European Remote Desktop Software

#1 TeamViewer

Göppingen, Germany Per licence, per year Demo on request

Best for: IT teams and service providers supporting machines they cannot touch

TeamViewer is the German company that made remote support ordinary. Its client runs on every desktop and mobile platform, connects through firewalls without network configuration, and is used equally for one-off help sessions and unattended access to fleets of machines.

Reach is the advantage. It connects where a VPN or an RDP gateway would need network work first, on platforms competitors skip, and the person at the other end usually has it installed already — which removes the negotiation before a support session even starts.

TeamViewer SE is headquartered in Göppingen and listed in Frankfurt, with device monitoring and asset management in the higher tiers alongside remote control. Licensing is per concurrent user per year, and it is the most common complaint about the product — which is largely why the rest of this list exists.

Standout feature. It connects to anything, anywhere, and the person you are helping already has it.

#2 AnyDesk

Stuttgart, Germany Per licence, per year Demo on request

Best for: Teams that want responsive sessions and can self-host the relay

AnyDesk was founded in Stuttgart by former TeamViewer engineers around a purpose-built video codec, DeskRT, aimed at keeping remote sessions responsive on poor connections. The client is a few megabytes and needs no installation to start a session.

Two things separate it. The protocol keeps a session usable at bandwidths where competitors become a slideshow, and the on-premises option lets you run the entire relay network inside your own infrastructure — so no session metadata leaves the building at all.

AnyDesk Software GmbH is based in Stuttgart, with clients for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and Raspberry Pi, a REST API and custom-branded builds. Pricing generally undercuts TeamViewer at comparable capability, with the on-premises licence quoted separately.

Standout feature. The relay can be entirely yours — nothing leaves your infrastructure.

#3 RealVNC

Cambridge, United Kingdom Per device or per user, per year Demo on request

Best for: Organisations that want a direct connection rather than a broker

RealVNC is the Cambridge company founded by the people who created the VNC protocol at the Olivetti Research Laboratory in the 1990s. Its product line is the commercial continuation of that work and remains the reference implementation.

Its distinguishing capability is choice of connection model. Sessions can be brokered through its cloud like every competitor, or established directly between two machines with no third party in the path — which for regulated environments and air-gapped networks is the difference between usable and prohibited.

RealVNC is headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom: outside the EEA but covered by an EU adequacy decision, so transfers are lawful without additional safeguards. Where that still matters, the direct-connection mode removes the vendor from the data path entirely. It is also effectively the default on Raspberry Pi.

Standout feature. A direct machine-to-machine connection with no vendor in the path at all.

#4 NoMachine

Luxembourg City, Luxembourg Free for personal use + paid server editions Demo on request

Best for: Teams pushing graphics-heavy desktops over slow links

NoMachine is the commercial home of the NX protocol, a remote display technology built for the case the others handle badly: a full graphical desktop over a link with real latency, including 3D applications and video.

The protocol is the product. NX compresses and caches desktop traffic aggressively enough that a CAD or research desktop stays usable across a continent, which is why NoMachine turns up in universities and engineering shops where generic screen sharing is simply not fast enough. The Terminal Server editions go further and publish Linux desktops and applications to many users at once, which is closer to Citrix than to a support tool.

NoMachine moved its global headquarters to Luxembourg in 2013, with R&D in Italy and Poland. The server editions install on your own machines, so a self-hosted deployment puts no vendor infrastructure in the session path — and the free personal edition has no time limit rather than being a trial.

Standout feature. A protocol built for latency, so a real desktop stays usable across a continent.

#5 ISL Online

Ljubljana, Slovenia Per user or per session, plus self-hosted licence Demo on request

Best for: Support desks and public bodies that must keep sessions in-house

ISL Online is a Slovenian remote support platform from XLAB, built for helpdesks and offered in an unusual range of deployment models: cloud, private cloud, or a perpetual server licence installed on your own hardware.

That server licence is why it keeps winning government and healthcare tenders in central Europe. The entire session — connection brokering, recordings, audit log — stays on infrastructure the customer owns, which is a requirement no cloud-only vendor can meet at any price.

XLAB is headquartered in Ljubljana and has been developing the software since 2003. Alongside attended and unattended support it includes a live chat module that escalates into a remote session from the same widget, with cloud pricing per concurrent user or per session.

Standout feature. A perpetual licence to run the whole thing yourself — sessions never leave your building.

#6 TSplus

Montpellier, France Perpetual licence per server Demo on request

Best for: Companies publishing Windows applications to remote users

TSplus is a French alternative to Citrix and Microsoft's remote desktop services licensing: it publishes Windows applications and desktops to remote users through a browser or thin client, from a server you own, on a perpetual licence.

It solves a different problem from the rest of this list. This is not remote support of someone's PC; it is delivering a line-of-business Windows application to staff who are elsewhere — at a fraction of what Citrix costs, with a licence bought once rather than rented.

TSplus is headquartered in Montpellier, with HTML5 browser access, a customisable web portal, load balancing across servers, and separate modules for two-factor authentication, ransomware protection and server monitoring. For a product sitting between staff and the company's core applications, a European vendor on a perpetual licence is a considerably smaller dependency.

Standout feature. Application publishing on a licence you buy once, at a fraction of Citrix pricing.

#7 Iperius Remote

Italy Per concurrent connection, per year Demo on request

Best for: Small IT providers who need a few concurrent sessions and no complexity

Iperius Remote is an Italian remote control tool built around a small, installation-free client and licensing simple enough to understand in one reading — a deliberate contrast with the tiering the larger vendors use.

It competes on plainness. A handful of concurrent connections, unattended access to registered machines, file transfer, multi-monitor support, and a price that does not change when your device count crosses a threshold. For a small IT provider that predictability is the feature.

Iperius Remote is developed and operated from Italy by the makers of the Iperius Backup suite, with clients for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS and an optional custom-branded build. A free tier covers occasional personal use.

Standout feature. A price that does not move when your device count does.

#8 Supremo

Ascoli Piceno, Italy Per concurrent connection, per year Demo on request

Best for: Support desks that help people who cannot install software

Supremo is a remote support tool from Nanosystems in Ascoli Piceno, built around one constraint: the person you are helping should not have to install anything, configure a router or hold administrator rights to let you in.

Licensing per concurrent connection rather than per managed device is the commercial difference. A support desk that touches hundreds of machines but never more than three at once pays for three — a different bill entirely from the per-device models this category usually runs on. Attended and unattended control, file transfer, multi-monitor support and an address book through the Supremo Console cover the rest.

Nanosystems S.r.l. is Italian and Supremo's servers are operated in Europe, with AES-256 encryption on the session. For a tool that by definition sees whatever is on the screen it controls, that jurisdiction is the point rather than a detail.

Standout feature. Concurrent-connection licensing, which reprices a busy helpdesk entirely.