Rainwayfor Android

Cloud streaming of games to your phone is the norm nowadays, but few services exist that offer peer-to-peer streaming with its real-time, secure features. Rainway is one of them.

A free game streaming alternative

Rainway is a peer-to-peer game streaming app enabling you to enjoy PC games on your smartphone for free.

Game streaming is growing in popularity to increase the accessibility of PC games to players on any device. Rainway is another such app, differing from others, especially big industry names such as NVIDIA and Sony, by not depending on subscriptions or purchases.

To use Rainway, all you need to do is download the app. From then onward, it enables you to stream popular gaming titles from services such as Stream on your smartphone.

This app uses the peer-to-peer connection, which means that launching a game through it also runs it on your PC back home. The software operates by capturing your PC screen in real-time and encoding it to a stream. It then sends it to your phone through a low-latency network.

Rainway is optimized to allow for input through a mouse or a gamepad. Therefore, it's an app handy to have for playing when you're not at home. It doesn't ask for a subscription or consumes data.

However, these qualities come with a slightly buggy interface and a slow connection. Another issue is that your connected PC must support the games in question.

Where can you run this program?

On Android smartphones, you can run Rainway with versions 5.0 and up. It also launches on iOS devices 9.0 and higher.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes, although you have fewer choices if you stick with free services. Parsec is quite similar in its features, and Moonlight Game Streaming is an excellent open-source alternative. With a subscription, Stadia and GeForceNow are fantastic.

Our take

Rainway is excellent in its convenience and flexibility. However, it’s not the smoothest of apps, which is a shame.

Should you download it?

Yes, if you enjoy PC games but don’t have a lot of free time to play. Get ready to deal with some bugs, though.