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Amazon Appstream vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) comparison

 

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)
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
127
Ranking in other categories
Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (4th), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon Appstream is 22.8%, up from 22.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 30.7%, down from 31.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

RH
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.
Grant Waddell - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly and easily accessible, but cost could be made cheaper
We use Citrix Workspace on Citrix Cloud. We have all of our servers on the AWS public cloud. There are a number of tools that we can implement that would save us costs. However, we've stuck to Citrix for convenience. If the prices keep increasing, we will have to consider other solutions. Users need to understand the tool's limitations correctly and what they require from a usability perspective. They should also understand the configuration of security policies. In some cases, people are unable to download or upload files onto their PCs, which is necessary for them to do their work. Users should understand the limitations of the product or the configuration options. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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 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."
"Getting access to the applications for which we otherwise have to be on-site is probably the biggest advantage"
"Remote work has been enhanced"
"The architecture I built had a robust failover mechanism for the endpoints, and the interface was user-friendly."
"Ability to connect remotely."
"It allows us to mute users who adhere to a policy of not allowing direct VPN access for security reasons. It is easy to use."
"This is a very stable solution which you can feel confident using."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix Workspace is its security."
 

Cons

"You might experience some performance issues, such as delays in data retrieval."
"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."
"The initial setup has room for improvement."
"It would help if it were a little simpler. It's a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution."
"The price is currently high, and having tiered pricing would benefit companies."
"Dependency on server virtualization after v7.x is an issue which I encountered in small environments."
"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."
"Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help."
"Citrix Workforce is good, but it needs improvement in diagnosing network issues. When errors occur, it is difficult to determine if they're due to network issues, Workspace issues, or environment issues"
"The initial setup is complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We are just now approaching the end of our initial purchase, which was an excellent price for us as an academic institution. We got a very good deal to get us on board. That license is up for renewal in about a year, and we are nervously waiting to see what the pricing will be."
"The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.​"
"Citrix is expensive."
"The solution is affordable."
"A perpetual enterprise license costs approximately $300 USD."
"The price of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is approximately $300 for the new version called Dash and the license is approximately $900 annually."
"We recouped 60 to 70 percent of the hardware costs."
"My company opts for the yearly subscription model to pay towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 do you like most about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
I have found that Citrix DaaS is still a complex product, especially on the desktop side, which affects scalability. Although it works well on the apps side, the desktop aspect still has room for i...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Appstream 2.0, Appstream, Appstream 2.0
XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
 

Interactive Demo

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SolidWorks, EVARI, MathWorks, AVENA, Vanguard, Macquarie University
Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Appstream vs. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.