LiveDesk vs RustDesk
Last updated 10 September 2026
This is the least like-for-like of the four. RustDesk is open source software you run yourself; LiveDesk is a hosted product you rent. Most of the differences below follow from that one, and for a lot of teams RustDesk is the right answer.
1. What you are actually choosing
LiveDesk
A service. We run the signalling, the relay and the database, we sign the binaries, and if it breaks it is our problem.
RustDesk
Software, under the AGPL-3.0 licence, which you can self host: the project documents setting up your own rendezvous and relay server, or writing your own. If it breaks it is your problem, and so is every upgrade.
2. Who decides whether a screen is shared
LiveDesk
The person at the machine, enforced by the program on it, every session.
RustDesk
Whatever you configure. Because you control the build and the server, the consent model is yours to set, which is both the freedom and the responsibility.
3. What is left behind
LiveDesk
The tool removes itself when the session ends.
RustDesk
Your decision. It runs portable or installed as a service depending on how you deploy it.
4. What the record proves
LiveDesk
Consent and session events are written into the conversation and cannot be edited by anyone using the product, including us.
RustDesk
Whatever your deployment records. If you need an audit trail an auditor will accept, that is a thing you build and maintain rather than a thing you get.
5. Whose name the customer sees
LiveDesk
Yours, and the signature on the installer stays valid because branding is applied at download time.
RustDesk
Yours if you build it that way. Note the licence: AGPL-3.0 has obligations for anyone distributing modified versions or offering them over a network, and those obligations are worth reading properly before a client sees a rebranded build.
6. Where the data lives
LiveDesk
Postgres in Zurich, on infrastructure we run.
RustDesk
Wherever you put it, which is the strongest argument for it. Nobody else is in the path at all if you host everything.
7. Cost
LiveDesk
Nothing today. Pricing is not decided and billing is not built.
RustDesk
No licence fee for the open source software. The cost is servers and the hours of whoever keeps it running, which is not nothing and is easy to underestimate.
Where RustDesk is ahead
Control and price. You can read every line of it, host all of it, and pay nobody. It runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and iOS; we are Windows only. If you have the operational capacity and want no third party in the path, that is a serious advantage and no hosted product can match it.
Where we differ on purpose
We are the opposite trade: less control, less work. The conversation, the consent record, the signed installer and the branded customer page are things you get rather than things you build. If you would rather build them, RustDesk is a good place to start.
One thing worth saying plainly, since people ask: LiveDesk is not open source. It is a closed source product, and it shares no code with RustDesk. It is a separate implementation written from scratch, and it excludes AGPL-licensed sources on purpose, including RustDesk's own forks of the capture and encoder crates. If being able to read the whole thing matters to you, that is a real argument for RustDesk and against us.
Sources
Everything above about the other product was read from the pages below on 10 September 2026. These products change; if you are reading this long after that date, check them again. If you find something here that is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will correct it.