BURSUcm
Free connection manager for SSH, WinRM, RDP, VNC, AppleRD, Telnet, Serial, FTP and SFTP — the only one with Apple's High Performance Mac screen sharing. Encrypted vault, team sharing, zero-knowledge sync.
Free connection manager for SSH, WinRM, RDP, VNC, AppleRD, Telnet, Serial, FTP and SFTP — the only one with Apple's High Performance Mac screen sharing. Encrypted vault, team sharing, zero-knowledge sync.
This page is designed to help you find out whether BURSUcm is good and if it is the right choice for you.
BURSU Connection Manager (BURSUcm) is a free, cross-platform connection manager that keeps every server, credential and teammate in one fast, modern workspace — on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad.
BURSUcm is the only connection manager with AppleRD High Performance — the mode that until now only Apple's own Screen Sharing app could use. On Apple silicon with macOS 14 or later, a Mac's screen opens in a tab with H.264 or HEVC video decoded on your GPU, the Mac's system audio, and a sharp virtual display sized to your window — or a mirror of its screen. The Mac's host key is confirmed before your password is sent; Intel Macs connect over the conventional route.
SSH, WinRM, RDP, VNC, AppleRD, Telnet, Serial, Web, FTP and SFTP all open in tabs. Our own BURSUrdp engine brings H.264 graphics, audio and multi-monitor; VNC adds TLS/VeNCrypt; WinRM gives you PowerShell or cmd.exe on a Windows server without RDP.
Credentials live in an AES-256-GCM vault and your master password never leaves your device. TOTP codes sit next to the login they belong to. Optional BURSUcloud sync is zero-knowledge — the server only ever stores ciphertext.
Free. In English, Russian, Ukrainian and Georgian.
Listed in
Price
Free
Platforms
Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS / iPadOS
Protocols
SSH, WinRM, RDP, VNC, AppleRD, Telnet, Serial, Web, FTP, SFTP
AppleRD High Performance
Mac screen in a tab: GPU-decoded H.264/HEVC, the Mac's audio, sharp virtual display (Apple silicon, macOS 14+)
RDP
Own BURSUrdp engine in a tab: H.264, audio, multi-monitor, drive & printer redirection
VNC Protocol Support
TLS/VeNCrypt encryption, clipboard sharing, scaling, view-only mode
WinRM
PowerShell Remoting or cmd.exe over WinRS; HTTPS with a pinned server certificate
Terminal Integration
Full ANSI/TUI, colour schemes, custom fonts and session logging
Tabbed Navigation
Every connection in a tab, split view and broadcast input
SFTP
SFTP panel beside the terminal, two-pane manager, transfer queue, chmod
Credential Vault
Encrypted with AES-256-GCM; the master password never leaves your device
Two-factor (TOTP) codes
Stored with the login and copied as a live 6-digit code in one click
Jump hosts & tunnels
ProxyJump chains plus local (-L), remote (-R) and SOCKS5 (-D) tunnels
Persistent sessions (tmux)
Reattach to the same screen and running programs after a dropped connection
AI assistant
Optional; your API key or a local model; approval required, secrets redacted
Team access control
Per-folder view / edit / reveal-password grants for each user
Cloud sync
Optional zero-knowledge BURSUcloud — the server only stores ciphertext
Import from
PuTTY, WinSCP, mRemoteNG, Remote Desktop Manager, Royal TS, OpenSSH config, .rdp
Languages
English, Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian
Themes
System, Light, Dark
Storage modes
Local SQLite, PostgreSQL, or BURSUcloud
BURSUcm is the only connection manager that supports Apple's High Performance screen sharing. An AppleRD connection opens a Mac's screen in a tab, and on Apple silicon with macOS 14 or later it takes Apple's own High Performance path — H.264 or HEVC video decoded on your GPU, the Mac's system audio and a sharp virtual display sized to your window — the mode that so far only Apple's Screen Sharing app could use, now available from Windows, Linux and macOS.
Around that, it combines what is usually split across separate tools: SSH, WinRM, RDP, VNC, AppleRD, Telnet, Serial, Web, FTP and SFTP in one tabbed workspace, with its own built-in RDP (H.264, audio, multi-monitor) and VNC engines rendering right inside a tab. Credentials live in an AES-256-GCM vault whose key never leaves your device, and optional BURSUcloud sync is zero-knowledge — the server only ever stores ciphertext. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad, and it's free.
Most connection managers make you trade something away: the polished ones are Windows-only or paid, the cross-platform ones drop RDP/VNC or the encrypted vault, cloud-sync options ask you to trust their servers with your secrets — and none of them can reach a Mac the way Apple's own Screen Sharing does. BURSUcm doesn't ask for that trade.
It's free and native on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad, and you can start fully offline with a local database and turn on sync only if and when you want it.
The Windows app is C# on .NET 10 with WPF and our own BURSUrdp engine for RDP. The macOS and Linux app is Electron + React/TypeScript over a shared .NET backend, with IronRDP for RDP. Android is Kotlin with Jetpack Compose, and iPhone/iPad is one universal native app. AppleRD is our own independent implementation of Apple's Remote Desktop protocol, including the High Performance mode with GPU-decoded H.264/HEVC video and audio. The BURSUcloud portal is PHP with PostgreSQL — one isolated database per account, reached only server-side through a zero-knowledge API. Secrets are protected with AES-256-GCM, PBKDF2 and platform key stores (DPAPI on Windows).
System administrators, DevOps and network engineers, developers and IT support teams — anyone who lives in remote sessions and manages more than a handful of servers. It is especially useful in mixed fleets: Linux over SSH, Windows over RDP and WinRM, and Macs over AppleRD, all from one catalog. It fits both the solo engineer who wants a fast local tool with an encrypted vault, and small teams that need to share a connection catalog with per-folder access control without handing everyone every password.
BURSUcm is built by BURSUsofts. It started from a simple frustration: existing connection managers were either locked to one platform, hid basic features behind a subscription, or asked you to store your secrets on someone else's server in plain reach. BURSUcm was built to be the tool its authors wanted — every protocol in one place, real encryption you control, and the same experience on every operating system — and it's kept free.
BURSUcm is a young product with a growing base of individual engineers and small IT teams; we don't publish customer names.
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