Remote Assistance Tools

Which remote desktop tool should you use?

Eleven tools, and the honest answer is that the right one depends on a single question almost nobody asks first: is this for work? Most of the free tiers here are personal-use only, and two of the biggest will actively cut your session off if they suspect otherwise.

Start here: free versus commercial use

If you use TeamViewer or AnyDesk for anything work-related on a free licence, you are in breach of their terms — and TeamViewer in particular will start dropping your sessions after about five minutes with a “commercial use suspected” notice. That is the single most common complaint in this entire category, and it is entirely avoidable by choosing differently at the start.

Pick by what you are actually doing

Helping family and friends

AnyDesk is the best choice. It is the fastest over a poor connection, it runs on everything, and personal use is exactly what its free licence is for. If the person you are helping struggles with installers, AeroAdmin is a single 2 MB file with nothing to install and no account to create.

Supporting clients or colleagues, with no budget

RustDesk. It is open source, free for commercial use with no restriction, and you can run the server side yourself so no third party sits in the middle of your sessions. Expect to do more setup than with a commercial product.

A couple of machines you need to reach permanently

Getscreen.me. Two devices free forever, no session time limit, commercial use allowed, and the technician side runs in a browser tab so you can connect from a machine you cannot install software on.

Running a real support desk

TeamViewer if you want the most capable platform and can afford it. ISL Online if you need to host it on your own servers or would rather pay per minute than per seat. LogMeIn if you need multi-technician queues and enterprise authentication, and have the budget that implies.

Managing many machines on a small budget

Iperius Remote. It charges for concurrent connections rather than per device, so managing two hundred machines costs the same as managing five if you only ever connect to a couple at once.

What no tool can do

Two limits are worth knowing before you spend time looking for a product that beats them, because none does:

• You cannot remotely control an iPhone or iPad. Apple does not permit it, so no app on the App Store can. You can view an iOS screen while the person holding it taps; that is all. See AnyDesk for iPhone for what does work.
• Controlling an Android phone needs an extra plugin in nearly every case, because Android blocks apps from injecting input by default. Viewing works immediately; control does not. See AnyDesk for Android.

Controlling a Mac is possible, but macOS will block screen capture and remote input until two specific permissions are granted — the cause of almost every “it connects but the screen is black” report. AnyDesk for Mac covers the exact steps.

Before you let anyone connect

Every tool on this site does the same thing: it lets somebody else see and control your computer. That is genuinely useful, and it is also precisely the mechanism behind technical support scams. The pattern is always the same — an unexpected call from “Microsoft”, your bank or your internet provider, a walkthrough of installing a small program, and a request for the number on your screen.

• Only ever grant access to someone you contacted first, on a number you looked up yourself. No legitimate company will phone you unprompted and ask for remote access.
• Watch the whole session. Every tool shows you what is happening on your screen; stay and look at it.
• End the session and uninstall when the work is done, particularly if unattended access was enabled.
• Never leave unattended access open with a weak password. It removes the requirement for anyone to accept the connection, which is exactly what makes it dangerous.

What about the tools already on your computer?

Windows includes Quick Assist, which needs no download at all: open it, generate a six-digit code, and share it with the person helping you. It is limited — no file transfer, no unattended access, Windows to Windows only — but for a one-off problem between two Windows PCs it is often enough, and there is nothing to install or trust.

Google’s Chrome Remote Desktop is similar in spirit: free, cross-platform, tied to a Google account, and fine for reaching your own machines. Both are worth trying before installing anything from this page.

Every tool on this site was researched against its vendor’s own documentation in September 2026. Free-tier limits and prices change without notice — the individual reviews link to each vendor’s pricing page, and those are the figures to trust.