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Is there anything that can share screen between more than two people (like e.g. TeamViewer), but is open-source?

At the very minimum, one user should be able to present their desktop, exact copy of what they are seeing, to one or more other users. Giving the remote user control permission would be nice. Chat/voice/file transfers and similar are not needed; I can always use XMPP/Jingle or something like that for those.

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  • 4
    An older version of VNC was open source, but it does not have as many features as TeamViewer. It depends on what you need it for. Could you please add more details to the question?
    – Tymric
    Aug 29, 2014 at 10:47
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    Apache OpenMeetings looks promising.
    – Lukas Graf
    Sep 1, 2014 at 21:23
  • @LukasGraf: It does. Would be worth some upvotes if you made it an answer.
    – Jan Hudec
    Sep 1, 2014 at 22:03
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    @JanHudec haven't used it myself, and therefore can't really recommend it. But feel free to give it a try and post it as an answer yourself if it fits the bill.
    – Lukas Graf
    Sep 1, 2014 at 22:12
  • What features do you need? Should the sharing be one-way or two-ways? Do you also need chat? Voice? File transfers? Remote mouse/keyboard control?
    – Nicolas Raoul ♦
    Nov 4, 2016 at 10:24

4 Answers 4

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Tiger VNC is available on Github.

Also OpenMeetings from Apache is a capable product. It is a video conferencing tool that includes the ability to share screens.

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TightVNC is a cross-platform (Linux and Windows) open source implementation of the VNC protocol. There are many other VNC clients and servers, most should work with each other without problem. Most Linux distributions have some VNC server/client built in, so does OS X (called Screen sharing).

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  • But is it able to do a conference where the same screen is displayed on multiple computers?
    – Jan Hudec
    Aug 30, 2014 at 22:44
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    I do not understand what you mean by conference in this context, but it's made for showing (and controlling) the same screen on multiple computers.
    – Hjulle
    Aug 30, 2014 at 23:39
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    I think that he is asking 1) can there be multiple clients of a server, and 2) can one fo the clients easily become the server, to show/share a different desktop? (no, with VNC, AFAIK). But, really, the OP needs to clarify his question
    – Mawg
    Jun 4, 2015 at 12:19
  • 1. Multiple clients may connect to a VNC server at the same time, yes. 2. It's more cumbersome to turn a client into a server (it has to be done manually). There might exist some companion software that automates that process though.
    – Hjulle
    Jun 4, 2015 at 12:27
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    video conference mean multiple people in a meeting can see one person sharing their desktop. But VNC is for remote controlling and I don't think it supports conferencing
    – phuclv
    Jun 3, 2018 at 5:12
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Jitsi

Jitsi is a set of open-source projects that allows you to easily build and deploy secure videoconferencing solutions. At the heart of Jitsi are Jitsi Videobridge and Jitsi Meet, which let you have conferences on the internet, while other projects in the community enable other features such as audio, dial-in, recording, and simulcasting.

jitsi screenshot
(source: capterra.com)

WebHuddle

Simple, small, secure web conferencing on any platform that supports Java.

WebHuddle screen shot

See more in What are the best open-source video conferencing systems?

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BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton is a web conferencing system designed for online learning

  • BigBlueButton enables you to share your audio, slides, chat, video, and desktop with students. Built-in polling makes it easy to engage students and recording your lectures means that you can make them available for later review.
  • When using the whiteboard tool in BigBlueButton, annotations are automatically displayed back to the students in real-time. Presenters also have the ability to zoom, highlight, draw and write on presentations making your points clearer to remote students.

screenshot
(source: capterra.com)

Mconf

Mconf is an open source web conference system built on top of (and around of) BigBlueButton. Mconf is composed of several components, among them are Mconf-Live, a customized version of BigBlueButton that includes several new features, and Mconf-Web, a web portal where people can collaborate asynchronously, schedule and participate in web conferences. Keep reading this page to learn more about Mconf!

Mconf screenshot
(source: capterra.com)

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