Splashtop's tiers start at $5 a month and climb past $40 per user for features that used to feel basic — file transfer, display switching, an account-free way to just reach your own machine. Remio ships every one of those, on every platform, for free — no account, 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 — it is not broken, and its enterprise tooling is genuinely mature. 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, Business Access Solo, runs $5 a month for one user and two computers — and it ships without file transfer. Reaching a fuller feature set means climbing the ladder: Business Access Pro, at $9.99 per user per month, is where file transfer and multi-monitor support switch on. What used to feel like table-stakes remote access is now a tier decision.
Splashtop's Enterprise tier — the one with SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, session recording, and granular admin controls — starts north of $40 per user per month. For a five-seat team over three years, that is roughly $7,200; the Pro tier without those extras still totals about $1,798 over the same span. 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 ships every feature in the one build everyone gets: file transfer, display switching with a dedicated virtual display, 4K streaming up to 60 FPS, end-to-end encryption, unattended access. There is no Pro tier to unlock and no Enterprise ceiling to hit — the free version is the only version.
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, including the honest spots where Splashtop is still ahead.
Remio is completely free: file transfer, display switching, Wake-on-LAN, unattended access, 4K streaming, and end-to-end encryption all ship in the one build. Splashtop gates file transfer and multi-monitor behind Business Access Pro ($9.99/user/month) and SSO, SCIM, and session recording behind Enterprise ($40+/user/month). Remio's answer to which tier unlocks a feature is: there is only one tier.
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 NAT traversal 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 4K on hardware H.265, with H.264 fallback — unlike Splashtop's proprietary codec at 4:2:0 chroma. True 4:4:4 color for razor-sharp text is now live from NVIDIA PCs to Mac (more pairs on the way). Hosts run on macOS 15+ and Windows 10 (build 19041+)/11, Home editions included, plus a Linux host (v1.0, X11); 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 uniquely manages unattended Android devices for kiosks, POS, and signage. Remio's compliance program, SSO, and full file-transfer are still in progress. If your team manages a large fleet under audit today, that is a real reason to stay with Splashtop a while longer.
Eight rows on the model rather than the full price list — Splashtop's numbers can shift, so compare the shape instead. Where Splashtop is genuinely ahead — compliance certifications, enterprise fleet tooling — the table says so.
| Capability | Remio | Splashtop |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Everything is free — every feature, every platform | $5–$40+ per user/month, 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 | Included free, every tier | Gated behind Business Access Pro, $9.99/user/mo |
| Streaming quality | ~8 ms LAN processing · hardware H.265 | ~18 ms LAN · 4:2:0 chroma · proprietary codec |
| Enterprise tooling (SSO, SCIM, recording) | Planned | Yes — Enterprise tier, $40+/user/mo |
| 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, Splashtop's genuine strengths included.
Remio is not the only credible way off Splashtop's tier ladder. Two others people land on, plus the full technical teardown if numbers are what you want.
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 file transfer are already on — there is no Business Access Pro 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.
If your team manages hundreds of endpoints under compliance, keep Splashtop running for that job — the two can coexist while you test. 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. File transfer, display switching, 4K streaming, end-to-end encryption — everything Splashtop gates by tier, included in the one free build.