Splashtop's tiers start at $6 a month and climb per user for features that used to feel basic — multi-monitor view, session recording, an account-free way to just reach your own machine. Remio's core remote desktop is free on every platform — display switching with a dedicated virtual display, unattended access, and no account to create. Direct peer-to-peer by default, end-to-end encrypted, paired with a six-digit code you can rotate anytime.
Splashtop is a capable, established product. The reasons people go looking for an alternative are almost always about the tier ladder: what used to feel like basic remote access now depends on which plan you are paying for.
Splashtop's entry tier, Solo, runs $6 a month for one user, billed annually. Reaching a fuller feature set means climbing the ladder: Pro, at $8.25 per user per month, is where multi-monitor support and session recording switch on. What used to feel like table-stakes remote access is now a tier decision.
Splashtop's Enterprise tier — the one with SSO, granular access controls, scheduled access and SIEM logging — is priced by quote. Session recording starts on Pro at $8.25 per user per month; for a five-seat team over three years, Pro alone totals $1,485. The bill scales with headcount, not with how often anyone actually connects.
Access hangs off a central account at my.splashtop.com — email, password, and mandatory two-factor authentication on Business tiers. That is reasonable hygiene for a managed fleet, but it is a credential to create, remember, and eventually reset for every single user, even a team of one reaching their own two machines.
Connections go through Splashtop's relay infrastructure by default, encrypted with TLS 1.2/AES-256 to that relay — which then re-encrypts on the way out. It is a legitimate model, and Splashtop backs it with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification. It is just a different promise than a relay that cannot read your session because it never holds the key.
Six tests, written against the Splashtop tier ladder specifically. If a candidate fails one, you will feel it the first time you hit a paywall mid-task.
Remio's core remote desktop is free: display switching with a dedicated virtual display, up to 6K at 120 FPS, end-to-end encryption, unattended access. There is no Enterprise ceiling to hit and no per-seat bill, ever — everything that was free before Remio Pro stays free. Remio Pro is optional ($1.99 a month) for power features like two-way file transfer and extra virtual displays.
No Splashtop account, no per-seat bill — just a six-digit code you can rotate anytime.
No marketing adjectives — just the design decisions and the measured numbers behind them.
Remio's core remote desktop is free: display switching, Wake-on-LAN, unattended access, 120 FPS streaming, and end-to-end encryption all ship free, on every platform. Splashtop gates multi-monitor and session recording behind Pro ($8.25/user/month) and SSO behind a custom-priced Enterprise plan — a per-seat ladder that keeps climbing. Remio Pro is one flat subscription — $1.99 a month — that follows your account, not your seat count.
There is no Remio account, and nothing to register at a central address like my.splashtop.com. The host shows a six-digit code; type it into the client, and the pairing record lives on the devices themselves — rotate the code anytime. The devices exchange keys and remember each other, so reconnecting later is instant.
Sessions are encrypted end-to-end, with keys negotiated directly between your devices — and Remio connects direct peer-to-peer by default, only falling back to a relay when your network demands it. Splashtop's connections route through its relay by default and re-encrypt on the way out; Remio's relay, when your network needs one, forwards ciphertext it cannot decrypt. Full design in the security whitepaper — published openly, not sales-gated.
On the same network, the processing pipeline — capture, hardware encode, the LAN hop, hardware decode — costs about 8 ms; the rest is your display's own 60 Hz refresh cadence, so your input lands before the next frame draws (measured internally) — against roughly 18 ms for Splashtop. Across the internet in the same region, Remio measures low double-digit milliseconds versus roughly 45 ms for Splashtop. Methodology is published on the benchmarks page so you can reproduce it on your own hardware.
Remio streams a buttery 120 FPS on hardware H.265, with H.264 fallback — unlike Splashtop's own codec at 4:2:0 chroma. True 4:4:4 color for razor-sharp text is now live from Macs and NVIDIA PCs to Mac and Windows. Hosts run on macOS 15+ and Windows 10 (build 19041+)/11, Home editions included, plus a Linux host (X11 and Wayland); clients run on iOS/iPadOS 18+, macOS 15+, Android 12+, Windows 10/11, and Apple Vision Pro via the iPad app.
Splashtop holds SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and GDPR certifications; ships SAML SSO and SCIM provisioning on Enterprise; and manages unattended Android devices for kiosks, POS, and signage. Remio's compliance program, SSO, and full file-transfer are still in progress.
Eight rows on the model rather than the full price list — Splashtop's numbers can shift, so compare the shape instead.
| Capability | Remio | Splashtop |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Free on every platform, with no commercial-use detection | $6–$13 per user/month plus Enterprise quotes, feature-gated by tier |
| Account required | No — six-digit code, rotate anytime | Yes — mandatory, email + password + 2FA on Business |
| Connection model | Direct P2P by default, encrypted relay as fallback | Relay-based via Splashtop cloud by default |
| Encryption | End-to-end; relay never decrypts | AES-256, in-transit only — relay re-encrypts |
| File transfer & display switching | Display switching and sending files to your computer, free | File transfer from Solo ($6/mo); multi-monitor from Pro ($8.25/user/mo) |
| Streaming quality | ~8 ms LAN processing · hardware H.265 | ~18 ms LAN · 4:2:0 chroma · own codec |
| Enterprise tooling (SSO, SCIM, recording) | Planned | Yes — recording from Pro ($8.25/user/mo), SSO on Enterprise (quote) |
| Compliance certifications | In progress | SOC 2 Type II · ISO 27001 · GDPR |
Want the full 31-point teardown — codecs, key exchange, latency, the complete pricing ladder? The Remio vs Splashtop comparison runs the whole matrix.
The full technical teardown, plus side-by-side pages for the other tools people compare with Remio.
Every teardown lives on the comparison hub — same structure, a dozen other tools.
No migration tools, no exported address books, nothing to cancel first — Remio can run alongside Splashtop while you test. Two installs and one PIN, then turn on what used to cost extra.
On the computer you used to reach with Splashtop — 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.
iPhone or iPad (iOS/iPadOS 18+), another Mac (macOS 15+), an Android phone or tablet (Android 12+), a Windows 10/11 PC, or Apple Vision Pro via the iPad app — all from the same download page.
The host displays a six-digit code; type it into the client. The devices exchange keys directly and remember each other — reconnections are instant, with no code re-entry and still no account.
Display switching and sending files to your computer are already on, free — no per-seat tier to buy. If you reach your own machine unattended, flip that on in the host settings too; it is opt-in, per machine, and free.
Remio runs alongside Splashtop while you test, so there is nothing to cancel first. The use-cases guide shows how far Remio's toolkit reaches today.
The five questions people ask before they replace Splashtop. Straight answers below.
Install the host on the machine you want to reach, install the client on the device in your hand, type a six-digit code. Sending files to your computer, display switching, streaming up to 6K at 120 FPS, end-to-end encryption — the core remote desktop that Splashtop gates by tier, included in the one free build.