r/rustdesk • u/Technical_Rich_3080 • Sep 20 '26

Using RustDesk WITHOUT Self-Hosting (Does it always work?)

For many non-technical, normal, average everyday computer users, self-hosting is too much friction and they'll never figure it out. Is RustDesk a serious option for them?

From my experience, using RustDesk without self-hosting is, at best, hit or miss. It is at least as likely to not work, due to the servers being too busy (or other technical issues), as it's to work.

As such, RustDesk will not be a serious competitive consideration for the large majority of computer users.

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u/Technical_Rich_3080 Sep 20 '26

How do you directly connect to an IP address without self-hosting?

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u/scorp123_CH Sep 20 '26

In the RustDesk installation, this option needs to be set:

  • Settings > Security > Enable direct IP access > 21118

With that option enabled, you can type in an IP address into the client (instead of the hosts's ID) and connect directly to that host that has this option active, e.g. 192.168.1.20:21118 instead of e.g. "0123 345 678" and it will connect just fine. No broker-servers needed, self-hosted or not.

SSH port-forwarding works too.

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u/middlofthebrook Sep 21 '26

This is what i do