Remota: The mRemoteNG Alternative for Linux

For over a decade, mRemoteNG has been the quiet workhorse behind countless server rooms and IT teams. If you have spent time managing Windows infrastructure, you know the interface: a folder tree on the left, tabs across the top, connections opened side by side. SSH here, RDP there, VNC in the next tab, all in one window, all remembered between sessions.

Then you switch to Linux — and nothing quite fits.

mRemoteNG has stayed Windows-only since it forked from mRemote in 2010, tied to a .NET / WinForms codebase that never made the jump to Linux. Reddit threads, StackOverflow answers, GitHub issues and forum posts across the past ten years all end the same way: "mRemoteNG does not run on Linux — try X or Y."

Most Linux users have compensated by stitching together a workflow: terminator or tmux for tabbed shells, an SSH config with dozens of hosts, browser tabs to VNC consoles, and a password manager for credentials. It works. It also spreads a single mental model — "my remote sessions" — across four different tools that do not know about each other.

Remota is what that workflow looks like when it is built for Linux from day one.

What Remota Is

Remota is a free, open-source remote connection manager for Linux. It puts SSH, RDP, VNC, and Telnet in the same window, organized by a folder tree, with a local encrypted vault for credentials, native support for SSH ProxyJump, and a self-hosted relay for reaching machines behind NAT. It is built on Tauri v2 — a Rust backend, a native OS window, and a small binary that starts instantly.

Under the hood it is a clean-room project: no code from mRemoteNG, no dependency on WINE or a virtual machine, no bundled Chromium. The workflow will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in mRemoteNG (that was the goal) but the implementation is entirely different.

Where mRemoteNG Still Wins

Let us start honest. mRemoteNG has been in production use for more than a decade and it earned that reputation:

Mature multi-protocol support — SSH via PuTTY, RDP via FreeRDP, VNC, ICA, HTTPS, rlogin, raw sockets. Every one of those integrations carries years of real-world debugging behind it.

A large user base and body of knowledge — StackOverflow answers, forum threads, blog posts and how-tos accumulated over years mean that if you have hit a specific edge case, someone else has probably already documented the fix.

Portable connection files — The confCons.xml format is a plain XML file. You can drop it on a USB stick, sync it via Git, or ship it as part of an onboarding kit.

Windows-first polish — Deep integration with the Windows credential store, tightly-tuned RDP performance, Kerberos and Active Directory support. If your world is Windows shops and Windows targets, mRemoteNG is a natural fit.

The gap is not that mRemoteNG is bad. The gap is that mRemoteNG never came to Linux.

What Remota Brings to Linux

The design goal was to keep the mental model of mRemoteNG (tree + tabs + folders + credentials) and make it feel native on Linux.

Multi-protocol in tabs — SSH, RDP, VNC and Telnet each open in a tab in the same window. Ctrl+Tab between a production shell, a jump-host session and a Windows RDP.

Folder tree with drag-and-drop and custom icons — Nest as deeply as you need. Pick an icon per folder or per host so the tree is scannable at a glance.

Credential inheritance — Set the username, SSH key or jump host once on a folder and every child inherits it. Override on a single host when it needs to differ.

Local encrypted vault — Connections and secrets are stored on your disk in a vault encrypted with AES-256-GCM. The key is derived from your master password using Argon2id. Nothing leaves your machine.

SSH Jump hosts (native ProxyJump) — Chain through bastions the way OpenSSH does, configured per folder or per host.

Self-hosted NAT traversal — Reach machines behind CGNAT or restrictive firewalls through a small agent that dials out to a relay you host. No third-party cloud, no vendor lock-in, no account.

Import from mRemoteNG — Drop your confCons.xml into Remota and folders, hosts, credentials and protocol settings map across. You do not rebuild your world.

Feature-by-Feature: mRemoteNG vs Remota

Here is how the two projects line up on the capabilities people actually check before switching tools.

Platform. mRemoteNG runs on Windows only. Remota runs on Linux (x86_64) natively — .deb for Debian/Ubuntu, .rpm for the Fedora/RHEL/openSUSE family, and a portable .AppImage for anything else. Arm64 is on the roadmap.

SSH. Both handle it. mRemoteNG uses a bundled PuTTY. Remota uses a modern Rust SSH stack wired to a real pseudo-terminal that resizes with the window — vim, k9s, htop, tmux all render the way they do in your native terminal.

RDP. Both support it. mRemoteNG uses FreeRDP. Remota's RDP path works today for typical connections to Windows and xrdp hosts, and the team is actively polishing edge cases.

VNC. Both support it. mRemoteNG has years of maturity. Remota's VNC path is functional today (TigerVNC and TightVNC hosts work) and still being refined.

Telnet. Both support it. In Remota, Telnet shares the same terminal shell as SSH, so the pane behaves the same way.

Tabbed sessions. Both. Same mental model.

Folder tree. Both. Remota adds drag-and-drop reorganization and custom icons per node.

Credential inheritance. Both. Same pattern — folder defaults with per-host overrides.

SSH Jump hosts. Both. Remota implements it directly as OpenSSH-style ProxyJump.

Encrypted vault at rest. Both keep credentials encrypted. Remota uses AES-256-GCM with an Argon2id key derivation, unlocked by a master password you set on first launch.

NAT traversal. mRemoteNG does not include one — you bring your own tool (AnyDesk, RustDesk, remote.it, reverse SSH tunnels). Remota ships a self-hosted relay you can run on your own infrastructure.

Import from mRemoteNG. Remota reads confCons.xml directly. That is why the migration path from mRemoteNG *into* Remota is a one-shot job — a single import.

License. mRemoteNG is GPLv2. Remota is AGPL-3.0-only.

Tech stack. mRemoteNG is .NET / WinForms. Remota is Tauri v2 (Rust backend, native OS window, WebView UI).

Release cadence. mRemoteNG's most recent stable release was in 2023 and the project is in low-maintenance mode. Remota is actively developed with regular releases — v0.1.2 is the current build.

Where Remota Goes Beyond mRemoteNG

Three capabilities Remota adds that mRemoteNG does not have.

Self-hosted NAT traversal, no third-party cloud. If the machine you want to reach lives behind CGNAT or a hostile firewall, mRemoteNG is not the answer — you reach for a separate product. AnyDesk, RustDesk and remote.it all solve the problem, but they all rely on a relay the vendor operates. If you want that pattern without sending session traffic through someone else's infrastructure, Remota's relay is a drop-in: install it on any VPS or on-prem box, point the agent at it, and NAT traversal happens through hardware you own. Nothing leaves your perimeter.

Linux-native, not virtualized. Running mRemoteNG on Linux today usually means WINE, a Windows VM, or a full Windows workstation. Each of those adds latency, clipboard friction and an entire second OS to keep patched. Remota is a native Tauri binary — one process, one native window, sensible integration with the Linux desktop.

Modern, small, fast. The Rust agent is around 4 MB on disk. The desktop app footprint is around 20 MB. Cold start is instant. It is not another bundled Chromium; it is a native window that happens to render its UI in a WebView.

An Honest Word on the State of Things

Remota is a real product, in daily use, but it is not yet a like-for-like drop-in for every mRemoteNG workflow. Here is where things stand today:

SSH is production-grade. It is what the Privum team uses every day to manage its own infrastructure. Jump hosts, key auth, resize-aware PTY, tabbed sessions — the SSH path is solid.

RDP, VNC and Telnet share the same architecture but are still maturing. They connect. They render. Enterprise-grade edge cases — esoteric colour depths, complex clipboard channels, RemoteFX, RDP over TLS with strict certificate policies — will find rough edges. Fixes ship regularly.

If your day-to-day is 90% SSH, Remota is ready. That covers most Linux sysadmins, DevOps engineers, homelabbers, students and small IT teams.

If you need parity on RDP or VNC for heavy Windows-desktop work, follow the releases. The gap is closing, but keep mRemoteNG (on Windows) or your current tool alongside for now.

No breathless marketing here — that is the state.

Migrating from mRemoteNG

The migration is deliberately quick.

1. 1Export or locate your existing confCons.xml (mRemoteNG's default connection file).
2. 2Install Remota on your Linux workstation using one of the commands below.
3. 3Import the file. Folders, hosts, protocols, jump-host settings and stored credentials come across in one shot.
4. 4Set your Remota master password — that becomes the key that unlocks the local vault from now on.

You are not rebuilding your world. You are moving it.

How to Install

Remota ships as three artefacts for x86_64 Linux. Grab the latest release from GitHub and install with your package manager, or run it directly via AppImage.

Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install ./Remota_0.1.2_amd64.deb

Fedora / RHEL / openSUSE:

sudo dnf install ./Remota-0.1.2-1.x86_64.rpm

Any x86_64 Linux (portable):

chmod +x Remota_*.AppImage
./Remota_*.AppImage

Download the current release assets from the Remota GitHub releases page. Package file names include the version — swap 0.1.2 for the newest tag if a later build has shipped.

Try Remota

Free. Open-source under AGPL-3.0-only. No account. No cloud. No telemetry.

• Product page: Remota — Open-Source Remote Connection Manager for Linux
• Source code: github.com/privum-cloud/remota
• Self-hosted agent: github.com/privum-cloud/remota-client

If mRemoteNG has been the shape of "how I want to manage my remote sessions" and Linux has been the platform that never had it, Remota is the version that finally does.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Remota a fork of mRemoteNG? No. Remota is a clean-room project inspired by the mRemoteNG workflow — the tabbed, multi-protocol, folder-organized experience that thousands of admins built muscle memory for. It shares no code with mRemoteNG and uses a completely different stack (Rust and Tauri instead of .NET and WinForms).

Can I import my mRemoteNG connections? Yes. Remota reads mRemoteNG's confCons.xml file directly. Folders, hosts, protocols, jump-host settings and stored credentials come across in one shot.

Does Remota require a cloud account? No. Everything is local. Your credentials live in an on-disk vault encrypted with AES-256-GCM, unlocked only by your master password. NAT traversal, when you need it, uses a relay you host on your own infrastructure — no third-party cloud like AnyDesk or RustDesk requires.