We performed a comparison between Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is scalable."
"It works fine, and it is largely issue-free."
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is highly stable."
"The solution has very smooth connectivity and is very user friendly."
"The solution works on Microsoft servers."
"The solution is now stable."
"The most valuable features are availability and security."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is that it scales well."
"Setup was straightforward. Our particular use case involved an Active Directory forest involving two data centers and three domains. User authentication against Active Directory was the easiest to set up and validate of any application installed in the last three years."
"It provides flexible access to Windows applications from many types of devices."
"Simplicity of the interface is a valuable feature."
"The management capability from the RAS portal provides greater control than using pure MS inbuilt into RDS capabilities."
"We use RAS to publish cloud desktops to our clients. The ability to easily publish resources to a subset of users is what we find most valuable."
"The solution is powerful, and it has good speed and performance."
"Its price and ease of use are the most valuable. It is simple and has good performance."
"It permits us to control the applications that our users are able to get to, in a seamless manner. We're able to distribute applications to users' desktops, just like those applications are on each user's computer, but they're not."
"We are searching for a product with better remote access and remote sessions."
"Lacks a notification feature when internet is down."
"I want to connect easily from an external network even when I'm not in my enterprise or company. It should be easy to connect or integrate Microsoft Teams, for example, with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services."
"The DB card needs improvement. I have a lot of experience with other competitors and Citrix is better than VMware and Microsoft. Citrix has more extensive features."
"We'd like, in the future, if it would work with Linux or Unix-based operating systems or even Mac."
"Sometimes the server stops working, and we don’t know why. Occasionally we’ll get a message to the effect of "There is no remote license.""
"We'd like them to continue to improve on security."
"The only issue I experienced was with the initialization of the session, which affected the stability of the solution."
"We use several gateways because access to our secret zone requires two-factor user authentication. It is a lot of hassle differentiating among users with or without two-factor. Of course, we could use two farms, but that would mean more management too."
"It needs Windows scaling on Android/iOS devices. At present, the concept of delivering apps to Android and iOS devices is appealing, but the reality is the screen size on these devices is so small that, unless there is some scaling option, it is not really usable."
"Generally, it is a very good solution. The main thing that I would improve is their presence here in Mexico. They don't have strong local support here in Mexico. They should have a worldwide presence so that we don't have to do everything through the people in the US. The initial setup was a little bit complex because we were migrating from Citrix. For customers who are migrating from another platform like VMware or Citrix, it would be great if they can provide an automated migration solution."
"Sometimes you need to understand how to use load balancing and the gateway in order to scale, which means the team may need some additional technical knowledge."
"Improvement is needed in performance monitoring of the client's endpoint, and automatic re-connection of the client in the event of circuit disruptions (this works well generally but can present challenges)."
"If the solution crashes, then all the customers connected through that agent, lose their session."
"It would be great if there were more sophisticated GPO templates/options."
"Opening a ticket should be available from the actual RAS console. It is cumbersome to go to a portal, hunt around for five minutes for a link to open a ticket, answer questions meant to direct you towards FAQs instead of live support, then fill out information (license #, version #, etc.) which could more easily be supplied by sending a ticket straight from the console with all of that information automatically specified."
More Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is ranked 1st in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 76 reviews while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 12th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 24 reviews. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is rated 8.0, while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services writes "Easy to set up and reliable, but needs an additional control panel". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is most compared with TeamViewer, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace, VMware Workstation and VMware Horizon View, whereas Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Citrix Workspace, Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), Parallels Desktop, NVIDIA GRID and VMware Workstation. See our Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) report.
See our list of best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
We monitor all Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.