We performed a comparison between Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) and VMware Player 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."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."
"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."
"It is robust. We have some 75 users using it and it doesn't lag. It's very speedy."
"The most valuable feature is the ease with which you can publish applications to different groups of users, by integrating with Windows Active Directory."
"It is a stable solution."
"Its price and ease of use are the most valuable. It is simple and has good performance."
"We can publish apps and desktops on Terminal Servers and seamlessly share printers. We also combine Parallels with Deepnet Security to get two-factor authentication."
"We can provision the servers without the need for another third-party solution."
"It's really easy to build testing environments with VMware Player."
"The solution's technical support team is excellent."
"VMware Player helps you to virtualize and install Ubuntu or any other operating system, even on a Windows laptop."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Player is the ability to snapshot with or without memory."
"VMware Player's best feature is the ability to run different OS's simultaneously."
"The main issue we have with all of our users is printing. Randomly, a printer will disconnect or someone won't connect to it and I will have to reset the print service and then nobody can print. That's the big headache we've had over the course of the five years."
"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."
"We would like the ability to provide a popup message, such as a maintenance notification. That same notification on the Parallels client would be awesome."
"Since I've been here less than a year, I have had to upgrade the system three times. The first time was the major upgrade but they have upgraded twice since, and I think that's too many times in that time span."
"The solution's application virtualization feature needs improvement."
"HALB is not stable in our environment. When running two HALBs we have stability problems, so we use an active one and a passive for backup. Also, it would be nice to implement an upgrade of the environment without having to stop the servers. As it is, this must be done during off-hours."
"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."
"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."
"VMware Player should provide a cloud version with no limitations to hardware resources."
"When you go to work on a server, it opens up the whole window, and that causes an error inside VMware Player."
"Its networking features need improvement."
"VMware Player isn't downgradable, so if you have a later set of VMs, you need to upgrade it or figure out a workaround."
"The tool has limited scalability."
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Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 12th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 24 reviews while VMware Player is ranked 8th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 10 reviews. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8, while VMware Player is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware Player writes "A highly stable solution that has the ability to snapshot with or without memory". Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), Citrix Workspace, VMware Workstation and NVIDIA GRID, whereas VMware Player is most compared with VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace and Parallels Desktop. See our Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) vs. VMware Player report.
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