scrcpy VS xpra

Compare scrcpy vs xpra and see what are their differences.

scrcpy

Display and control your Android device (by Genymobile)

xpra

Persistent remote applications for X11; screen sharing for X11, MacOS and MSWindows. (by Xpra-org)
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scrcpy xpra
983 50
101,841 1,387
3.1% 8.4%
9.4 9.9
3 days ago 3 days ago
C Python
Apache License 2.0 GNU General Public License v3.0 only
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.

scrcpy

Posts with mentions or reviews of scrcpy. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-05.

xpra

Posts with mentions or reviews of xpra. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-10.
  • Why is remote desktop slow when host monitor is off unless HDMI cable is used?
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 10 Apr 2024
    FWIW I had decent success with Xpra on Linux, and it's still being actively developed, e.g. the HTML5 client is considered stable now: https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/
  • Apache Guacamole: a clientless remote desktop gateway
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Mar 2024
    I use xpra for similar purposes (https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/)

    > Xpra is known as "screen for X" : its seamless mode allows you to run X11 programs, usually on a remote host, direct their display to your local machine, and then to disconnect from these programs and reconnect from the same or another machine(s), without losing any state. Effectively giving you remote access to individual graphical applications. It can also be used to access existing desktop sessions and start remote desktop sessions.

  • Firefox 121 defaults to Wayland on Linux
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 19 Dec 2023
    I want to move to the "future", but I use several firefox profiles via xpra in combination with xdotool based hotkeys. The fluidity with which I can control my different profile windows without a mouse and with which I can switch between computers with no lag with this setup is a big reason why I have stuck with a Linux desktop, so I am sad to see those super powers go away for no perceived benefit. I have tried Wayland several times now and don't notice any performance differences, just more bugs in Wayland.

    `xdotool search` seems like it has been deemed a security issue for reasons I can't understand (if someone has hacked in to the point that they can even run such query commands, surely I'm already pwn'd). Maybe I'm oversimplifying it, but to me it's like being upset that someone who broke into your house can see the color of your curtains. The powerful feature set of X far outweighs these minor security concerns.

    And it looks like xpra is facing huge issues switching over https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra/issues/387 :(, I have yet to be as satisfied with any other free remote desktop software (paid nomachine is close but less scriptable).

    I hope these aren't fundamental limitations of wayland, but the challenges seem steep.

  • Advice on getting a 16GB Nvidia card..
    1 project | /r/linuxquestions | 6 Dec 2023
    They all operate(d) their GPUs just fine. I'm a heavy user of VirtualGL + XPRA for remote graphics usage, which is a constant factor in my life and work. When they're not doing graphics of some sort, they're hunting pulsars in a GPU-centric compute mode.
  • FreeRDP: A Remote Desktop Protocol Implementation
    10 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 28 Sep 2023
    I've long been a huge fan of Xpra https://github.com/Xpra-org/xpra , both because of its "screen for X" original focus (though now it supports shadowing an existing session).

    There was NoMachine / nx / freenx but it always seemed to be a weird animal to me, requiring installation as a separate unix user, at least at the time.

  • Cool but Obscure X11 Apps
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 13 Jul 2023
    One of my favorite bits of software is Xpra [0], "screen for X". You'd run it and it would start another X server (start apps in it with `DISPLAY=:1 xterm` or whatever), and you would "attach" it to your running X server with `xpra attach`.

    You can attach to e.g. `ssh://hostname/:1`, so I ran a firefox instance on a homelab server and attached to it from my laptop and my desktop to not have to bother keeping bookmarks, tabs etc in sync.

    [0] https://xpra.org/

  • Alternatives To X2go?
    2 projects | /r/linuxadmin | 3 Apr 2023
    I’ve used Xpra in the past to connect to a remote system for GUI stuff, but I almost exclusively use ssh because most of the time I don’t need to run a remote windowing system.
  • I want to (securely) remotely access my Pop!_OS desktop from my Pop!_OS laptop - what’s the best way to do this in 2023?
    4 projects | /r/pop_os | 29 Mar 2023
    To add to this if you need to access graphical applications of an entire desktop environment you can use Xpra or MOONLIGHT (I suggest the second one if you want to game on the remote desktop or need very low latency in general), you can use both of these through a ssh tunnel (you need to enable this and X forwarding in the config) so if you setup and allow access to ssh correctly you can also use these without too much of a hassle.
  • plasma-nm, libqca-qt5-2 and libkf5wallet-bin - but not in this order!
    1 project | /r/kdeneon | 14 Feb 2023
    Linux fernando-ipmh61r3 6.1.0-1006-oem #6-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Tue Jan 24 18:24:09 UTC 2023 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux | NVIDIA-SMI 525.89.02 Driver Version: 525.89.02 CUDA Version: 12.0 | /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-updates main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-backports main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list:deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main universe restricted multiverse /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list:deb [arch=amd64] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cappelikan-ubuntu-ppa-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/cappelikan/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Types: deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:URIs: https://deb.librewolf.net /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Suites: jammy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Components: main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Architectures: amd64 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/librewolf.sources:Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/librewolf.gpg /etc/apt/sources.list.d/neon.list:deb http://archive.neon.kde.org/user/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nicotine-team-ubuntu-stable-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nicotine-team/stable/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/obsproject-ubuntu-obs-studio-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/openjdk-r-ubuntu-ppa-jammy.list:deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openjdk-r/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/org.kde.neon.net.launchpad.ppa.mozillateam.list:deb https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/mozillateam/ppa/ubuntu/ jammy main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Types: deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:URIs: https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Suites: jammy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Components: main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Architectures: amd64 i386 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq-jammy.sources:Signed-By: /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Types: deb /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:URIs: https://xpra.org /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Suites: jammy /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Components: main /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xpra.sources:Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/xpra.asc
  • Looking for an application that allows VNC sharing in windows for a single application
    3 projects | /r/software | 2 Jan 2023

What are some alternatives?

When comparing scrcpy and xpra you can also consider the following projects:

KeyMapper - **DEVELOPMENT STOPPED**.📱 An Android app that change what the buttons do on your devices!

xrdp - xrdp: an open source RDP server

scrcpy-ios - Scrcpy-iOS.app is a remote control tool for Android Phones based on [https://github.com/Genymobile/scrcpy].

rustdesk - An open-source remote desktop, and alternative to TeamViewer.

sndcpy - Android audio forwarding (scrcpy, but for audio)

ssh-rdp - Real display ssh based remote desktop

deskreen - Deskreen turns any device with a web browser into a secondary screen for your computer. ⭐️ Star to support our work!

FreeRDP - FreeRDP is a free remote desktop protocol library and clients

termux-tasker - Termux add-on app for integration with Tasker.

Sunshine - Sunshine is a Gamestream host for Moonlight. [Moved to: https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine]

SysDVR - Stream switch games to your PC via USB or network

mRemoteNG - mRemoteNG is the next generation of mRemote, open source, tabbed, multi-protocol, remote connections manager.