The Best Screen Alternative: Collaborative Tools for Seamless Remote Work

Screen is a multiplayer screen sharing app designed to make remote collaboration feel like you're in the same room. It excels in real-time pair programming, visual communication with on-screen drawing, and collaborative brainstorming. However, like any specialized tool, there might be reasons to seek a Screen alternative. Perhaps you need broader platform support, specific feature sets, or different pricing models. This guide explores the top contenders that offer similar, or even enhanced, collaborative screen-sharing experiences.

Top Screen Alternatives

Whether you're looking for a free solution, a more feature-rich paid option, or something tailored to specific development environments, these alternatives provide excellent ways to share screens and work together remotely.

Teletype

Teletype (beta) for Atom is a free, open-source Screen alternative available on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It allows developers to share their workspace and collaborate on code in real-time, focusing on collaborative writing and live collaboration within the Atom editor, making it ideal for developers already using Atom.

USE Together

USE Together offers collaborative screen sharing with multiple mouse cursors and is accessible from a simple web browser. It's a free Screen alternative for Mac, Windows, Chrome, Opera, and Firefox, boasting features like audio recording, clipboard sharing, remote control support, screen recording, desktop sharing, and real-time collaboration via a web client, making it highly versatile for various collaboration needs.

Visual Studio Live Share is a free, open-source Screen alternative for Mac, Windows, and Linux that allows instant project sharing for real-time collaborative editing and debugging. It's an excellent choice for development teams using Visual Studio or VS Code, focusing on real-time collaboration for team work and web development without needing to clone repositories.

DeskShare

DeskShare is a commercial Screen alternative for Windows that provides on-demand live screen sharing and desktop viewing over the internet. Its focus on simple desktop sharing and remote desktop capabilities makes it a straightforward choice for quick screen sharing during calls or for remote support.

Floobits

Floobits is a freemium Screen alternative bringing real-time collaborative editing to a wide range of text editors and IDEs including Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, Vim, Sublime Text, and GNU Emacs. Its robust features for collaborative writing and live, real-time collaboration across multiple platforms make it a powerful option for diverse development environments.

Tuple

Tuple is a commercial Screen alternative specifically designed for Mac users, catering to discerning developers needing a remote pair programming tool. It focuses on high-quality screen sharing and remote desktop capabilities tailored for developer collaboration on macOS.

CoScreen

CoScreen is a free Screen alternative for Mac that transforms your extended screen into a comprehensive remote collaboration platform. It offers a unique experience through simultaneous screen sharing, making it ideal for team collaboration and sharing multiple windows concurrently.

Choosing the best Screen alternative depends heavily on your specific needs, whether that's deep integration with your IDE, broad platform compatibility, specific collaboration features like multi-cursor support, or a simple, dedicated remote pair programming solution. Explore these options to find the perfect fit for your team's remote work setup.