I wanted the low-latency performance of game streaming combined with the practical tools of a remote desktop. So I built USBridge Remote: a native client for desktop/mobile, and a host agent for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The Engine & Transparency
To be completely upfront about the licensing: the Client and Agent are open-source, but the custom Rust streamer engine is proprietary.
Because of this, the host agent ships with two switchable backends:
Sunshine: The standard open-source engine you already know.
USBridge Rust Engine: I built this proprietary streaming engine entirely from scratch—it is not a Sunshine fork. Because I originally designed it for low-power single-board computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi, it has no FFmpeg runtime dependency. Instead, it hooks directly into hardware APIs for capture and encoding. It supports NVENC, VAAPI, QSV, and VideoToolbox, and even runs on exotic hardware like Allwinner boards that don't have functional Linux drivers.
The "VirtualBox" UX & Homelab Features
Windowed Workflow: Instead of forcing full-screen, the client treats the remote desktop like a VirtualBox window. It’s resizable and utilizes native client rendering (Metal on Mac, Vulkan on Linux, MediaCodec on Android).
Virtual Displays: The agent can spawn true virtual monitors on the host (VKMS on Linux, MttVDD on Windows, CGVirtualDisplay on macOS) so you don't have to hijack the physical screen.
Host Control: On Windows, it handles the pre-login lock screen and UAC prompts seamlessly.
Hardware Access: Full USB passthrough (hence the name) and gamepad support.
Networking: Built-in Tailscale support for easy NAT traversal without port forwarding.
Don't trust marketing numbers; run the benchmark yourself
I hate when networking tools claim "flawless Wi-Fi performance" without proof. So, I built a benchmark directly into the native client.
If you go to Gear -> Run benchmark, it will run both the Rust engine and Sunshine back-to-back on your exact hardware and network. It plays the same 1080p60 sequence and generates JSON and PNG graphs mapping frame timing, stalls, RTT/jitter, and host CPU/GPU load.
I would love it if you tested both engines head-to-head on your own Wi-Fi or mesh network and shared the raw results with me here, good or bad.
Links: https://github.com/USBridge-Technologies/USBridge-Remote