The TESLA project proposed by the TESLA collaboration in 2001 is a 500 to 800GeV e+/e− linear collider with integrated free electron laser facility. The accelerator is based on superconducting cavity technology. Approximately 20000 superconducting cavities operated at 1.3GHz with a gradient of 23.4MV/m or 35MV/m will be required to achieve the energy of 500GeV or 800GeV respectively. For 500GeV ∼600 RF stations each generating 10MW of RF power at 1.3GHz at a pulse duration of 1.37ms and a repetition rate of 5 or 10Hz are required. The original TESLA design was modified in 2002 and now includes a dedicated 20GeV electron accelerator in a separate tunnel for free electron laser application. The TESLA XFEL will provide XFEL radiation of unprecedented peak brilliance and full transverse coherence in the wavelength range of 0.1 to 6.4nm at a pulse duration of 100fs. The technology of both accelerators, the TESLA linear collider and the XFEL, will be identical, however the number of superconducting cavities and RF stations for the XFEL will be reduced to 936 and 26 respectively. This paper describes the layout of the entire RF system of the TESLA linear collider and the TESLA XFEL and gives an overview of its various subsystems and components. © 2003 American Institute of Physics