Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops vs Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
We performed a comparison between Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Many PeerSpot users use Microsoft Remote Desktop Services as it is already embedded into their Microsoft operating systems (at no additional cost) and can scale on demand. The PeerSpot users that work outside of the Microsoft universe choose Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops due to its excellent virtualization capabilities and that it is a mature, reliable solution.
"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."
"Before we adopted a VDI storage solution, our customers' personal information was leaked. This happened a lot. But since we adopted a VDI solution, these kinds of issues have happened rarely."
"Citrix offers a range of products that can be used straight out of the box."
"It provides the flexibility of being used on any device which makes the employee experience better, in terms of ease of use."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is the security and it is easy to work with."
"First of all, the manageability of the applications for publishing is valuable. Second, it is about being able to run the applications on all main platforms. Third, its licensing is valuable. You can either switch to the cloud and keep on-prem. You can work with this hybrid scenario."
"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."
"This is a very stable solution which you can feel confident using."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pros →
"The most valuable part of RDS is that it allows you to work from any location and check the server through a VPN connection."
"Installing Microsoft Desktop Services is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is that it scales well."
"The installation is straightforward."
"The solution is scalable."
"It works fine, and it is largely issue-free."
"Things can be made easier if someone is not with us or at a long distance since we can connect easily with those people. So, it's easy for us to use such features."
"The initial setup is not that difficult. I have gone through the RDS initialization steps, which only seem easy."
"The visibility the solution provides across SaaS, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments, for user and application traffic, is also limited if you do not enable all the services and is based on which services you are utilising. Citrix provides end-to-end visibility based on their services you are utilising."
"Our experience of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is good, but the environment can become complex and difficult to manage at times."
"The support offered by Citrix's partner needs to improve. The partner support platform should aim to provide more technical information to users."
"My only issue with Citrix is that they frequently rebrand their products. I'm using the app and everything is fine but after a couple of years, it's entirely different. There were an enormous number of Citrix tools readily available. My immediate concern was selecting the correct ones."
"Pricing and technical support need improvement."
"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."
"Pricing and technical support needs improvement."
"As an end-to-end solution for implementing Zero Trust principles I would rate it a six or a seven out of 10, because it doesn't cover all aspects of Zero Trust. There are quite a few aspects you need to cover."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Cons →
"My customers are worried that the RDP protocol can be easily compromised and would like the option to use an alternative like Blast."
"Lacks a notification feature when internet is down."
"We'd like them to continue to improve on security."
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services needs to improve its security."
"There could be some improvement in the integration of the solution."
"The pricing could be better."
"We are searching for a product with better remote access and remote sessions."
"We've had issues with security breaches."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Pricing and Cost Advice →
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is ranked 3rd in Remote Access with 90 reviews while Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is ranked 2nd in Remote Access with 76 reviews. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Remote Desktop Services 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 Microsoft Remote Desktop Services writes "Easy to set up and reliable, but needs an additional control panel". Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is most compared with Amazon Appstream, VMware Horizon View, Citrix Workspace, Amazon WorkSpaces and Apache Guacamole, whereas Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is most compared with TeamViewer, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace, VMware Workstation and OpenText Exceed TurboX. See our Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services report.
See our list of best Remote Access vendors and best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
We monitor all Remote Access 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.
