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Amazon Appstream vs Amazon WorkSpaces comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Appstream
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
5th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon WorkSpaces
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon Appstream is 7.8%, down from 21.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 13.1%, down from 17.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon WorkSpaces13.1%
Amazon Appstream7.8%
Other79.1%
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

RH
Presales Solutions Architect at Wipro Limited
Offers good performance, efficiency, and network
There is also a way in the tool for retaining customers' favorites, but it is not available natively. When you log in to your desktop, on the desktop or laptop that you are working on, you have your favorites, you have your document repository, like your documents, your personal documents that you have on your computer. I saw that there was no native way of retaining those in a non-persistent desktop. The end-user has to perform dual authentication. One is for AWS authentication, and the other used to be for Active Directory, so it is a little problematic for the end users, as it is a double work for them. I don't know if the tool has lately dealt with the area of dual authentication or not.
JiteshRathod - PeerSpot reviewer
Expert Engineer at Apexon
Remote teams have gained secure, consistent test environments and onboarding stays streamlined
Desired improvements for Amazon WorkSpaces include faster and more flexible image updates, incremental image updates, patch-only updates, and a much faster push of software configuration changes to all workspaces, as well as improved cursor shutters and remote screen jitter. Amazon WorkSpaces can sometimes function as a black box, making it difficult to diagnose why a workspace is slow on any given day due to limited visibility into network latency from the client, real-time CPU and GPU utilization, and storage bottlenecks. Improvements are needed for built-in performance dashboards, clearer latency metrics, connection health reports, and root cause suggestions that distinguish between local network and VPC issues.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The tool is good from a latency, efficiency, and network point of view."
"Some companies use applications like Word or Excel, and they can leverage cloud services to optimize their hardware consumption."
"The best thing about Amazon WorkSpaces is the security it provides."
"They maintain it and manage it very well."
"I recommend it, definitely, as it is a very flexible solution, scalable, and easy to use, and you can use it from any device, whether you have an iPad, a laptop, a Mac, or Windows, on every platform that supports Google Chrome."
"The initial setup is simple."
"The experience is seamless and there is no delay. The performance is very good. Initial startup times is a little bit of wait time, but it is bearable."
"Persistent storage helps to maintain consistency and data availability across sessions."
"The best feature is that it operates very quickly. It depends on the regional location. If we choose a nearby location, nearby servers, it will be best for users to use."
"For anyone looking at the solution, I can say that it is a good solution and within well-defined price ranges, and a very scalable one."
 

Cons

"The end-user has to perform dual authentication...it is a little problematic for the end users, as it is a double work for them."
"You might experience some performance issues, such as delays in data retrieval."
"O365 and other Microsoft products can become problematic at times, and there are some network health-related issues that appear occasionally regarding functionality inside Amazon WorkSpaces."
"Its features for the hardware version could work faster."
"There is always scope of improvement in the stability."
"Amazon WorkSpaces needs to improve on releasing the most number of patches immediately as quickly as possible. And they need to enable more USB options to connect a mobile phone to that particular workspace."
"The solution lacks a shadow mode option, and it needs to have it."
"Configuration was a bit complicated at first but manageable."
"Amazon WorkSpaces can sometimes function as a black box, making it difficult to diagnose why a workspace is slow on any given day due to limited visibility into network latency from the client, real-time CPU and GPU utilization, and storage bottlenecks."
"The agent sometimes has connectivity issues, but otherwise, it's good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Price-wise Amazon Workspaces is cheaper than most services available."
"The pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make."
"It is very expensive."
"We need to spend some amount for the support. Without money, they won't respond."
"They have hourly and monthly pricing, and because our use case is, more of a sporadic use, so I go for hourly pricing. Again, the details of the pricing is handled by the procurement. From an end user perspective, pay as you use hourly is suitable"
"There are several different options available, but it can range anywhere from $85 to $150 a month per machine."
"The solution is not very cheap and it is not too pricey."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a two."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
6%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Performing Arts
14%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon WorkSpaces?
For Amazon WorkSpaces pricing, I think it is affordable; it is a final decision made through the management part. I am not satisfied with the billing part because sometimes it bills for huge usage ...
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkSpaces?
Desired improvements for Amazon WorkSpaces include faster and more flexible image updates, incremental image updates, patch-only updates, and a much faster push of software configuration changes to...
What is your primary use case for Amazon WorkSpaces?
Amazon WorkSpaces is used to provide a consistent environment for remote workers for testing purposes. Software testing is typically run on those desktops.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Appstream 2.0, Appstream, Appstream 2.0
WorkSpaces
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SolidWorks, EVARI, MathWorks, AVENA, Vanguard, Macquarie University
GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Appstream vs. Amazon WorkSpaces and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,383 professionals have used our research since 2012.