peetzweg/opendisplay
Use an iPhone, iPad, or spare Mac as a true second display for your Mac without restrictions.
Build with Backblaze B2
SDKs, agent skills, IDE extensions, and reference pipelines from Backblaze Labs. All open source.
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Where it stands
Rank, growth pace and release cadence relative to everything GStars tracks.
5 releases in the last 90 days, the latest today, with 9 contributors on GitHub.
Use Cases & Benefits
- Enables using iPhone, iPad, or spare Mac as a true extended second display for a Mac without restrictions or subscriptions.
- Offers a free, open-source, self-hosted alternative to Sidecar and Duet Display with low-latency USB and WiFi connectivity and no account needed.
- Use for extending your Mac desktop onto an iPhone or iPad with Retina-sharp resolution and touch input over USB or WiFi.
- Use for turning an older Mac into a wireless or wired external display for a newer Mac, supporting macOS 12+ and native Retina resolution.
- Use for developers or privacy-conscious users who want a fully auditable, no-server screen extension solution without hardware dongles or subscriptions.
Should you depend on it?
License terms, project hygiene and risks, from GitHub metadata and GStars' snapshots.
License
GPL 3.0
Copyleft: distributing software that includes it generally requires releasing your source under the same license.
Community files
- README: present
Watch-outs
- GPL-style copyleft: including it in distributed software generally requires releasing your source under the same license.
General guidance from repository metadata, not legal advice. How we score
From the README
Turn your spare Apple devices into second monitors for your Mac — free, open source, no subscription.
iPhone, iPad, and spare Macs. A self-hosted alternative to Apple Sidecar, Duet Display, and Luna Display: true extended display (not just mirroring), Retina-sharp, over USB or WiFi, with touch and scroll input.
Turning an iPhone or iPad into an external display for a Mac is a solved problem — but every existing option has a catch:
OpenDisplay is the missing option: a free, open-source, no-account, no-dongle way to use the iOS device you already own as a true second display. If you were about to write your own — don't! Contribute here instead; the hard parts (virtual display creation, low-latency H.264 pipeline, USB transport, input injection) are already working.
Daily snapshots
Stars gained per day, and how forks and open issues moved, from GStars' daily snapshots
+2,575 stars over 46 days across 5 snapshot days; best day +242 on Sep 15.
Forks
407+162
Open issues
185+44
Compared with peers in iOS
Fastest-growing repositories GStars tracks in this cohort for the week of Nov 1, by 7-day star growth
| Repository | Stars | +7d | Health | Last release |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vercel-labs/agent-desktop | 17.0K | +13.3K | 33 | today |
| nightly-labs/openbot | 5.8K | +2.0K | 45 | today |
| rustdesk/rustdesk | 128.3K | +839 | 65 | 4 days ago |
| crmne/zapfast | 3.1K | +839 | 60 | 2 days ago |
| makecindy/cindy | 9.3K | +771 | 45 | today |
| peetzweg/opendisplay | 6.0K | — | 21 | today |
| Category median | 9.3K | +839 | 45 | — |
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