Net Farm

TeamViewer

Established remote access, control and support delivered as a managed cloud service.

paid · trial desktop download

What it is

TeamViewer is a widely deployed proprietary platform for remote access, control and technical support. For an administrator it offers connections to workstations and servers (including unattended access), file transfer, monitoring, a single device registry, access roles and session logging.

Problems it solves

  • Support staff need to reach any user device quickly, even across NAT and firewalls.
  • You want a single device registry with roles and an audit trail of who connected where.
  • Occasional support of non-technical users who cannot set up a VPN.

How administrators use it

  • Deploy the Host client to servers and kiosks for always-on unattended access.
  • Use the management console to group devices and assign connection permissions by role.
  • Start ad-hoc support sessions from a short ID and keep logs for compliance.
TeamViewer remote control interface
Screenshot: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Strengths & trade-offs

Strengths

  • Reliable connectivity through almost any network.
  • Mature management console, roles and auditing.
  • Broad platform and mobile coverage.

Trade-offs

  • Commercial licensing is comparatively expensive.
  • Sessions traverse the vendor cloud by default.
  • Free personal tier is often flagged on business networks.

Questions

Can I use TeamViewer free at work?

The free tier is for personal use only; business use requires a commercial licence, and connections are regularly detected as commercial.

Head to head

Alternatives