A thin disk vortex laser end-pumped out-of-focus is presented. When the focus of the convergent pump beam is located in the thin Nd∶YAG disk, the laser operates in the fundamental mode. While the focus is moved out of the thin disk, the laser generates a vortex beam with an order of 1, and the handedness can be changed by finely tuning the tilt angle of the output mirror. A continuous wave output power of 0.57 W and a Q-switched pulse output power of 0.48 W, with the repetition rate of 10 kHz, pulse width of 35.2 ns, single pulse energy of 0.048 mJ, and peak power of 1.37 kW is experimentally demonstrated. This scheme of vortex laser is free of specially designed pump beams and laser resonators, and thus is compact in structure.