OpenDisplay
Open-source Sidecar alternative that makes an iPhone, iPad or old Mac a second display
- Category
- Dev Tools
- Website
- github.com
- Language
- English
- Listed
- 3d ago
- Stars
- 4,520
- Forks
- 296
peetzweg/opendisplay ↗, Swift, GPL-3.0, Last commit 1d ago
Apple Sidecar needs both devices on the same Apple ID and skips the iPhone, Duet Display moved to a subscription, and Luna Display needs a hardware dongle. OpenDisplay is the free, GPL-3.0 option: a Sender app on a Mac running macOS 14 or later creates a virtual display and streams it to a Receiver app on an iPhone or iPad with iOS or iPadOS 16, or on an older Mac with macOS 12.
It is a true extended display rather than a mirror, although mirroring is available as a mode. The stream uses hardware H.264 over a USB cable through macOS's usbmuxd or over WiFi with Bonjour discovery, and the virtual display matches the device panel pixel for pixel at Retina resolution. Taps click, drags drag and two-finger scrolls work like a trackpad, and rotating the device rebuilds the display in portrait. There are no accounts and no servers in between, just one direct TCP connection. The purple screen-recording indicator appears while it runs because macOS shows it for any app that captures the screen.