We performed a comparison between Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) and VMware Fusion 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."It provides flexible access to Windows applications from many types of devices."
"We can provision the servers without the need for another third-party solution."
"Thin client management (Windows 10 client) provides an easy way to lock down client connection to the remote infrastructure. Policies are very helpful for preconfiguring client behavior. Finally, client management is easy."
"The stability is ok - once I finished the setup, the system was quite stable."
"The management capability from the RAS portal provides greater control than using pure MS inbuilt into RDS capabilities."
"It is robust. We have some 75 users using it and it doesn't lag. It's very speedy."
"The solution is powerful, and it has good speed and performance."
"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 most value that it provides is that it is versatile."
"The whole point of it is to run Windows VMs on a Mac. This is the most valuable feature. There is snapshotting, but we don't really use that. The Pro version allows me to actually attach to the Windows ESXi infrastructure at the backend, and I'm able to create a session that I can attach to the VMware hooks at the backend, so one is running a VM, and the whole operating system is running on the actual Mac. The other one is literally a frontend to the VMs that are running in the infrastructure at the backend. These are the two main features I use."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The product is easy to use and has a simple user interface."
"The product does not utilize SQL for reporting purposes. Also, it does not support some hypervisors similar to Citrix. These particular areas need improvement."
"Currently in the RD Session Hosts – Sessions section, I can see what server a user is logged into but not what app he is using. Being able to do so would be immensely helpful when a non-technical user is complaining of issues, but I can’t tell which app he is using, and he is actually logged into multiple servers since they serve multiple apps."
"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."
"We have had significant, ongoing issues with printing. It would be great to have a best practice for dealing with printing that we can offer to our customers."
"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)."
"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."
"A web-based management interface for administration and reporting would be nice, instead of needing to log into a remote server."
"Its installation process could be simpler."
"I would like to see newer and updated cloud functions."
"VMware Fusion's licensing cost needs improvement."
"The way they handle snapshotting can be improved. One time, I moved a machine from one to another, and I tried to pull it up on the second machine, but it didn't work. This was because I had not cleaned up the snapshot before I deleted it and moved it across. So, when I tried to pull it up, it wouldn't let me bring it up. The backups for the VMs themselves can also be improved. I pretty much have to rely on Windows backups and not something on VMware. That's where it needs improvement. I am able to upload from my Fusion into the ESXi easily. I'm able to spin something up on Fusion and push it into the big arena, but the reverse is not as easy, that is, trying to pull something down from that. I would love to have a functionality where I could pull something from the VMware infrastructure into Fusion, but I'm not sure if I can take something from ESXi and pull it into Fusion."
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Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 12th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 24 reviews while VMware Fusion is ranked 7th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 5 reviews. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8, while VMware Fusion is rated 9.0. 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 Fusion writes "Robust software with efficient snapshot and cloning features". 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 Fusion is most compared with Parallels Desktop, VMware Workstation, VMware Player, VMware Horizon View and VMware Horizon. See our Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) vs. VMware Fusion report.
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