Windows RDP
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 22 game streaming software by recommenders
A mature Windows remote desktop protocol that people find responsive and usable, often preferred over VNC; some find its experience mediocre.
A mature Windows remote desktop protocol that people find responsive and usable, often preferred over VNC; some find its experience mediocre.
18 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Beats VNC on performance
“just outright using RDP directly, both of which are much better at the job”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “KDE Plasma 6.8 Will Go Wayland-Exclusive in Dropping X11 Session Support” “I have used RDP over dial-up that was more responsive that VNC over LAN.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows” “The terribleness of VNC (vs RDP) is what gets you.”
Comment from 7 Jun 2026 in “Anthropic, please ship an official Claude Desktop for Linux” - Comment from 15 Aug 2026 in “RustDesk now supports true unattended remote access on Wayland”
Mature, reliable, long-established protocol
“The people who put together TS/RDP are geniuses IMO, it's insane as to how usable it has been for at least 15-ish years”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Yserver: A modern X11 server written in Rust” “Microsoft rdp is a great solution for this in windows land.”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Yserver: A modern X11 server written in Rust” “Windows implementation of RDP is actually very good”
Comment from 29 Nov 2025 in “WinApps: Run Windows apps as if they were a part of the native Linux OS” Responsive over slow connections
“I have used RDP over dial-up that was more responsive that VNC over LAN.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows” “RDP works perfectly, certainly much better that X11 over WAN”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “I Hate: Programming Wayland Applications”
Other game streaming software people recommend
The four most recommended other game streaming software, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moonlight | 68 | 10 | 87% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Sunshine | 55 | 16 | 77% | 10 | — | Approved |
| RustDesk | 32 | 20 | 62% | 8 | — | — |
| Sunshine and Moonlight | 18 | 6 | 75% | 7 | 3 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| Windows RDPThis page | 15 | 3 | 83% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
16 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Bye, bye, TeamViewer, Windows RDP, and RealVNC.”
“Windows RDP can declaratively send UI component changes as long as one uses Win32 or WPF”
“RDP works fine but it's based on a full desktop experience”
“I really don't recall being able to come close to that latency on RDP”
“Even Microsoft's RDP is better.”
“The people who put together TS/RDP are geniuses IMO, it's insane as to how usable it has been for at least 15-ish years”
“Microsoft rdp is a great solution for this in windows land.”
“The terribleness of VNC (vs RDP) is what gets you.”
“RDP or parsec are probably the gold standard”
“they're pretty mediocre experience-wise”
“RDP was fine there, even Gnome adopted it.”
“RDP works perfectly, certainly much better that X11 over WAN”
“It works just fine on Linux, especially if you're on recent KDE.”
“I have used RDP over dial-up that was more responsive that VNC over LAN.”
“Windows implementation of RDP is actually very good”
“just outright using RDP directly, both of which are much better at the job”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.