LogMeIn & GoToMyPC alternative · actually free

The LogMeIn alternative that brings free back.

LogMeIn Free was discontinued in January 2014, and everything that replaced it bills per computer, per year. Remio does the job LogMeIn Free did — unattended access to your own machines, file transfer, helping family from afar — completely free, end-to-end encrypted, with no account and one 4-digit one-time PIN.

Download Remio free See the head-to-head
Why people switch

Why people look for a LogMeIn alternative

LogMeIn practically invented mainstream remote access, and the products that carry the name remain capable. The reasons people search for an alternative are mostly about the model: the free tier disappeared more than a decade ago, and what stands in its place is a per-computer annual subscription.

01
January 2014

LogMeIn Free is discontinued

In January 2014, LogMeIn announced it was retiring LogMeIn Free — the product that put remote access on millions of home and small-office machines — and gave free users a short window to move to a paid plan. The free tier never came back. For a lot of people it was the first time a tool they relied on every day simply stopped being free.

There was nothing underhanded about it; companies are allowed to charge for software. But it left a permanent gap: an enormous number of people who only ever needed to reach their own two or three machines were converted, in a single announcement, from users into subscribers.

02
The model today

Per computer, per year — under the GoTo brand

As of June 2026, the LogMeIn products sit under the GoTo brand: LogMeIn Pro for individual remote access, GoToMyPC for the same job in different packaging, and Rescue for helpdesk-style support. The specific prices change and vary by region, so we will not quote them here — but the shape is consistent: a subscription priced per computer, billed annually, with tiers that gate how many machines you can reach. The cost scales with your fleet, not with how much you actually connect.

03
The search that remains

“LogMeIn free” — a search for a product that no longer exists

More than a decade later, people still type “LogMeIn free” into search engines. Most of them are not hunting for a discount — they are looking for what LogMeIn Free used to be: install it on your machines, reach them from anywhere, pay nothing. That product no longer exists under the LogMeIn name. The search keeps happening because the need never went away.

04
The structural problem

Per-computer licensing scales against the home user

Per-computer pricing is rational for managed IT fleets. It is a poor fit for the original LogMeIn Free audience: a desktop at home, a laptop in a bag, maybe a parent’s PC across town. Every added machine raises the bill, so the model taxes exactly the casual, multi-device habit that made remote access useful in the first place. If that is you, the fix is not a cheaper tier — it is a tool where the count does not matter.

The replacement checklist

What to look for in a replacement

Six tests, written against the LogMeIn experience specifically. If a candidate fails one, you will feel it within a month.

Actually free — not a trial, not a teaser tier
Free should mean free in the license: every feature, every platform, no expiry. Not free for 14 days, not free until a sales email arrives, and not free minus the one feature you came for. After January 2014, read what the word covers before you commit.
No account requirement
LogMeIn access has always hung off a central account — an email, a password, a profile that can be phished, breached, or locked. A pairing model with no account removes the credential database entirely: nothing to sign up for, nothing to reset, nothing to steal.
End-to-end encryption
Session keys should be negotiated directly between your devices, so any relay in the middle forwards ciphertext it cannot read. “Encrypted in transit” is a weaker claim — it can put the vendor’s servers inside the encryption boundary. Look for the stronger claim, stated explicitly.
Native apps
Remote desktop lives or dies on input latency and decode efficiency. Per-platform native apps drive the system’s hardware video decoder and input pipeline directly; browser-based access and wrapped web views pay a tax on every frame and every keystroke.
Unattended access included, not gated
Unattended access — reaching your own machine with nobody sitting at it — is the LogMeIn use case. If a replacement holds it behind a paid plan, you have not replaced LogMeIn; you have re-bought it. It should be included, opt-in per machine, and free.
No per-computer licensing
The replacement should not care whether you reach one machine or six. Any per-computer counter in the pricing model recreates the exact pressure you are trying to escape — it just starts the meter at a different number.
Meet Remio

Remio: free like LogMeIn used to be — and then some

Remio passes the checklist by construction, not by promise. Here is the factual record — what it costs (nothing), what it ships, and what it measures.

01
Completely free

Every feature, every platform — no per-computer math

Remio is completely free, and every feature ships in the one build everyone gets: unattended access, Wake-on-LAN, file transfer, multi-monitor, 4K streaming, end-to-end encryption. There is no trial clock, no feature gate, and no count of how many computers you reach. One machine or ten — the answer is the same.

02
No account · PIN pairing

A 4-digit one-time PIN — and a 60-second window

There is no Remio account on either end. The host shows a 4-digit one-time PIN; type it into the client, and the pairing request expires in 60 seconds if you do not. The devices exchange keys and remember each other, so reconnecting later is instant. No email, no password, no central user database to breach.

03
End-to-end encryption

AES-256-GCM with ECDHE-Curve25519 key exchange

Sessions are encrypted end-to-end with AES-256-GCM, with keys negotiated between your devices over ECDHE on Curve25519. Keys never leave the endpoints, so when a relay is needed to cross a strict NAT, it forwards ciphertext it cannot decrypt. The full design is documented in the security whitepaper.

04
The LogMeIn use case

Unattended access and Wake-on-LAN — included, opt-in

Unattended access is built in and free: enable it on a host once — it is opt-in, per machine — and you can connect any time without anyone clicking Accept on the far end. Pair it with Wake-on-LAN to wake a sleeping computer before you connect: the routine LogMeIn Free users ran for years, minus the subscription. File transfer and audio routing are built in too.

05
Measured, not marketed

Sub-5 ms LAN · 22 ms WAN same-region — verified May 2026

On the same network, input-to-pixel latency measures under 5 ms; across the internet within the same region, typical sessions measure 22 ms. Both figures were last verified in May 2026, and the methodology is published on the benchmarks page so you can reproduce them on your own hardware.

06
Quality & platforms

Up to 4K 120 fps, 4:4:4 chroma — native on every platform

Streams run up to 4K at 120 fps with 4:4:4 chroma sampling — text stays sharp because color detail is never thrown away — and multi-monitor hosts are fully supported. Every app is native. Hosts run on macOS 15+ and Windows 10 (build 19041+) or 11, Home editions included; clients run on iOS/iPadOS 18+, macOS 15+, Android 10+, Windows 10/11; on Apple Vision Pro, the iPad app runs today (native visionOS client in development).

Head to head

LogMeIn vs Remio at a glance

Eight rows on the model rather than the price list — GoTo’s numbers change and vary by region, so compare the shape instead. Where the LogMeIn lineup is genuinely strong — mature helpdesk tooling in Rescue, access from any browser — the table says so.

Capability Remio LogMeIn (GoTo)
Free tier Everything is free — every feature, every platform Discontinued January 2014; paid plans only since
Account required No — 4-digit one-time PIN pairing Yes — central account on every plan
Per-computer licensing None — reach as many machines as you like Yes — plans tiered by number of computers, billed annually
Unattended access Included free — opt-in per host, plus Wake-on-LAN Core of the product — on paid plans only
E2EE model AES-256-GCM end-to-end + ECDHE-Curve25519; relay never decrypts TLS-encrypted transport through vendor infrastructure
Native apps 100% native — SwiftUI · Jetpack Compose · C++/WinRT Desktop apps; browser-based access is a primary workflow
Platforms macOS, Windows (incl. Home), iOS/iPadOS, Android, visionOS Windows and Mac hosts; mobile apps and browser clients
File transfer Built in, free Included on paid plans

Want the same teardown against other tools? The comparison hub runs the full matrix — codecs, key exchange, latency, pricing models — against TeamViewer, AnyDesk, Chrome Remote Desktop, RustDesk, Splashtop, and more.

The honest field guide

Other alternatives worth considering

Remio is not the only credible way off the subscription. Three others people land on, with an honest sentence on when to pick them instead.

TeamViewer · the category veteran
TeamViewer has the most mature feature set in the category — management consoles, remote printing, a huge supported-device list — and, unlike LogMeIn, it still has a free tier for personal use. The catch: it requires an account, and automated commercial-use detection polices that free tier, with flagged sessions cut short. See Remio vs TeamViewer, or the full TeamViewer alternative guide.
Chrome Remote Desktop · free and simple
Chrome Remote Desktop is genuinely free and takes minutes to set up. It is tied to a Google account, and fidelity is browser-grade — fine for checking a document on the home PC, limiting for long sessions, multi-monitor work, or anything latency-sensitive. See Remio vs Chrome Remote Desktop.
RustDesk · open source, self-hostable
RustDesk is open-source and free, and you can self-host its relay and rendezvous server for full control of the infrastructure — at the cost of running that infrastructure yourself. Pick it when auditability and self-hosting outrank polish. See Remio vs RustDesk.
The five-minute switch

How to switch in 5 minutes

No exports, no migration, nothing to cancel first — Remio can run alongside whatever you use today while you test. Two installs and one PIN, then switch on the two features that defined LogMeIn.

Step 01 · Install the Remio host on the machine you want to reach
On the computer you used to reach with LogMeIn — macOS 15+ or Windows 10 (build 19041+)/11, Home editions included — grab the host from the download page, launch it, and grant the screen-capture permission once when the OS asks.
Step 02 · Install the client on the device in your hand
iPhone or iPad (iOS/iPadOS 18+), another Mac (macOS 15+), an Android phone or tablet (Android 10+), a Windows 10/11 PC, or Apple Vision Pro (via the iPad app) — all from the same download page or the platform’s app store.
Step 03 · Pair with the 4-digit PIN
The host displays a 4-digit one-time PIN; type it into the client. The pairing request expires in 60 seconds, the devices exchange encryption keys over ECDHE-Curve25519, and they remember each other — reconnections from then on are instant, with no PIN and still no account.
Step 04 · Enable unattended access and Wake-on-LAN
Flip on unattended access in the host settings — opt-in, per machine — so you can connect with nobody at the desk, and set up Wake-on-LAN to wake the machine from sleep before you connect. This is the LogMeIn workflow, restored. The full walkthrough lives in the getting-started guide.
Step 05 · Coming from Rescue or Central?
If you used LogMeIn’s helpdesk tools to support other people’s machines, the IT support guide shows how teams run attended and unattended help sessions with Remio — still free, still no account on either end of the connection.
Common questions

Common questions about leaving LogMeIn

The five questions people ask before they replace LogMeIn or GoToMyPC. Straight answers below.

It is free — not a trial. Every feature on every platform is included: unattended access, Wake-on-LAN, file transfer, multi-monitor, 4K streaming, end-to-end encryption. There is no time limit, no feature gate, no card to enter, and no paid tier waiting behind any of it.
Yes. Enable unattended access on the host — it is opt-in, per machine — and you can connect any time without anyone clicking Accept on the remote end. Add Wake-on-LAN and you can wake a sleeping computer before you connect, just like the old LogMeIn routine.
No — on either end. Devices pair with a 4-digit one-time PIN shown on the host, and the pairing request expires in 60 seconds. There is no email, no password, and no central credential database anywhere in the system.
Yes. File transfer is built into Remio and free, alongside multi-monitor support and audio routing. Move files between the connected devices during a session, with no separate tool and no feature gate.
LogMeIn discontinued LogMeIn Free in January 2014, moving every free user onto paid plans. As of June 2026, the products sit in GoTo’s paid lineup — LogMeIn Pro, GoToMyPC, and Rescue — priced per computer on annual subscriptions. The free product never came back, which is why pages like this one exist.
Free, all features · no account · no card

Twelve years later, free is back.

Install the host on the machine you want to reach, install the client on the device in your hand, and type a 4-digit one-time PIN. Unattended access, Wake-on-LAN, file transfer, end-to-end encryption — everything LogMeIn Free did and plenty it did not, with no account to create and no per-computer bill.

Download Remio free Read the 5-minute setup

Hosts on macOS 15+ and Windows 10/11, Home editions included. Clients on iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Android, Windows, and visionOS. No account, no card, no trial clock.