We performed a comparison between Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) and Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Application Virtualization solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Relative to other solutions, Citrix has fewer conditions and fewer parameters. Citrix also provides some flexibility because it can be used on any device."
"The installation and maintenance are good."
"It has improved delivering applications to remote locations with its lower bandwidth utilization."
"XenDesktop has helped our users to work remotely with a better user experience."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is how secure the solution is."
"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 most valuable feature has to be the non-persistent desktop. If one of my users messes something up and blows away their desktop, it goes back to what it was originally, before they had an issue."
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"Ease of use in publishing apps and installing the agent. The Interface is fairly intuitive after some tinkering. Although I inherited the app only two-thirds deployed, I was able to complete the deployment and service it over the last year without referring to any documentation."
"The most valuable feature is the ease with which you can publish applications to different groups of users, by integrating with Windows Active Directory."
"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 is a stable solution."
"Valuable features include the ability to set up security groups for accessing certain apps, and the ability to add apps easily and centrally without touching the servers they’re hosted on."
"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."
"Client compatibility with many systems makes it very versatile. The reporting that is included is awesome."
"Setup was straightforward. Our particular use case involved an Active Directory forest involving two data centers and three domains. User authentication against Active Directory was the easiest to set up and validate of any application installed in the last three years."
"I think improvement around the Analytics piece is super important. There has been a lot of maturity over the last year in that area, though a lot more needs to be done. Also, a lot more of the value of those Analytics needs to be sold to end users. Citrix is working on a lot of things that are ahead of the curve and a lot of organizations aren't quite there yet with implementing those technologies and capabilities."
"Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help."
"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 initial setup has room for improvement."
"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are not easy to set up. However, I have the experience and I can do it easily. It could be easier to set up."
"The support offered by Citrix's partner needs to improve. The partner support platform should aim to provide more technical information to users."
"Our experience of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is good, but the environment can become complex and difficult to manage at times."
"They need to adapt more quickly to the latest additions to the Microsoft operating system. If Windows 10 comes out with a new version, there are compatibility issues and it takes them a lot of time to release an update."
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"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."
"From a seller's point of view, there are a lot of things that they could do better in the sales cycle."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The product does not utilize SQL for reporting purposes. Also, it does not support some hypervisors similar to Citrix. These particular areas need improvement."
"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)."
"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."
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More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is ranked 1st in Application Virtualization with 25 reviews while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 5th in Application Virtualization with 3 reviews. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is rated 8.4, while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) writes "Enables secure delivery of applications and data, features exceptional stability over the Internet and handles demanding tasks like video playback, AutoCAD, and 3D image rendering smoothly". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is most compared with VMware Horizon View, Citrix Workspace, Amazon Appstream, Amazon WorkSpaces and Microsoft App-V, whereas Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, Citrix Workspace, NVIDIA GRID, VMware Workstation and VMware Horizon View. See our Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) report.
See our list of best Application Virtualization vendors and best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
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