Investigate alternatives to RealVNC TIMEBOX[2.5 Days]

[GRyall]

Issue Description

As a member of the instrument controls team I would like to be sure that we are obtaining value for money from our Real VNC subscription by confirming we can't easily replace our main use case (Connecting to NDX machines) with an open source/free to use alternative.

Additional Information

Most likely a Timebox.

Our Real VNC subscription is due for renewal. Whilst there are a variety of use cases, the main one for our group is the remote connection to NDX VMs. If there is a viable alternative which is free for us to implement within the terms of its licensing, then this would both save us money and make it easier to pass ownership of Real VNC licensing to another group.

_{See our Git Workflow.}

Acceptance Criteria

• A range of VNC alternatives have been looked at and examined to see if they would work for the use case of our NDX and NDC machines. To be a viable alternative, they will need to be able to:
  • support multiple concurrent remote connections
  • have clients to connect from Windows, Linux, and Mac
  • allow us to use it within the license of the product
  • be resilient to loss of external connection, e.g. not rely on any external servers/services
• The outcome is documented in this ticket and if there is a viable product, follow up tickets are created

How to Review

_{Before making a PR...}

• Provide verbose instructions for the reviewer to test that your changes work and fix the issue
• Describe if/how you have implemented testing for this issue
• Provide screenshots of the feature to help the reviewer if relevant

_{If not applicable, write "Not applicable"}

...

_{To the reviewer: Make sure to update submodules!}

discussed in planning 12/06/25 at 00:55:00

• tightvnc may well be a drop in replacement for the NDXes

[rerpha]

https://rustdesk.com/