Alternatives to Moonlight
Streams games from a gaming PC to another device on your network, with hardware decoding and a gamepad. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Moonlight
Streams games from a gaming PC to another device on your network, with hardware decoding and a gamepad.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Moonlight.
Parsec
A low-latency remote desktop app for reaching a work or gaming computer from another device.
Parsec is a proprietary low-latency streaming app for Windows and macOS that works for gaming and work without a separate Sunshine host, with advanced features in paid plans.
ToDesk
Remote desktop software for remote control, file transfer, gaming and support across desktop and mobile.
ToDesk is a closed-source freemium remote desktop tool with gaming options and gamepad mapping on all major platforms, but its website and support are in Chinese.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Moonlight as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
Shadow
A subscription cloud PC service that streams a full Windows computer to your own devices.
Moonlight is a free GPL-3.0 game streaming client with hardware decoding and HDR, but needs your own Sunshine host rather than a cloud PC.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Sunshine
The open source host that replaced NVIDIA GameStream, so Moonlight can stream from any PC.
Apollo
A Sunshine fork for self-hosted game and desktop streaming at the client device's native resolution.
chiaki-ng
An open-source PlayStation Remote Play client for PC, Linux and Steam Deck.
Looking Glass
A low-latency viewer that shows a GPU-passthrough Windows virtual machine inside a Linux window.
RustDesk
An open-source remote desktop tool you can point at your own relay server instead of somebody else’s cloud.
