Silux Connect vs RustDesk
All the openness, none of the rough edges, plus AI and RMM. Same OSS spirit, polished UX, multi-tenant by design, compliance, and humans-in-loop support. Add an ultra-low-bandwidth mode that stays usable from around 150 kbps, and a mobile client with pinch-zoom, pan and a gyroscope cursor.
The Silux Connect agent is AGPL-3.0. The relay protocol is public. SDKs and the CLI are Apache-2.0. Build it. Audit it. Self-host it. We will not pull a rug.
A web console, a desktop client, a mobile client, pixel-tight dark mode, signed installers per platform, automatic updates, and an onboarding wizard your customer can follow.
Where Silux Connect adds value on top
| Feature | Silux Connect | RustDesk OSS |
|---|---|---|
Open-source agent | Yes | Yes |
Self-hostable relay | Yes | Yes |
Multi-tenant administration Built into Silux from day one. RustDesk OSS is single-tenant. | Yes | No |
Web admin console RustDesk Pro provides a web console; OSS is server-only. | Yes | Partial |
AR camera assist (customer's phone, no app) | Yes | No |
AI fix inside the session (diagnose + draft script + one-click run) | Yes | No |
Wake-on-LAN from anywhere (no port forwarding) RustDesk wakes only from its LAN discovery list on the technician's own network. | Yes | Partial |
AI assistant | From Solo; supports local AI models | No |
Session Monitor — build & job session monitoring Watches terminal, build and browser sessions and notifies you when builds, tests or long jobs finish, stall, or fail. | Yes | No |
Ultra-low-bandwidth mode (usable ~150 kbps) Silux degrades continuously with no hard bitrate floor. RustDesk OSS quality drops or freezes on poor links. | Yes | Partial |
Mobile pinch-zoom + pan & gyroscope cursor | Yes | No |
RMM: inventory, patch, scripting | Yes | No |
MDM (iOS, Android, ChromeOS, Windows, macOS, Linux) | Yes | No |
SSO + SCIM included RustDesk Pro Tensor-style SSO requires the Pro tier. | Yes | Partial |
Compliance assistance (DPA, BAA, SCCs) RustDesk OSS is community-maintained; you sign DPAs with no one. | Yes | No |
Funded support and SLAs | Yes | No |
Public sub-processor list, security.txt, bug bounty | Yes | Partial |
Air-gapped install bundle | Yes | Yes |
Free tier for individuals and small teams | Yes | Yes |
New in Silux Connect 1.1
Sessions now survive a switch from Wi-Fi to 5G or a VPN coming up, the picture repairs itself when a poor link leaves it grainy or distorted, and technicians can speak commands into an SSH terminal or text onto the remote desktop instead of typing. “Varies” means RustDesk's behaviour depends on version, plan or platform; “Partial” means only the local operating system's generic dictation is available.
| Feature | Silux Connect | RustDesk |
|---|---|---|
Seamless auto-reconnect across Wi-Fi ↔ 5G/cellular ↔ VPN switches (session kept, last frame held) Silux viewers keep the last picture on screen, detect half-open sockets with a 5-second app-level ping and a 15-second dead-link watchdog, probe the link within 3 seconds of any network change, and retry with jittered backoff (0.5s→8s) for up to 180 seconds without leaving the session. The agent on the remote computer also reconnects by itself in roughly 0.5–8 seconds when its own network changes. Competitor reconnect behaviour differs by version and platform. | Yes | Varies |
Automatic picture refresh when the image goes grainy or distorted (self-healing keyframes) The Silux viewer requests a full keyframe automatically on a decode error, a desynchronised stream, frames resuming after a stall, a reconnect, the remote computer rejoining, a resolution change, the tab or app returning to the foreground, and every 30 seconds while live — plus a manual Refresh button. Stale or corrupted tiles on poor links are repaired without user action. | Yes | Varies |
Voice dictation into SSH / terminal sessions (spoken symbols → shell syntax) Silux records a short clip, transcribes it server-side with a large speech model (Deepgram Nova-3, OpenAI gpt-4o-transcribe, Groq Whisper large-v3-turbo, AssemblyAI or a self-hosted Whisper server, with an optional backup provider) and converts spoken symbols — "ls dash la slash var slash log" becomes `ls -la /var/log`. Text is always shown for review before it is inserted or run. With other tools you can only use the local operating system's generic dictation, which does not convert shell syntax. | Yes | Partial |
Voice dictation typed on the remote desktop In Silux, Text mode dictation is punctuated and typed on the remote computer in one action, from the Silux Connect web app on any device. Other tools rely on the local operating system's dictation feeding keystrokes into the viewer. | Yes | Partial |
Per-user activity log (sign-ins, sessions, reconnects, network changes, dictation use) The Silux admin Activity log shows a filterable, CSV-exportable timeline per user: sign-ins and failures, sessions, reconnects with downtime, lost links, network changes, auto-refreshes and voice-dictation use (character count only — never the spoken words). RustDesk's audit features depend on the server edition. | Yes | Partial |
Details: Auto-reconnect · Auto picture refresh · Voice dictation · SSH voice commands · Activity log
MSPs and platform teams need workspaces, not forks. Silux gives every customer their own tenant out of the box.
Inventory, patching, scripts, MDM, monitoring. Stop stitching three tools together with cron and prayers.
Funded by the cloud tier. SLAs, incident response, security advisories. Open-source benefits, commercial backing.
Same spirit. Sharper edges.
Try the cloud free, or bring it home and self-host. The migration path is two commands and an import wizard.