rdesktop VS FreeRDP

Compare rdesktop vs FreeRDP and see what are their differences.

rdesktop

🚨 rdesktop is in need of a new maintainter. Please see the home page for more details. 🚨 (by rdesktop)
InfluxDB - Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale
Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
www.influxdata.com
featured
SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews
SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives
www.saashub.com
featured
rdesktop FreeRDP
1 66
1,237 10,252
0.6% 2.4%
0.0 9.9
8 months ago 1 day ago
C C
GNU General Public License v3.0 only Apache License 2.0
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

rdesktop

Posts with mentions or reviews of rdesktop. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2022-03-15.
  • RDP Clients for Debian: An incomplete review
    6 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 15 Mar 2022
    rdesktop lost its maintainer[1] 2 years ago, and it looks like it just recently started having activity[2] again.

    I run xfreerdp nightly builds for everything, and I rarely have issues, might be worth looking into for your crashing issue.

    [1] https://groups.google.com/g/rdesktop-announce/c/AddglSNxK90

    [2] https://github.com/rdesktop/rdesktop/commits/master

FreeRDP

Posts with mentions or reviews of FreeRDP. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-11.
  • FreeRDP 3.2.0
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 19 Jan 2024
  • Windows App Virtualization
    2 projects | /r/linuxquestions | 11 Dec 2023
    #======================================================================== # NAME: run1in.sh # # PURPOSE: # # Login to Windows and Execute a Remote App to display on your # Linux Desktop using the Linux application called "freerdp" with: # # Since we are "localized" (Host to Container on the Host) we ignore # (re "don't use" RDP normal "certificate" authentication. # #------------------------------------------------------------- # xfreerdp command line options used are: # # (bpp:32) 32 bits per pixel (ie display resolution) # # a dynamic remote desktop "window" that's can be # resized/minimized/maximized on your Linux Desktop # # There are 2 Prerequisites for use of this script: # # 1) You have installed freerdp on your Linux Host # $ sudo apt install freerdp2-x11 -y # -or- # $ sudo apt install freerdp2-wayland -y # # 2) You have created a folder named "shared-folder" on your Linux # Host # example: $ mkdir /home/yourID/shared-folder # # You will use that folder to for exchange of files to/from your # Linux "/home/yourID/shared-folder" and the "Windows" system # you are connecting to! # # On Windows you have to click on "Network" to see the # "shared-folder" to copy/cut&paste/rename files to/from your # Linux Host's "shared-folder" /home/yourID/shared-folder # # Enable use of Clipboard to/from Windows and the Linux Host # # Enable Sound using currently utilizing Pulseaudio on the Linux Host as # neither XRDP or freerdp support/implement Pipewire yet. # # On login to Windows execute the Explorer.exe application which you had # previously setup as a Windows "Remote App" using Kim Knight's awesome # "RemoteAppTool" Windows native application (its on Github). # # On xfreerdp login to Windows the "Remote App".. Window's "Explorer.exe" # will start-up and be presented to the Linux Desktop User as # just another Linux Desktop application's "window". So you will see # Window's "Explorer.exe" presented which you can resize, minimize or # maximize --- or copy files to/from Windows & your Linux Host # /home/yourID/shared-folder # #--------- # NOTE #--------- # There are many more "xfreerdp" command options available: # # see: https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/wiki/CommandLineInterface # # One in particular is can be very useful: # "printer:," : Redirect a specific printer from your # Linux Host to your xfreerdp Windows Desktop "session" so you can print # from Windows to your local Linux attached Printer. #========================================================================
  • FreeRDP 3.0.0-C0
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 27 Nov 2023
  • FreeRDP: A remote desktop protocol implementation
    1 project | /r/hypeurls | 1 Oct 2023
  • FreeRDP: A Remote Desktop Protocol Implementation
    10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 28 Sep 2023
  • ⟳ 4 apps added, 121 updated at f-droid.org
    24 projects | /r/FDroidUpdates | 15 Sep 2023
    aFreeRDP (version 2.11.0): FreeRDP is a free remote desktop protocol client
  • FYI stylus's work through Windows Remote Desktop. Also have WIP on freerdp for linux to windows remote stylus-ing, but needs more dev work (help?)
    1 project | /r/stylus | 5 Jul 2023
    On the linux side, recently I hacked on freerdp to get basic pen & eraser functionality working from the X11 client to be able to remote from linux to windows: https://github.com/FreeRDP/FreeRDP/pull/9080
  • Windows Server Admin Center
    2 projects | /r/sysadmin | 5 Jun 2023
    Our Linux and Mac users have long used RDP to log into Windows. That's largely obsolete, so the plan is for the remaining Windows to be Infrastructure-as-Code via DSC.
  • How Complicated Are RemoteApps?
    1 project | /r/sysadmin | 20 May 2023
    FreeRDP has had RemoteApp support for a long time. I'd try out that client and see if you could get debugging messages -- or possibly it might just work? They have documentation on the protocol, and pointers to Microsoft's documentation.
  • RDP Server for Mac? Looking for a way to control my MAC from my Windows machine (No VNC)
    3 projects | /r/MacOS | 9 May 2023
    For Linux there is XRDP as well as FreeRDP https://www.freerdp.com both open sourced recreations of the original RDP standard and available for Operating Systems like Linux.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing rdesktop and FreeRDP you can also consider the following projects:

xrdp - xrdp: an open source RDP server

Remmina - Mirror of https://gitlab.com/Remmina/Remmina The GTK+ Remmina Remote Desktop Client