Editorial Policy

CtrlRemote (ctrlremote.com) is an independent editorial catalogue of remote desktop, remote support and remote access software: RDP and VNC clients, SSH connection managers, mesh VPNs and remote support tools. It is written and maintained by a small editorial team and published under the collective byline “CtrlRemote Editorial”. We do not name individual authors; the team as a whole is responsible for every page. This policy explains what we cover, how programs are selected, where the facts come from and how the site is kept up to date.

What we cover

The site is written for help-desk technicians, managed service providers, system administrators and home users who connect to their own machines. We list software that fits the scope above, for example AnyDesk, TeamViewer, RustDesk, TightVNC, OpenVPN and Tailscale, together with guides and comparisons about the same tools. A program outside this scope is not added, however popular it is, and listings that no longer fit the scope are withdrawn or redirected to a site that covers them.

How programs are selected

The program exists, is published by an identifiable developer and can still be obtained from that developer.
It is fully free, open source, or has a free edition, a trial, a demo or a free viewer. We say which of these applies.
It is relevant to the audience above and has an official page or documentation we can cite.
Developers do not pay to be listed. Listings cannot be bought, sponsored or ranked for money.

Many remote access tools have a “free for personal use” tier with vendor-defined limits. We quote the vendor’s own definition of personal use on the program page rather than summarising it in our words.

Where the facts come from

Every program page is built from the developer’s own sources: the official website, documentation, release notes, licence text and, for open-source projects, the release page of the repository. We quote the vendor’s wording for licence restrictions rather than paraphrasing it. We do not copy marketing text, and we do not use third-party review sites as a source of facts. The date on which a page was last checked is shown as “Last verified”; the version and licence stated on the page are correct as of that date, not necessarily today.

Licence labels

Free — the whole product is free of charge; the licence is named on the page.
Open source — source code is published under a named open-source licence.
Shareware (conditionally free) — a paid product with a free tier, trial, demo or free viewer. We state what the free part includes and what it does not.
Not verified — we could not confirm a detail from an official source. The detail is left out or marked as such rather than guessed.

Testing

We do not currently install or run the programs we list. Program pages are verified against official sources, not against a hands-on test, and they carry the label “Not tested yet” to make that clear. Our How We Test page describes exactly what is and is not checked.

Use of AI tools

We use AI-assisted writing tools to draft, structure and proofread pages. Every fact in a published page is checked by the editorial team against the official source listed on that page before publication, and the team is responsible for the final text.

Downloads

We do not host installers. Whatever link you follow from this site, verify the file against the developer’s official download page named on the program card, and prefer the official source whenever it is available.

Independence and advertising

At the time of writing, CtrlRemote carries no sponsored listings and no paid reviews. If that changes, it will be disclosed on this page and on every affected page.

Updates and corrections

Pages are re-checked when a developer releases a new version, changes a licence or retires a product, and when a reader reports an error. How to report one, and what happens next, is described in our Corrections Policy. Questions about this policy go through the Contacts page.

Published by CtrlRemote Editorial. Last reviewed: 24 October 2026.