Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs VMware Horizon View comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 8, 2022

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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops users find the solution easy and straightforward to deploy. VMware Horizon View users share mixed reviews regarding deployment.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability.

    Citrix users like the solution’s data protection, and that it is flexible and can be used on any device. Reviewers mention that the endpoint user and zero trust protocols need some improvement.

    VMware users like the solution’s performance, desktop management, and its remote virtual desktop interface. Users say the reporting could be improved and that they would like to see more useful monitoring.
  • Pricing: Users of both solutions say the pricing is expensive.
  • Service and Support: Citrix users are satisfied with the technical support. VMware users share mixed opinions.
  • ROI: Users of both solutions report a positive ROI.

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.

768,415 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The ROI for us has been that when we had Hurricane Harvey last year, Xendesktop came in very handy for us. Even though people had electricity in Texas, many networks were down. Our offices could still get into our network and do work that was needed. It is an excellent virtual office that works anywhere, anytime and anyplace. It is worth our investment.""It has the best remote working features.""Among the most valuable features is the Citrix Workspace, which allows us to drive that thin-client connection and the remote control/remote access capabilities. Those things have allowed us to connect an awful lot of people quickly from home and that's obviously helped during the pandemic.""The App is the most valuable feature.""Citrix is used by many organizations to make it possible to streamline the way different developers work together from different locations.""Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a stable solution.""It has very good performance in delivering 3D applications over WAN.""Because of the solution's ubiquity, it is easier to find answers to problems than with competitive products."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pros →

"VMware has a lot of experience in virtualization — they are the pioneers in virtualization.""Horizon View provides virtual desktops on demand.""Instant Clone instantly creates another VM with a Delta disk, which is just the VMware backend. This helps with scalability and management.""VMware Horizon View is easy to configure and deploy.""Great for desktop management, particularly when it comes to all the upgrades.""The most valuable features of VMware Horizon View technology is easier to use and is user-friendly with the customers.""Ability to log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices.""VMware's technical support is good."

More VMware Horizon View Pros →

Cons
"When I needed support for a couple of things, three people intervened. Each time, three people gave me a different answer. In the end, they did not manage to give the right answer. At a certain point, they stopped replying.""Tech support can be slow if you do not receive help from the US representatives.""The initial setup is complex.""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.""The Endpoint Management solution needs improvement when it comes to mobile device management. For example, they are still not supporting Windows 10 and this feature is required by many customers.""Licensing service installation and configuration was the biggest challenge for all Citrix solutions, but now they have fixed a lot of issues.""There is room for improvement because it has a lot of dependency on Active Directory and other things. If they could come up with something similar and native, a complete solution portfolio would help.""Pricing and technical support need improvement."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Cons →

"The solution must be faster and smoother.""The storage expansion in the product is a bit difficult to manage, especially when I have to modify a storage requirement of a particular area since it comes across as a complex job.""The technical support offered by VMware is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.""In the latest versions, the deployment of certificates on the console has been implemented. Although it is functional, it is not working as well as I would like. I hope this feature can be improved in the future.""Technical support could be better and faster.""The installation is complex and could be easier. The full installation with testing took a couple of weeks to complete.""Lacks sufficiently robust audio redirections.""The system integration also needs some improvement."

More VMware Horizon View Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "You have to do some hard work in order to get the suitable licenses."
  • "The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.​"
  • "The product, XenServer, is free to use, and XenApp has a one month free license."
  • "It is a bit costly, but enterprise class features come with a cost."
  • "It is quite expensive, but so are the competitors on the market."
  • "I think it is a little high priced."
  • "I suggest using the concurrent user licensing scheme."
  • "A perpetual enterprise license costs approximately $300 USD."
  • More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Licensing and hardware outsourcing is expensive, but can be cost-effective in the three to five-year range."
  • "This solution is expensive."
  • "This solution is expensive. A lot of companies in Mexico find that the price is too high."
  • "There is a monthly subscription for the use of this solution and it is expensive."
  • "Customers pay a licensing fee."
  • "The pricing can be relatively competitive, but sometimes you have to go back to VMware and ask for additional discounts. You can make it competitive If you're prepared to put in the work. The list prices and standard discounts may not be competitive, but if you push hard enough, you can get the price to where you need it to be."
  • "The solution can be costly for customers who do not run mission-critical applications or who have less than 50 users."
  • "I cannot provide a detailed comment on the pricing; however, I can say that it is quite expensive."
  • More VMware Horizon View Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Answers from the Community
    Dante Dano
    Dan Reynolds - PeerSpot reviewerDan Reynolds
    Real User

    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. 

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.
    Top Answer:In the past, the prices of the product were great. With the acquisition of Citrix by your company, the prices have drastically increased. For my company, it has become a bit of a problem to sell… more »
    Top Answer:Pricing and technical support need improvement.
    Top Answer:The pricing could be improved. The tool is not cheap, but it is not too expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten. We get what we pay for.
    Top Answer:The solution must be faster and smoother.
    Ranking
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    6,971
    Comparisons
    4,294
    Reviews
    23
    Average Words per Review
    592
    Rating
    7.5
    Views
    5,947
    Comparisons
    4,482
    Reviews
    29
    Average Words per Review
    420
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps)
    Horizon View
    Learn More
    Overview

    Enable secure, flexible work with the leader in virtual apps and desktops

    Deliver desktop as a service (DaaS) from any cloud or datacenter

    Get started with Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) in minutes to provide a familiar, high-performance digital workspace experience to your users. We’ll manage the infrastructure and security. You focus on your business.

    VMware Horizon View is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution that helps organizations to provide virtual machines and applications to end-users that can be run on a variety of devices. With Horizon View, organizations are able to provide remote access to desktops, improve their security and compliance, and significantly reduce the costs and complexities of physical hardware management.

    Horizon View has an intuitive central management area for all virtual devices, which enables image creation and management, management of users, and access control. Horizon View users have the flexibility that allows them to access their virtual desktops and applications from any type of device and from any location.

    The solution has enhanced security abilities, including built-in encryption and secure communication between the devices and the virtual machines. These security measures help ensure the safety of sensitive data, even if the data is accessed from a non-secure device.

    Benefits of VMware Horizon View

    VMware Horizon View provides its users with several key benefits, including:


    • Enhanced security: VMware Horizon View’s virtual desktops are run from a secure data center, which reduces the risk of data loss or attacks.


    • High performance: Experience high levels of performance and stability, even with low-bandwidth connections.


    • Flexibility: Horizon View virtual machines can run on a wide range of devices, including laptops, smartphones, and tablets. Users are able to access their virtual desktops from any location.


    • Centralized management: Create and manage all of your virtual desktops from a single location.


    • Scalability: Scale your virtual machines up and down depending on your usage.


    • Reduced costs: Eliminate the usage of physical desktops and reduce hardware, maintenance, and energy costs.


    • Simple deployments: Horizon View automates the deployment and configuration of virtual desktops, making it faster and easier to roll out virtual desktops to users.


    VMware Horizon View features

    Some of Horizon View’s top features include:



    • Load balancing: Improve performance and stability by balancing workloads across multiple servers.


    • User management and access control: Create and manage user profiles, including their saved data and settings across virtual desktops. Control user access to virtual desktops based on multiple factors.


    • Multimedia optimization: Improve the performance of your applications that use audio and video by optimizing multimedia playback for virtual desktops.


    • Virtual application and machine sharing: Create and share pools of virtual desktops and applications between users, making them easy to maintain and manage.


    • Customizations: Enables IT to customize the user environment, including the desktop background, shortcuts, and start menu, to meet the needs of different users or departments.


    Reviews from Real Users

    VMware Horizon View stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, powerful performance, and virtualizing capabilities.

    David G., a systems engineer at a tech services company, writes, “This product is great for desktop management. It enables you to update one golden image, save it and basically deploy it... It makes management a lot easier. There's also the huge savings. We've (used) it with the pandemic because everybody had to work from home. Even if there weren't enough laptops to go around, almost everybody has a home computer. It was just a matter of installing Horizon on your home computer and connecting to the office using two-factor authentication. They made it really simple.”

    Sample Customers
    Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval
    Amway, Hertz International, Metro Health, North Carolina State University, Ottawa International Airport, Revlon, and Whirlpool.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Insurance Company8%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company13%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Government13%
    Computer Software Company13%
    University10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company12%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government9%
    Healthcare Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise63%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business49%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise64%
    Buyer's Guide
    Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. VMware Horizon View
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. VMware Horizon View and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,415 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    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 Citrix Workspace, Amazon Appstream, Amazon WorkSpaces, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS), 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.

    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.