A fast, beautiful remote desktop client for macOS & Linux.
Built with Rust, Tauri, React, and IronRDP.
Features · Install · Build · Architecture · Roadmap
Most RDP clients on macOS are either slow, ugly, or abandoned. Drift is none of those.
- Native performance — GPU-rendered frames via wgpu (Metal/Vulkan). No Electron, no browser overhead.
- Real RDP protocol — Full IronRDP implementation with TLS + CredSSP/NLA authentication.
- Beautiful UI — Custom-designed interface with shadcn/ui, glassmorphism, and smooth animations.
- Tiny footprint — ~15MB binary. Ships as a single
.appor.AppImage.
Remote Desktop
- Connect to Windows machines via RDP (port 3389)
- Full TLS encryption + NLA/CredSSP authentication
- Keyboard, mouse, and trackpad scroll forwarding
- Multi-session support with tabbed interface (up to 10 simultaneous)
- Auto-reconnect with exponential backoff on connection loss
- Configurable resolution, color depth, and quality
GPU Rendering Pipeline
- wgpu-powered frame rendering (Metal on macOS, Vulkan on Linux)
- Zero-copy double-buffer SharedFrame architecture
- Condvar-based frame signaling (0% CPU when idle)
- H.264 hardware encoder ready for session recording
- Fallback to software Canvas rendering when GPU unavailable
Interface
- Quick Connect via
Cmd+K— search and connect in seconds - Connection cards with color accents, tags, and latency indicators
- Real-time performance HUD (FPS, latency, bandwidth, resolution)
- Settings page with theme, display, and network configuration
- Keyboard shortcut overlay (
Cmd+?) - Dark and light themes
- SSH config import (
~/.ssh/config)
Security
- Passwords stored in the OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Linux Secret Service)
- No plaintext credential storage
- Connection configs persisted as local JSON (no cloud, no telemetry)
# Download the latest .dmg from Releases
# Or build from source (see below)# Download the latest .AppImage or .deb from Releases
# Or build from source (see below)Note: Drift is in active development. Pre-built binaries will be available once v0.2.0 ships.
macOS additional:
xcode-select --installLinux additional:
sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libappindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev patchelfgit clone https://github.com/CREVIOS/drift-rdp.git
cd drift-rdp
npm install
cargo tauri dev # Development (hot-reload)
cargo tauri build # Production binary Drift Architecture
================================================
┌─────────── Tauri Window ───────────────────┐
│ │
│ ┌─── wgpu Surface (Metal/Vulkan) ───────┐ │
│ │ GpuRenderer │ │
│ │ ├── SharedFrame.publish() [zero-copy] │ │
│ │ ├── queue.write_texture() [DMA] │ │
│ │ └── render_pass → present │ │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
│ │
│ ┌─── WebView (React + shadcn/ui) ───────┐ │
│ │ Toolbar, Sidebar, Tabs, Settings │ │
│ │ (transparent overlay for UI only) │ │
│ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
Tauri IPC (input events)
│
┌─────────── Rust Backend ────────────────────┐
│ │
│ SessionManager │
│ ├── SessionActor (1 per connection) │
│ │ ├── IronRDP ActiveStage │
│ │ ├── TLS + CredSSP/NLA │
│ │ ├── SharedFrame.update_rect() │
│ │ └── Input forwarding (kbd/mouse/scroll) │
│ │ │
│ ├── ConnectionStore (JSON persistence) │
│ ├── CredentialStore (OS keychain) │
│ └── SettingsStore │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
IronRDP GraphicsUpdate (dirty rects)
│
▼
SharedFrame.begin_write() ← 1 mutex lock for all rects
├── update_rect() × N ← memcpy, ~0.3ms
└── mark_dirty() ← condvar wakes render thread
│
▼
GpuRenderer (dedicated OS thread)
├── wait_for_frame() ← sleeps until signaled (0% CPU idle)
├── publish() ← zero-copy buffer swap
├── write_texture() ← DMA upload to GPU, ~1ms
├── render_pass() ← fullscreen quad shader
└── present() ← Metal/Vulkan display
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Protocol | IronRDP (Rust RDP implementation) |
| Runtime | Tauri v2 (Rust + WebView) |
| GPU | wgpu (Metal / Vulkan / DX12) |
| Frontend | React 19 + TypeScript + shadcn/ui |
| Styling | Tailwind CSS v4 |
| TLS | rustls + webpki |
| Auth | CredSSP / NLA via IronRDP |
| Credentials | keyring (OS keychain) |
| Video | openh264 (H.264 encoder) |
- Full IronRDP connection (TLS + CredSSP/NLA)
- GPU-rendered frames via wgpu
- Keyboard + mouse + trackpad scroll input
- Multi-session tabs
- Auto-reconnect with backoff
- H.264 encoder (for future session recording)
- Dark/light theme + shadcn/ui
- Quick Connect (
Cmd+K) - SSH config import
- Clipboard sync (bidirectional text + images)
- Audio redirection
- File transfer via drag-and-drop
- Multi-monitor support
- Session recording (H.264 → MP4)
- SSH tunneling for RDP-over-SSH
- Auto-discovery of Windows machines on LAN
drift-rdp/
├── src/ # React frontend
│ ├── components/ # UI components (shadcn/ui)
│ │ ├── connections/ # Connection cards, forms
│ │ ├── session/ # Canvas, toolbar, tabs, HUD
│ │ ├── settings/ # Settings page
│ │ ├── layout/ # Sidebar, status bar
│ │ └── ui/ # shadcn primitives
│ ├── hooks/ # useRdpSession, useTheme, etc.
│ ├── stores/ # Zustand stores
│ ├── lib/ # Input mapper, frame protocol, H.264 decoder
│ └── styles/ # Tailwind + theme
├── src-tauri/ # Rust backend
│ └── src/
│ ├── rdp/ # IronRDP session actor, client, input
│ ├── renderer/ # wgpu GPU renderer, SharedFrame, H.264 encoder
│ ├── commands/ # Tauri IPC commands
│ ├── store/ # Persistence (connections, settings, keychain)
│ └── utils/ # TCP probe, latency measurement
└── .github/ # CI/CD, assets
Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.
# Run in development
cargo tauri dev
# Type-check
npx tsc --noEmit
cargo check
# Build for production
cargo tauri buildMIT
Built with Rust, shipped with love.