. It’s called MS Remote Desktop Connection Manager.

Remote Desktop Manager is small in size, yet it packs a lot of features in cca. 800Kb. It’s using built in Remote desktop services, with additional wrapper so that it can show multiple windows and save settings information. Great, what about alternatives? Is Microsoft solution really the best?

Free Remote Desktop connection Managers

I am really glad there is a choice. Some people prefer Microsoft solutions. Then again, some people prefer open source solutions. No matter the choice, I bet you can find solution that you will like for managing remote sessions.

Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Manager

The best addition of remote desktop manager is that you can have multiple remote desktop sessions in one window and manage connection via folders. On the left side, you have links to your servers. Every server can have saved information of username, password, graphical settings (in case you have a slow link to a location this can come handy)

It’s easy to organize servers into groups.

The best thing is that it’s free, and that it’s very usable. It can save you a lot of time, especially if you have to manage multiple servers. You won’t have to type MSTSC like crazy anymore every time you need to manage a server. Once configured I recommend saving config file to a safe place, just in case your computer crashes or something. With the recent 2.7 release, Microsoft improved:

• added support for Virtual Machine connect to console
• Added smart groups
• Windows 8 remote action support
• Added support for Windows 8, 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 editions

Microsoft solution is simple and great if you only have to manage couple of servers. What about when you have to manage a lot of servers? To complicate a bit, you also have to manage Linux servers, Cisco switches and complete infrastructure? Then Remote Desktop Manager from Devolutions is the one you can take for a spin. It’s on top of my list of IT software I can’t live without anymore. One of the reasons is that it’s available on Windows and OS X. I use Windows in the office and Mac at home. I can easily connect to the same devices at home and in the office.

It’s packed full with features and latest versions brought great improvements in usability. In addition to RDP it supports many other protocols and connections such as: Citrix, HP RGS, VNC, SSH, Telnet, Putty, HTTP, FTP, LogMeIn, Dameware Mini Remote, VPN, Terminal Services, Radmin, etc… Credentials can be saved to the local database, protected by encryption so that it can’t be accessed by unauthorized personnel. You can also save credentials to external applications specialized for password management such as: Secret server, KeePass, LastPass, Pleasant Password Server, 1Password, Password Safe and even Windows Credential Manager. Large organizations can use central password repository to secure access to passwords and improve security.

It integrates pretty well with popular services such as

• Windows PoweShell
• Microsoft Azure Console
• Most VPN Connections
• Hyper-V dashboard
• Intel AMT support in order to remotely control computers when powered off
• etc…

But the functionality doesn’t end here, you can use it to store sensitive information like Credit cards, Bank information, Contact information, Email accounts, Alarm codes. By using Document Manager you can attach many documents like contracts, Network Diagrams, FAQs, Agreements, SLA’s and many more. With the recently released Cloud File Browser you can share your content in the cloud.

Remote Desktop Connection Manager Standard version is free and can be used for most of IT tasks. If you find features to limited you can easily upgrade. You can check comparison sheet to see if it can solve your problems.

Terminals

Terminals is a complete replacement for Remote Desktop (mstsc.exe). It features tabbed interface and it supports asset management. You can create groups and move servers to and from groups easily. Just like Remote Desktop Manager it support additional protocols. In addition to Remote Desktop you can use the following protocols:

• VNS
• SSH
• VMRC
• Telnet
• RAS
• Citrix ICA
• HTTP or HTTPS based viewers

It will make your job easier by providing most used network operations like Trace Route, WMI, TCP connections, Time Sync, DNS Lookup, etc…

Terminals project is an open source project which is being actively developed. It’s hosted on a CodePlex and is available for free. It can be easily used as a RDP replacement.

RD Tabs is another tabbed remote desktop client. It’s a very simple tool, but don’t think that it ain’t powerful. It will surprise you with features like connections thumbnails, advanced editing, screen capture of remote desktops, command line scripting, and 64 bit support. It requires .net framework.

Multidesk

Another simple multi tabbed RDP alternative. It’s really small and fast utility written in C++. What’s really nice about this gem is that it’s portable and USB key friendly. You can manage remote desktops in groups. Connection inherit credentials from groups. It features drag and drop support, you can connect to console and you can change connection port. It’s true that it won’t win based on features list, but it’s loved by many due to it’s simplicity, portability, speed and size.

mRemoteNG

Many of you remember mRemote. One of the first tabbed RDP managers. mRemoteNG is a fork of once great utility. It features support for the following protocols: RDP, VNC, ICA, SSD, Telnet, HTTP, HTTPS, rlogin and Raw Socket Connections. It requires .NET framework 3.0. It’s also available as a portable edition.

EasyConnect

First time you see EasyConnect, you will think you are looking at the Chrome Browser. But don’t let the look fool you. It’s a great open source utility with fresh take on Remote Desktop Connection Managers. It supports RDP, VNC SSH and remote PowerShell connections. It can be extended via plugins. Passwords are encrypted and stored in your windows key store.

CORD

Cord is available exclusively on the Apple platform. It is a beautiful app. Server list pop’s out on the side and has a nice 3d shaded effect. In terms of protocol support it supports only RDP. As you scale the window, client is resized automatically. You can easily switch between fullscreen and window. For a while it was one of the best RDP clients on the Mac, but it seems that development stalled a bit.

2X Client

The biggest strength of 2X client lies with multiplatform support. It supports Linux, Windows, OSX, Chrome, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, it’s available even as a Facebook app. I tried the client once on the Mac but since moved to RDM. Still, this tool can come handy in some situations.

Summary

I wish I could say the best product is……. Each product has it’s benefits. Some people prefer to use a program that does one thing and does it well, some people like to use the smallest in size, most optimized program for one task. On the other hand, some people prefer to use solution that is packed with features so that they don’t need to use another program.

I really like Remote Desktop Manager but I can see some people argue that it’s bloated.

I am really happy that there is a choice, and from the listed programs, choice is really extensive and free. At least compared to several years ago when you could count free RDP managers with two fingers.

Best Linux remote desktop clients

Read on more detailed information

This article has been updated and reformatted - it was originally provided to TechRadar by Linux Format, the number one magazine to boost your knowledge on Linux, open source developments, distro releases and much more. It appeared in issue 220, published February 2017. Subscribe to the print or digital version of Linux Format here.

SSH has been the staple remote access tool for system administrators from day one. Admins use SSH to mount remote directories, backup remote servers, spring-clean remote databases, and even forward X11 connections. The popularity of single-board computers, such as the Raspberry Pi, has introduced SSH into the parlance of everyday desktop users as well.

While SSH is useful for securely accessing one-off applications, it’s usually overkill, especially if you aren’t concerned about the network’s security. There are times when you need to remotely access the complete desktop session rather than just a single application. You may want to guide the person on the other end through installing software or want to tweak settings on a Windows machine from the comfort of your Linux desktop yourself.

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This is where remote desktop software comes in handy. Using these nifty little applications you can remotely access and operate a computer over the network from all sorts of devices. There are various protocols and while the clients we’ll cover in this article support multiple ones, we’ll focus on Virtual Network Computing (VNC) which is amongst the most popular.

VNC isn’t the only protocol in town for accessing the remote desktop and you can use a few applications in this feature to connect to other ones.

1. VNC Connect

Best Windows Remote Desktop Manager

If transferring files is imperative to your remote access, then there’s no better option than VNC Connect. The client performs decently with other servers but works best when paired with its own. We recommend it for remotely accessing all kinds of graphical work on the Pi, especially if you use Raspbian, as the server software now comes preinstalled.

You’ll have to define a new connection before connecting with the VNC Connect client by manually entering the IP address of your VNC server. You can then either use the default settings or tweak them from the New Connection window.

The General and Options tabs list common parameters while the Expert tab lets experienced campaigners modify the default values of various parameters. You can access these options during an active connection either by using the hidden menu at the top of the connection window or by pressing the F8 key.

By default, the VNC Connect client also saves screenshots for connections. During an active connection the client also gives you the option to transfer files to and from the remote server and exchange instant messages. However, these options will only work when connected to a VNC Connect server.

The client also allows multiple sessions and can run sessions full-screen and scale the remote display to fit the current window on the client computer. It can also remember remote access credentials so you don’t have to enter them each time which is a definite plus, especially if you need to remotely manage a handful of machines. Simply double click on a machine from the VNC Connect window to connect automatically.

You can easily scroll through PDFs and perform regular desktop tasks with VNC Connect. You can get more mileage from your Pi using the experimental hardware acceleration mode which allows you to run applications such as Minecraft Pi, and watch videos with the built-in omxplayer, without any issues.

VNC Connect allows you to change several aspects of the viewer. You can share the printer on your local machine as the default printer on the remote VNC server which is a very useful feature.

Security conscious users will also appreciate the privacy options where you can set a master password for the viewer to protect it from unauthorized use. The Preferences window in VNC Connect also gives you access to the Expert parameters to tweak the server’s behavior.

VNC Connect enables you to tweak some connection options via a dedicated window. Like some of its peers, VNC Connect uses a panel for accessing features such as the file transfer and chat which hides itself when not in use. Alternatively, you can press the F8 key to display these options. Expert users can alter aspects of the VNC connection by going to the Expert tab.

2. Remmina

Remmina scores decently in the performance department and gives you the flexibility to change connection quality settings on the fly. The client supports the widest range of protocols and will connect to all kinds of remote desktop servers.

Remmina doesn’t have its own server software, but you can use it for all sorts of remote connections to all kinds of servers. Sadly, Remmina lacks some extra functionality that you get with other clients.

Remmina houses default remote connection settings under its Preferences window. Here you’ll find options to tweak some auto-save settings for the connections, and define custom hotkeys for common tasks. You can also alter a few aspects of the client’s behaviour and define a list of resolutions for the remote desktop.

Before you can establish a connection, Remmina asks you to create a profile to define parameters for the connection. At the very least, you’ll have to select a protocol from a drop-down list and enter the server’s IP address.

Optionally, you can define other parameters that vary depending on the protocol being used, e.g. for VNC connections, you can optionally choose the colour depth and quality of the connection as well as encryption. You also get checkboxes to toggle some quick settings like starting a simple View Only session and disabling encryption etc.

With Remmina you can manually tweak the quality of the connection to make good use of the available bandwidth. Best of all Remmina lets you alter the colour depth of the remote desktop on the fly. The application encrypts VNC connections with the AES256 algorithm and also offers a button to send all keyboard commands to the remote server.

Remmina has a tabbed interface for managing multiple remote sessions from a single window. When connected, there are buttons for common tasks, such as switching to full-screen or scaled mode. You can also change the quality of the connection on the fly and send keyboard commands to the remote desktop.

In addition to VNC, Remmina supports other common protocols for accessing remote desktops including SSH, RDP, XDMCP and NX. It too doesn’t have a server of its own, nor any clients for mobile platforms.

You can also manage multiple remote desktop sessions from a single window. There are a bunch of buttons for common tasks such as switching to full-screen mode or to the scaled mode in case the remote desktop doesn’t fit.

Remmina’s website lists the features of the main client along with those that are added via plugins. There’s also a handful of screenshots, a barebones FAQ, and a slightly more extensive Wiki which all answer some of the commonly asked questions on usage.

3. TigerVNC

TigerVNC has a rather straightforward interface. However, unlike some of the other clients in this feature, it lacks the ability to automatically sniff VNC servers on the network and you’ll have to manually enter the IP address of the remote VNC server to establish a connection. While the default options work for most users, various connection parameters can be customized.

Besides the options to choose the encoding, color and compression levels for the connection, you can also elect to only view the remote computer screen. Furthermore, TigerVNC enables you to share the clipboard with the remote VNC server and the application also makes it possible to choose the remote session screen size.

TigerVNC uses TLS encryption by default. While the application encrypts traffic, it cannot verify the identity of the server. However, TigerVNC supports various other encryption schemes, such as X509Vnc, that do allow this.

Furthermore, TigerVNC offers users controls to manually tweak the encoding and color level and a couple of other parameters depending on the available bandwidth. You can also use it to create view-only sessions and run a full-screen session on the guest.

TigerVNC enables you to save configuration information for individual connections into separate files that can be loaded on subsequent connection, or from a different client computer.

As with VNC Connect, you can press the F8 key in an active session in TigerVNC to bring up a menu for viewing connection data and toggling the Ctrl and Alt special keys. You can also change the colour level and encoding of the connection and convert the session into a view-only one.

The client performs well irrespective of what type of VNC server is at the other end. Its only downside is a lack of mobile clients and the fact it doesn’t allow you to copy files. This said, ferrying files and instant messages aren’t the primary functions of a VNC.

TigerVNC’s open source credentials, intuitive interface, and exemplary performance during an active connection make it a very capable VNC client for all kinds of remote desktop tasks.

4. TightVNC

TightVNC offers pretty much the same features as TigerVNC, but some distinguishing features like the ability to transfer files are available only to Windows users.

If you’re a fan of using multimedia on your remote desktop, we suggest you give TightVNC a miss. Using the default settings you can perform simple actions like viewing PDFs but videos are barely watchable and games which rely on rapid keyboard presses such as snake4 performed horribly, with a delay of over two seconds.

However, TightVNC is the only software in this feature to use a Java viewer. It also uses a simple textbox interface similar to TigerVNC’s. You’ll have to manually enter the IP address of the remote VNC server since the client cannot detect VNC servers running on the network. Again, you can either connect with the default option or customise any of the available settings. However, TightVNC lists all of the available options in one window unlike TigerVNC’s tabbed interface.

The differences between the two continue once a connection has been established: While TigerVNC uses a hidden menu, the TightVNC viewer lists a row of buttons at the top of the interface, and you can use these to customise any of the parameters for the connections – as well as sending various special keys to the remote VNC server.

TightVNC won’t be much help if you’re new to VNC. The website has a single PDF guide on getting started for Windows users. It's easy to see from this – and the handful of screenshots – that this is a product mainly aimed at Windows users. If you need dedicated tech support, you can also pay for an annual subscription.

The TightVNC interface makes passing VNC connections via SSH tunnels very straightforward. TightVNC includes a toolbar at the top of the window with buttons to send keys such as Alt and Ctrl to the remote server. You can also disable clipboard transfer and alter how the mouse cursor is traced, and the shape of the local cursor.

5. Vinagre

Vinagre has a minimal interface that’s very much like Remmina. However, there aren’t nearly as many advanced options behind Remmina’s simple GUI. To connect all you need to do is pick a protocol from the pull-down list and enter the IP address of the remote VNC server. What makes Vinagre more intuitive and user friendly than Remmina is the very helpful Find button that hunts for active servers on the local network.

Also much like Remmina, you get optional checkboxes to start a full-screen session, a view-only or a scaled window. You also have the ability to select a color depth from 24-bit true color to 3-bit ultra-low color, plus you can also enable JPEG compression if you have the resources to bear the processing overhead. On the downside, you can’t change the quality settings of an active connection.

Vinagre can sniff and discover a VNC server running on the network and can tunnel VNC connections through SSH and enables you to easily take screenshots of the remote machines.

Vinagre can also connect using the SPICE, RDP and SSH protocols as well as VNC. The client doesn’t run on any other platform besides the Linux desktop and neither does it have any clients for mobile platforms. It also has no server component of its own but works best when paired with the default VNC server for Gnome, Vino.

Best Free Rdp Client For Windows

During an active remote desktop session, you can ask Vinagre to stop sending keyboard and mouse input to the remote desktop to turn it into a view-only session. Vinagre’s interface also includes a keyboard shortcut to send (Ctrl+Alt+Del) and another to take a screenshot. You can also bookmark an active connection for quick access on subsequent connections, but you can’t alter the colour depth during an active connection.

You can also use Vinagre to enable JPEG compression if the VNC server supports it. The application also enables you to specify the color depth to be used for the connection.

Vinagre just gets the job done without much ado and performs surprisingly well. However, the client doesn’t offer the same flexibility as the others during an active session which is a shame.

Also consider these remote desktop options

There are several other remote desktop clients and solutions that you can use besides those we've discussed. While we’ve only covered the most popular and actively developed VNC clients, there are other alternatives such KDE’s Krdc, TurboVNC, and x11vnc. Also as previously noted, VNC isn’t the only remote desktop protocol in town. Another popular one is the proprietary protocol NoMachine NX.

If you aren’t averse to proprietary solutions there’s also the TeamViewer client and Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop tool.

Veyon (‘virtual eye on networks’) is also an open source solution for remotely accessing, controlling and managing classroom computers using VNC’s RFB protocol.

If you care more about security than sheer nippiness then you can just enable X11 forwarding over SSH. This will display only one application at a time.