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.
"It provides all of the features required for the protection of data. For example, we don't want to allow any copy/paste of data to an outside environment, and we are able to restrict the VDI to not allow any data transfer from the VDI to the local laptop's hard drives. That is one of the greatest advantages the solution provides."
"XenApp is a fast, secure and reliable solution for remote connections that is completely different than and superior to older Windows solutions."
"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."
"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."
"It has improved delivering applications to remote locations with its lower bandwidth utilization."
"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 app protection feature is one of the most valuable because it provides good security, as nobody is going to be able to look into your screen while you are sharing the screen. And if someone has installed a keylogger in your system, your keystrokes will be jumbled up and they would not make any sense to the keylogger. App protection is one of the coolest security features that I have encountered on any platform."
"The architecture I built had a robust failover mechanism for the endpoints, and the interface was user-friendly."
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"The solution has good performance and functionality. However, if the network connection was poor we noticed a decrease in performance."
"VMware Horizon View is a stable solution."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"VMware's technical support is good."
"The solution's most valuable aspect is the VDI - the remote virtual desktop interface."
"The most valuable features are that it is easy to use and easy to manage."
"The most valuable features are Instant Clones and AppStacks."
"It has improved our business because now we can run applications and it's easier for our students to do their exams."
"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."
"The product’s customization feature needs improvement."
"The speed and connectivity of Citrix DaaS could be improved."
"Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help."
"Using the app layering feature can be quite difficult and cumbersome."
"There have been many issues with stability."
"If anything could be improved, it might be some of the Director functionality, and some of the dashboard customization, or the overall Director customization."
"We would like to be able to provide VDI, a full desktop, to each of our users."
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"Technical support could be better and faster."
"The solution must be faster and smoother."
"Deployment and configuration could be simplified."
"Horizon View's pricing is high."
"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."
"Sometimes, the protocol itself gets a bit laggy. If you have less than optimal switching and routing, it can get kind of laggy."
"User profiles are something that needs to be improved."
"The initial setup is a little complicated."
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 3rd 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.
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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.