How to compare remote support tools
Last updated 10 September 2026
These are the questions we think matter when choosing this kind of software. They are published here before the individual comparisons are written, so you can see the criteria were not picked to flatter us. Ask them of us and of anyone else.
1. Who decides whether a screen is shared
Is consent enforced on the customer's own machine, or is it a setting on a server that an administrator, a support agent at the vendor, or anyone with the right access can change? The question to ask is not “does it prompt” but “what happens if the person says no, and who could override that”.
2. What the person being helped can see
Is there an indicator while the session runs, can it be hidden, and does it name the individual technician or only the company? Can they end the session themselves, in one action, without help?
3. Looking and controlling
Are they the same permission or two? Being able to see a screen and being able to type on it are different levels of trust, and a tool that treats them as one has made that choice for you.
4. What is left behind
After a one-off session, is anything still installed, still running, or still listening on the customer's machine? A support tool that leaves a persistent service behind on a stranger's computer is a different product from one that removes itself, whatever the marketing says.
5. What the record proves
Is there a record of who asked, who allowed, and when control was granted? Can it be edited or deleted by the company using the tool? A log you can quietly change is not evidence.
6. Whose name the customer sees
Does the page, the prompt and the installer carry your name or the vendor's? If it can carry yours, does the installer's signature survive the branding, or is it re-signed, or unsigned?
7. Where the data lives, and what the vendor can see
Where is the database, and under whose law? Is screen traffic end to end encrypted, and when it is relayed through the vendor's infrastructure, can the vendor read it? Are sessions recorded anywhere by default?
8. What it costs to be honest about
Per technician or per device? What happens at renewal? What is in the tier above the one being quoted? And what certifications does the vendor actually hold today, as opposed to being “aligned with”?
Our answers
Ours are on the security page and the compliance page, including the things we cannot evidence yet: no SOC 2, no ISO 27001, no third party penetration test.
The comparisons
Each answers the eight questions above, states the date it was checked, and links to the other vendor's own documentation for every claim made about their product. Where we could not confirm something from an official source, the page says so instead of guessing.
A comparison without a date is out of date by the time it is read. If you find something wrong on one of these, tell us and we will correct it.