We performed a comparison between Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops vs VMware Horizon View based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops seems to be the more favorable solution. It is easier to deploy than VMware Horizon View, and users are happier with the technical support.
"Centralization and security are the most valuable features of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops."
"The product is stable."
"We've been able to scale the environment quite nicely by using the Citrix Remote PC. I can't say enough about that. And because that relies on utilizing your existing hardware resources, and making those available as a part of your Citrix farm — with a second level of authentication and security pieces around it — we added some 4,000 workstations without an additional overhead or cost."
"In terms of scalability, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops have a lot of technologies baked in there that allow an organization to scale up or down, as required. Further, leveraging Azure for scalability has added value to our organization. For example, pre-COVID-19, we had very few resources in Azure. We had some Virtual Desktops and no application servers. When COVID-19 came along, we knew people were going to be home. We knew that we had to ramp up very quickly. We fully leveraged MCS to be able to scale. Being able to take a single image and build 400,000 Virtual Desktops, all within minutes, was second to none in terms of any other technology out there that we could have used. The scalability to be able to do that in Azure, where we really don't have to worry about storage and compute power because Microsoft does that for us, was fantastic. It was almost like giving our environments steroids. It has been amazing in terms of that scalability. Now, as people start coming back to the office, we can just as quickly scale down so the compute and resource costs in Azure aren't so great anymore."
"The most valuable feature is the watermark because most of the time our employees connect from a remote location. In case they photograph the DDA or some data, the watermark will show which user did so and from which IP they connected. That makes it more secure."
"Because of the solution's ubiquity, it is easier to find answers to problems than with competitive products."
"Citrix offers a range of products that can be used straight out of the box."
"There are many features that I like, but the stability over the Internet is exceptional. Even if there's bandwidth fluctuation or network jitter, it performs well, offering a seamless experience to end-users without noticeable disruptions."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pros →
"The most valuable features are Instant Clones and AppStacks."
"VMware's technical support is good."
"Users can log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices."
"The app virtualizing is a great feature."
"The solution's most valuable feature is low bandwidth consumption. It helps to improve user experience."
"It is a very stable solution...It is a very scalable solution."
"VMware Horizon View is easily scalable. Its onboarding is easy and comes with flash provisioning features."
"The solution is very user friendly."
"The solution's technical support is not so good."
"In the bank, a major part of all our applications is Microsoft App-V. If App-V is at end of life, then we need a new technology to replace it. As of today, I haven't seen in Citrix Studio that there is a new technology embedded directly in it to replace App-V."
"Where improvement could be driven is in terms of clarity as to the functionality of some of the solutions. If you go back to the older Citrix Xen products that we had, we understood those really well. As we've come into the new workstation premium suite, there is a lot of additional functionality that we perhaps have not yet fully exploited. It is not because we can't, but simply because we don't yet understand the depth of functionality that's offered."
"Citrix's functionality depends on you having access to Microsoft Azure. Microsoft offers a broad range of features and solutions. Overall, it may make sense for some users to move all their services to Microsoft services."
"Templating the deployment process could use improvement. When you start, there are a large number of details that are quite client-specific, although they do share common themes. To get somebody up and running in a day is very difficult to do. They should streamline by use case."
"The product advances really fast. For some customers, we need better backwards compatibility."
"Direct connection of USB devices on the terminals to be used by streamed applications is very important for printing and the usage of token authentication, but the current version does not support this one hundred percent."
"We have had issues with certain aspects, which is why we are looking for alternatives. For example, the firewall solution from Citrix is a bit complicated. Integration is hard."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Cons →
"There is room for improvement in support. The response time could be faster."
"We would like to see better performance with the product."
"The product's initial setup process could be easier."
"VMware Horizon View has worked a lot to improve the solutions. There are some issues in the delivery of the applications, such as network problems. You can lose your connection at times."
"The initial startup costs for this solution are relatively high."
"The system is not designed to allow the client to log in easily."
"The integration could be improved."
"The initial setup was not difficult but there is room for improvement."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is ranked 5th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 90 reviews while VMware Horizon View is ranked 4th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 67 reviews. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is rated 8.4, while VMware Horizon View is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) writes "Flexible Deployment, reliable performance, and fast transmission speeds". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Horizon View writes "User-friendly, reasonably priced, and simple to install". Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is most compared with Amazon Appstream, Citrix Workspace, Amazon WorkSpaces, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and Apache Guacamole, whereas VMware Horizon View is most compared with VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, VMware Workstation and VMware Fusion. See our Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. VMware Horizon View report.
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I think VMware Horizon View is a very solid product.
I think it is the most mature product on the whole spectrum. All virtual desktop environments require tuning for performance. Depending on the size of the company you don't need 1/10 of the bells & whistles that the vendors include. For example, I have a small environment - 70 employees. I don't use instant clones, personas, their analysis tools, ... Not only are they expensive (the tools) they overly complicate a complicated process. KISS.
I have honed down the environment to what is just needed. Most of the industry will tell you otherwise. And I do all this as a one-man IT department.