Sunshine vs RustDesk
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted remote access & vpn options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Sunshine with
choose an app… frp Headscale Tailscale JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy localtunnel Neko Teleport GoTTY Moonlight Nebula ZeroTier Chisel Cockpit Termix OpenVPN Mosh rathole noVNC FreeRDP SoftEther VPN EasyTier ttyd Netmaker Sliver bore Apollo RustDesk Server Docker OpenVPN Firezone sshx Warpgate TigerVNC GOST MeshCentral n2n wstunnel Outline Server Webmin Next Terminal innernet Wetty KasmVNC WebSSH Remotely Pritunl Wirehole Nexterm zrok expose websockify Tactical RMM OpenZiti Webtop WireGuard Apache Guacamole Eternal Terminal pgrok Bastillion Sshwifty Shell In A Box strongSwan Xpra Headplane Defguard WebSSH2 Snowflake SSH Client tinc Games on Whales ShellHub Selkies Aspia tunnelmole ztncui Subspace WireGuard Portal wayvnc PyRDP docker-baseimage-gui trzsz boringproxy SSHPiper Upterm Kasm Workspaces Headscale-Admin Wesher x11vnc Neko Rooms CloudTTY OpenConnect Server Apache Guacamole Lite gTunnel X2Go Guacozy Engity's Bifröst Cardea RPort Neutrinet SparkView
Compare RustDesk with
choose an app… frp Headscale Tailscale JumpServer Algo VPN NetBird WG-Easy localtunnel Neko Teleport GoTTY Moonlight Nebula ZeroTier Chisel Cockpit Termix OpenVPN Mosh rathole noVNC FreeRDP SoftEther VPN EasyTier ttyd Netmaker Sliver bore Apollo RustDesk Server Docker OpenVPN Firezone sshx Warpgate TigerVNC GOST MeshCentral n2n wstunnel Outline Server Webmin Next Terminal innernet Wetty KasmVNC WebSSH Remotely Pritunl Wirehole Nexterm zrok expose websockify Tactical RMM OpenZiti Webtop WireGuard Apache Guacamole Eternal Terminal pgrok Bastillion Sshwifty Shell In A Box strongSwan Xpra Headplane Defguard WebSSH2 Snowflake SSH Client tinc Games on Whales ShellHub Selkies Aspia tunnelmole ztncui Subspace WireGuard Portal wayvnc PyRDP docker-baseimage-gui trzsz boringproxy SSHPiper Upterm Kasm Workspaces Headscale-Admin Wesher x11vnc Neko Rooms CloudTTY OpenConnect Server Apache Guacamole Lite gTunnel X2Go Guacozy Engity's Bifröst Cardea RPort Neutrinet SparkView
Feature Sunshine RustDesk Category Remote Access & VPN Remote Access & VPN License GPL-3.0 AGPL-3.0 Language C++ Rust Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, binary docker, binary GitHub stars ★ 39,962 ★ 119,867 First released 2020 2021 Replaces NVIDIA GameStream, Parsec TeamViewer, AnyDesk
Why pick each one
Choose Sunshine if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Mature project with 40k GitHub stars Written in C++ Sunshine details
Frequently asked questions Is Sunshine or RustDesk better? RustDesk is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Sunshine if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Sunshine and RustDesk free and open-source? Yes. Sunshine is licensed under GPL-3.0 and RustDesk under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Sunshine and RustDesk with Docker? Sunshine: yes. RustDesk: yes.