The 10 best remote support software tools for IT teams in 2026

1. 01

   Movitera

   Origin: Brazil

   Best for
   An in-house IT team managing its own company's machines that wants to open the session from inside the device record, without keeping a separate remote access subscription.

   In Movitera, remote access is not a separate product: it is a button on the device record, inside the inventory. Open the machine under devices, pick view-only or full control, and the console opens in a browser tab — nothing to install on the technician's side. The person at the machine approves the request, sees a notice while the session runs, and can end it at any point. And because the device is already an inventory record, the machine you are reaching is the same one the ticket, the warranty and the maintenance history point at.

   What it delivers

   • The session opens from the device record, in the browser — no viewer to install on the technician's side
   • View-only and full-control modes, with a live indicator showing frame rate, resolution and how many people are in the session
   • Off by default: remote control has to be enabled for the team, and it depends on a dedicated remote-operator permission
   • Consent is a company policy — approve every session, only while the user is present, or allow access with nobody there — and the request expires after 120 seconds
   • The person at the machine sees a persistent notice while the session runs and can end it; the session also dies on expiry
   • The software-risk module flags remote access tools installed outside the team's sanctioned list — the AnyDesk nobody approved shows up

   Where it stops

   • It only reaches machines with Movitera Link installed and online. There is no ad-hoc session: to help a new customer or a contractor's laptop you need AnyDesk, TeamViewer or Zoho Assist, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
   • No file transfer and no session recording. If your audit requires a recorded session, this is not the tool.
   • No wake-on-LAN: a powered-off machine is out of reach, unlike an RMM suite.
   • No mobile control. No general-market tool truly controls an iPhone — Apple does not allow it — but RMM suites do reach managed Android, and we do not.
   • It is not an infrastructure gateway: it does not replace RDP or a VPN for administering servers.
   • Billing is in Brazilian reais only, which is a hard constraint if your finance department needs a USD or EUR invoice.

   How it bills Included in the workspace, with no per-technician remote access licence. Per-seat subscription billed in Brazilian reais, from R$ 9 to R$ 129 per month depending on access type, with 50 managed inventory units included on any paid plan. 7 days free, no card.

   Explore Movitera
2. 02

   Splashtop

   Origin: United States

   Best for
   A team that needs high-quality sessions — graphics work, multiple monitors — and session recording for audit.

   Splashtop is the strongest tool here on session quality: streaming that survives visual work, well-resolved multi-monitor support, and stable performance on poor connections. It covers both managed fleet and ad-hoc support, and it is the natural choice where image quality or recording is a requirement.

   What it delivers

   • Streaming quality and multi-monitor support above the category average
   • Session recording available, which matters when an audit needs a record of what was done
   • Covers unattended fleet access and ad-hoc support within one product family
   • File transfer, remote printing and the utilities a support team uses daily

   Where it stops

   • SSO, IP allowlisting and granular permissions sit on the Enterprise tier, and cloud session recording with them — a mid-sized team that needs access control for compliance pays the top step to get it.
   • The product family is fragmented across several SKUs with different units, and working out which one covers supporting third parties versus reaching your own machines is a real evaluation cost.
   • No inventory and no ticket: the session does not know which asset or request it belongs to.

   How it bills Per technician or per managed computer depending on the SKU, billed annually, with materially different units across the product family. SSO, IP allowlisting and cloud session recording sit on the Enterprise tier.

3. 03

   AnyDesk

   Origin: Germany

   Best for
   A support operation that needs to get into an unfamiliar machine fast, including over a bad connection.

   AnyDesk is light and fast, and it is what most technicians reach for when the criterion is getting into a machine right now, over poor internet, with nothing pre-installed. It does what Movitera does not, which is why it is near the top here rather than treated as a head-on competitor.

   What it delivers

   • Ad-hoc sessions with no prior installation, and notable performance on weak connections
   • A light client that runs on old hardware without complaint
   • Unattended access available once you install the agent
   • File transfer and the basic support toolkit covered

   Where it stops

   • On 2 February 2024 the company publicly disclosed an incident affecting production systems, including compromised source code and code-signing keys. In its own account it revoked and replaced certificates, reset portal passwords, said the affected relay infrastructure was limited, and stated there was no evidence of end-user devices being affected and only a theoretical risk to credentials. Separately, a third-party security firm reported customer credentials for sale afterwards — that claim is the researcher's, not the vendor's. A buyer is entitled to ask for the current write-up.
   • Session stability over long sessions — dropped connections, black screens — is the most consistently reported complaint, and large file transfers are slow.
   • Unattended access trades the per-session prompt for a saved credential, which is a real security tradeoff to configure deliberately.

   How it bills Per connecting seat, tiered by concurrent sessions and managed devices; only the connecting side needs a licence. Annual by default, with a free tier restricted to personal, non-commercial use.

4. 04

   TeamViewer

   Origin: Germany

   Best for
   A company that wants the tool every end user already recognises, with the broadest platform coverage in the category.

   TeamViewer is the name of the category and still the most complete: it reaches nearly everything, has a host agent for fleets, and is the one tool the person on the other end has probably used before — which genuinely reduces friction on a support call. It also carries the category's best-known commercial friction.

   What it delivers

   • The broadest platform and use-case coverage on this list
   • Ad-hoc mode and a fleet host agent inside one ecosystem
   • End-user recognition, which lowers resistance during a support call
   • Enterprise device management and integrations with support tooling

   Where it stops

   • The automatic "commercial use detected" block is the oldest and most persistent complaint in the category: sessions get cut short or refused. The vendor does not publish its detection criteria, appeals go through a form and take days, and false positives against legitimate use are widely reported.
   • On 26 June 2024 the company detected and then disclosed a compromise of its internal corporate IT environment, attributing the activity in its own bulletin to a state-linked threat actor. Its statement is that the product environment is separated and that no customer data was touched. A separate, unrelated product vulnerability in clipboard synchronisation was responsibly disclosed by an external researcher and patched later that year — two different kinds of event, worth not conflating.
   • Subscriptions renew annually with a notice period, and the cost is the most common reason teams migrate away.

   How it bills Tiered licences scaling by concurrent connections, named users and managed devices, billed annually with an auto-renewal notice period. The free tier is personal-use only and enforced by automatic detection.

5. 05

   NinjaOne

   Origin: United States

   Best for
   A team that wants remote access as part of an endpoint management suite, with patching, alerting and wake-on-LAN in the same console.

   NinjaOne is RMM before it is remote access, and it is the right answer for a team that wants to actually administer machines: inventory, patching, alerting, scripting and a remote session in one place. It is also a step up in maturity and price from what a mid-sized in-house IT team usually needs.

   What it delivers

   • Unattended access inside a complete endpoint management suite
   • Wake-on-LAN to bring a machine up before connecting
   • Patching, alerting and automation in the same console as the session, plus a software inventory across endpoints you can search for unapproved remote tools yourself
   • Per-device pricing that falls at volume, which favours large fleets

   Where it stops

   • Effective cost runs well above the headline because modules like backup and endpoint security are sold separately.
   • Pricing is not published at all — every evaluation goes through sales, which makes comparison shopping slow.
   • It is an RMM platform: oversized for a team that only wants to reach the machines in its own office.

   How it bills Per managed endpoint, quote-only with no public pricing, and additional modules billed separately.

6. 06

   Zoho Assist

   Origin: India

   Best for
   A small team that needs both modes — ad-hoc and unattended — at a low entry cost, and already uses the rest of Zoho.

   Zoho Assist is the balanced option here: it covers ad-hoc support and unattended access, bills the two separately in a way that is easy to size, has a genuine free tier to start on, and integrates with the help desk from the same house. It is not the fastest or the prettiest, and it solves the problem.

   What it delivers

   • Ad-hoc support billed per technician with unlimited endpoints, and unattended access billed per endpoint with unlimited technicians — a split that makes sizing honest
   • A real free tier — one technician and a handful of unattended computers — plus a trial with no card
   • Wake-on-LAN included in the unattended plan
   • Integration with the help desk and the rest of an already-licensed suite

   Where it stops

   • Session performance sits below Splashtop and AnyDesk on poor connections.
   • Audit reporting appears above the entry tier, and session recording is Enterprise-only on the attended support line — the unattended plan includes it a tier lower, so check which line you are buying.
   • On iPhone and iPad it offers screen viewing rather than control — a platform limitation that applies to the whole market, not a Zoho shortcoming.

   How it bills Split model: per technician for ad-hoc support with unlimited endpoints, and per endpoint for unattended access with unlimited technicians. Free tier capped by technician and computer count; audit reporting and recording sit on higher tiers.

7. 07

   Atera

   Origin: Israel

   Best for
   A support operation with few technicians and many machines, where per-device pricing would be punishing.

   Atera inverts the category's arithmetic: it charges per technician and does not cap devices. For a team of three looking after six hundred machines, that changes the maths entirely — and it is the main reason to choose it.

   What it delivers

   • Per-technician billing with unlimited managed devices, which favours a large fleet and a small team
   • RMM with patching, monitoring and automation included
   • Remote access integrated with the rest of the platform
   • Relatively fast to deploy for an RMM suite

   Where it stops

   • The per-technician price is high in absolute terms: with a large support team the arithmetic flips and per-device billing wins.
   • Less depth than NinjaOne or the Kaseya suite in complex environments.
   • AI features have been pushed into higher tiers, which raises the cost of the step up.

   How it bills Per technician per month with unlimited managed devices, annual cheaper than monthly.

8. 08

   ConnectWise ScreenConnect

   Origin: United States

   Best for
   A professional outsourced support operation that needs concurrent technician licensing, its own branding on the client, and deep session automation.

   ScreenConnect is the sharpest tool here for a business that sells support: concurrent technician licensing a shift-based team can share, a client the end user runs with your branding on it, and the automation depth an MSP operation expects. For in-house IT it is more tool than the job needs.

   What it delivers

   • Concurrent technician licensing, which a team working shifts can share
   • Your own branding on the client the end user runs
   • Mature automation and support tooling aimed at a support business
   • Self-hosting available in some configurations

   Where it stops

   • The bill has two parts: concurrent technician seats for attended support plus separate per-device licensing for unattended access, with an agent minimum. Quoting from the entry price and then needing always-on fleet coverage is this category's classic cost surprise.
   • In 2024 the product had two serious vulnerabilities — one an authentication bypass at maximum severity — exploited in the wild to deploy ransomware, and one of them was later added to CISA's known-exploited catalogue. They are patched, and the lesson for a buyer is about patch discipline on an agent that sits on every machine.
   • Aimed at MSPs: the configuration surface is larger than in-house IT wanting to reach one office needs.

   How it bills Per concurrent technician for attended support, plus separate per-device licensing for unattended access with an agent minimum. Annual terms — check the minimum commitment before signing.

9. 09

   RustDesk

   Origin: Open source

   Best for
   A technical team that wants the relay server on its own infrastructure, with no dependency on a vendor's cloud.

   RustDesk is the open-source answer in this category and the only one where the traffic need never leave your own infrastructure. For teams with data-sovereignty requirements, or that simply do not want another subscription, it is the serious option — provided somebody on the team can operate a server.

   What it delivers

   • A free self-hosted server, with the traffic inside your own infrastructure
   • Open source and auditable, with no dependency on a vendor's cloud
   • Covers both ad-hoc and unattended access depending on configuration
   • A light, cross-platform client

   Where it stops

   • The shared public relay is reported as unstable and slow; using it seriously means hosting your own, and the operational burden becomes yours.
   • The default self-hosted configuration needs hardening before it is production-safe — key storage in particular — and that is not obvious to a team without infrastructure experience.
   • The commercial edition is billed annually, and there is no vendor support in most markets' business hours.

   How it bills Free and open source when self-hosted, with infrastructure as the only cost. The commercial server edition is licensed separately for enterprise features such as SSO and a web console.

10. 10

    Chrome Remote Desktop

    Origin: United States

    Best for
    One person reaching their own computer. It is here because it is what turns up installed on company fleets with nobody having approved it.

    Chrome Remote Desktop solves a personal problem and solves it for free: reach your own machine through a browser with nothing to configure. It is not an IT tool, and the reason it is on this list is the opposite of the usual one — it is what you will probably find when you start auditing what is installed across the fleet.

    What it delivers

    • Free, with no configuration, working through the browser
    • Enough for one person to reach their own computer
    • Nothing to license and nothing to administer

    Where it stops

    • No admin console, no consent policy, no operator role and no session trail: there is no way for a company to govern how it is used.
    • There is no business edition — what exists is policy management through Chrome Enterprise, not an IT product with a contract, support and session auditing.
    • Finding it installed on a company machine should start a conversation, not become a support shortcut.

    How it bills Free, with no business plan.

Billing models, not list prices: vendors reprice, and models change slowly. Confirm the current rate and which tier holds SSO and session recording before deciding.

You manage your own company's machines and want the session to open from the device record, without another subscription.

Movitera — provided your finance team can process an invoice in Brazilian reais. The device is already an inventory record, and the session runs in the browser with no viewer to install.

You support customers who call in, from machines you have never seen.

AnyDesk or TeamViewer. Movitera does not do this — it only reaches machines with our agent installed, and we are not going to sell you the opposite.

Your audit requires a recorded session.

Splashtop, ScreenConnect or LogMeIn Resolve. We do not record sessions. And before you turn recording on, write the policy down: monitoring an employee's screen is regulated work, and the consistent legal advice is prior, explicit notice and proportionality — covert monitoring tends to be treated as unlawful.

You have three technicians and six hundred machines.

Atera, for per-technician billing with unlimited devices. If the fleet is much larger, compare against NinjaOne's per-device pricing, which falls at volume.

You need to wake powered-off machines, patch them and run scripts, not just see the screen.

NinjaOne or Atera. That is RMM, and it is not what Movitera does: with no wake-on-LAN, a powered-off machine is out of reach for us.

The traffic cannot leave your infrastructure.

Self-hosted RustDesk, or Apache Guacamole in front of RDP and SSH if the target is a server. Budget the server operations as part of the cost, and harden the default configuration first.

You suspect there are already unapproved remote access tools installed across your fleet.

Start by finding out, not by buying. Movitera's software-risk module compares what is installed against the team's sanctioned list and raises a finding for everything else — and that list is what tells you what to standardise on.