AnyDesk

AnyDesk review

AnyDesk is the tool most people should try first. It is fast, it runs on nearly everything, and the free version is genuinely usable — provided your use is personal. The moment it becomes work, you need a licence, and AnyDesk is more serious about enforcing that than most of its rivals.

What AnyDesk is

AnyDesk is remote desktop software: install it on two machines and one can see and control the other’s screen. Each installation is issued an AnyDesk address — a nine-digit number, or an alias — and you connect by entering the other machine’s address. The person at the far end accepts the request, or you use a password they set in advance.

Its main technical claim is a proprietary video codec called DeskRT, built specifically for graphical user interfaces rather than for video. In practice AnyDesk does feel noticeably more responsive than most competitors over a poor connection, and it is the reason the software has the reputation it has. If you have previously given up on remote support because the session was unusably laggy, this is the one to retry with.

Which platforms AnyDesk actually supports

AnyDesk covers more operating systems than anything else reviewed here, but “supported” means different things in different directions. Being able to control from a device is not the same as being able to be controlled.

The two rows people get caught by are the mobile ones. Apple does not permit third-party software to take control of an iPhone or iPad, so AnyDesk can show you an iOS screen but never drive it. Android can be controlled, but usually only after installing an extra plugin. Both are covered in detail on the dedicated pages below.

Free versus paid, and where the line really is

AnyDesk’s free licence is personal use only. This is not a soft limit or a fair-use guideline: commercial use on the free tier breaches the terms of service. If you are helping your parents with their laptop, you are fine. If you are helping a client, a colleague or your own company’s staff, you need a licence.

AnyDesk detects commercial use and displays notices, and sessions can be cut short. It is one of the more common frustrations reported by people who assumed the free tier would quietly tolerate occasional work use. It does not.

Paid plans are sold as Solo, Standard and Advanced, and are priced per month billed annually — broadly in the range of €20 to €80 a month depending on tier, with discounts for annual payment. Only the person initiating the session needs the licence; the person being helped can run the free client. Check AnyDesk’s own pricing page for current figures, which move more often than most.

Setting up unattended access

Unattended access lets you connect to a machine with nobody sitting at it — your own desktop from a laptop, for instance.

1. On the machine you want to reach, open AnyDesk and go to Settings → Security.
2. Click Unlock Security Settings, which requires administrator rights.
3. Enable Enable unattended access and set a password.
4. Note the AnyDesk address shown on that machine — you will connect to it by that number.

Use a genuinely strong password here. This setting removes the requirement for anyone to accept the connection, which is exactly what makes it useful and exactly what makes it dangerous. AnyDesk also supports restricting unattended access to specific approved devices, and on any machine that matters you should use that.

Security, including the part AnyDesk would rather you skipped

Sessions are protected with TLS 1.2 transport encryption and RSA 2048 key exchange, and AnyDesk verifies each connection endpoint. That is a solid baseline and comparable to its commercial competitors.

The honest caveat is that in early 2024 AnyDesk disclosed a breach of its own production systems. The company detected it during a security audit in mid-January 2024, disclosed it publicly on 2 February, and a forensic investigation traced the intrusion back to December 2023. Source code and private code-signing certificates were compromised. AnyDesk revoked the affected certificates, issued new ones in client versions 7.0.15 and 8.0.8, and reset passwords on its web portal as a precaution. The attack was not ransomware, and there was no evidence that end-user devices were affected.

AnyDesk’s handling was reasonable and the remediation was real. But it is a fact worth knowing before you install remote access software on a machine you care about, and it is the sort of thing review pages tend to omit. Keep the client updated; the fixed certificates only apply from those versions onward.

The larger risk, as always, is not the software. Remote access tools are the standard instrument of technical support scams: somebody calls claiming to be from Microsoft or your bank, walks you through installing exactly this kind of program, and asks for the number on your screen. Never give your AnyDesk address to someone who contacted you first.

Where AnyDesk falls short

• The free licence is personal-use only, and enforced. The single most common complaint, and entirely avoidable if you read it first.
• Pricing is per-month-billed-annually, which makes the headline figure look smaller than the commitment.
• Mobile is asymmetric. Phones control well; being controlled is limited on Android and impossible on iOS.
• Linux incoming connections require Xorg. On a Wayland desktop you can control others but not be controlled.
• The 2024 production breach is a legitimate mark against a vendor in this category, however well handled.

Who it is for

AnyDesk is the strongest general-purpose pick on this site for personal use: fastest over bad connections, broadest platform coverage, and a free tier that is not artificially crippled. If you are supporting family, managing your own machines, or working across Windows, Mac and Linux, start here.

Look elsewhere if the use is commercial and the budget is zero — that is AeroAdmin or RustDesk territory — or if you specifically need to control an iPhone, which no tool can do.

Two related questions come up constantly: how AnyDesk compares with the free open-source option in RustDesk vs AnyDesk, and what the free tiers actually allow before a licence becomes mandatory.

Researched against AnyDesk’s official support documentation and independent reporting in September 2026. Platform support is taken from AnyDesk’s published supported-operating-systems table; prices are approximate and change frequently — check the vendor’s pricing page before budgeting.