No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon Appstream vs Amazon WorkSpaces comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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)
4th
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 September 2026, in the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon Appstream is 8.0%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 13.2%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon WorkSpaces13.2%
Amazon Appstream8.0%
Other78.8%
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
Billing complexities affect financial predictability and resource optimization facilitates strategic use
Whenever there is an issue or incident that happens with the server part, I will provide support We are using Amazon WorkSpaces for some tools and testing purposes. We utilize the Workspace for running long-term scripting tasks. I have used the persistent storage feature for users in Amazon…

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."
"We can work remotely using the solution."
"The best thing about Amazon WorkSpaces is the security it provides."
"It has good speed and connects well with computers."
"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."
"They maintain it and manage it very well."
"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."
"The infrastructure is readily available, with minimal latency, which each user can benefit from."
"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."
 

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."
"You cannot install external applications without doing some additional configurations inside the solution as opposed to your normal desktop or laptop."
"The solution lacks a shadow mode option, and it needs to have it."
"If they had a cheaper option for graphics pro, I think that it would be beneficial and I would use it."
"Configuration was a bit complicated at first but manageable."
"I am not satisfied with the billing part because sometimes it bills for huge usage we are not aware of when we trigger every EC2 instance or every RDS instance."
"Its features for the hardware version could work faster."
"I would say that it is a little complex to configure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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"
"We need to spend some amount for the support. Without money, they won't respond."
"I think that the price can be lower. We have cases where the customer needs to have lower costs. So since we don't have options, like, shadow mode, they need to decrease pricing or have other models for reduced pricing."
"Price-wise Amazon Workspaces is cheaper than most services available."
"The bundle works out to be approximately $20.00 per month."
"It is very expensive."
"The solution is not very cheap and it is not too pricey."
"The tool's pricing depends on company turnover and the organization's relationship with Amazon. I rate it a six out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solutions are best for your needs.
911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
Performing Arts
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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

What needs improvement with Amazon Appstream?
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 you...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Appstream?
I personally don't use the tool. I am not a consumer of it. I basically designed it. I work for an IT company and have designed and implemented Amazon Appstream and Workspace in many organizations....
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: August 2026.
911,994 professionals have used our research since 2012.