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

Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

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Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkSpaces

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

8th

Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

3rd

Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

124

Ranking in other categories

Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 0.7%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 10.3%, down from 14.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Featured Reviews

Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Jun 3, 2024

Management console is very easy to use, readily available infrastructure and easy to scale

It's very stable. There is a big difference between traditional physical servers and cloud servers. With physical servers, we need to plan for purchasing, procurement, capacity, storage, get quotations, and then procure them. That took some time. Maybe it would take more than one month or maybe two months to procure and then install. With AWS, it is readily available. Just pay and immediately create the VPC, network, and everything. It is very easy. Within two or three hours, we can implement any server or launch any application. Within five minutes, we can just spin up and publish our servers on the Internet.

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DavidWood1

Senior Infrastructure Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Mar 16, 2023

Flexible Deployment, reliable performance, and fast transmission speeds

Provisioning Server is a fantastic option for image management in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. It offers excellent performance and reliability. On the other hand, while Machine Creation Services can be scaled easily, they can significantly increase storage consumption. For instance, creating a Windows 10 image in MCS typically requires at least 80 GB of storage, in addition to any separate disks needed. To store changes made by users in Machine Creation Services, the differencing disk must be equal in size to the base disk, leading to significant storage consumption. On the other hand, Provisioning Server uses image versioning, creating a new image version every time it's modified. As a result, virtual machines streamed from the server revert to their original state after a reboot, which is similar to their state during the first boot. Using the provisioning server, I start by configuring a virtual machine with either a 2016 or 2019 server operating system. I install the necessary Citrix client provisioning server target device software, followed by installing the required applications. After that, I capture the entire configuration to a file share. The image is then streamed from the file share to the hypervisor, which can handle multiple machines. In some large-scale deployments, we have used a single image to provision thousands of servers. Once the image is captured and stored on the file share, it is set to read-only mode, and any changes made to it are not accepted until it is put in read-write mode. When a virtual machine is rebooted, it returns to its previous state before the changes were made. This feature can be beneficial in situations like a virus outbreak, where a simple reboot of the virtual machines can remove any malicious code or changes. A provisioning server offers a faster recovery time from a bad change and is generally faster than machine creation services. With the provisioning server, changes are not accepted until the read-write mode is enabled, and if a virus outbreak occurs, rebooting the machines restores them to the previous state. On the other hand, machine creation services' speed is dependent on the storage's speed, and recovery time from a bad change can take longer, especially with a large number of devices. If a bad change is made with machine creation services, the replication process can take a while to revert, whereas, with a provisioning server, all machines can be rebooted quickly. Within thirty minutes, I can restore my system to its previous state using the provisioning server.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has good speed and connects well with computers."

"Security, streaming, faster performance, scalability, and the fact that it is very much cost-effective, are some of the solution's valuable features."

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"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."

"The product is easy to access. You can access the solution from anywhere at any time."

"The tool has low latency and multimedia support. For instance, running Zoom calls on Amazon WorkSpaces seamlessly supports local microphones, speakers, and web cameras. This feature is transparent for applications, allowing me to use the Zoom application without requiring exceptional support for remote web cameras or microphones. Amazon WorkSpaces provides this functionality at the operating system level, enabling effortless video conferencing. To my knowledge, Microsoft Remote Desktop does not offer the same support."

"The most valuable feature is the mobility. I can use it anywhere."

"They maintain it and manage it very well."

More Amazon WorkSpaces pros

"ICA/HDX optimization policies."

"XenApp is a fast, secure and reliable solution for remote connections that is completely different than and superior to older Windows solutions."

"The most valuable feature of Citrix Workspace is its security."

"The tool helps me to connect with some apps of our company and resolve the tickets."

"It provides all of the features required for the protection of data. For example, we don't want to allow any copy/paste of data to an outside environment, and we are able to restrict the VDI to not allow any data transfer from the VDI to the local laptop's hard drives. That is one of the greatest advantages the solution provides."

"Troubleshooting Citrix is pretty straightforward."

"The ease of access and the confidentiality and security that it provides is what we like best."

"Because of the solution's ubiquity, it is easier to find answers to problems than with competitive products."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) pros

Cons

"One area that can be improved is the ability to install third-party apps."

"Its features for the hardware version could work faster."

"Configuration was a bit complicated at first but manageable."

"There is always scope of improvement in the stability."

"If they had a cheaper option for graphics pro, I think that it would be beneficial and I would use it."

"The speed and performance are not always the greatest. It can be improved."

"I would say that it is a little complex to configure."

"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."

More Amazon WorkSpaces cons

"Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help."

"There are many latency and slowness issues, which are things looked after by Citrix."

"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"

"In the bank, a major part of all our applications is Microsoft App-V. If App-V is at end of life, then we need a new technology to replace it. As of today, I haven't seen in Citrix Studio that there is a new technology embedded directly in it to replace App-V."

"I have noticed that the current compatibility issue with the latest version of Windows 11 is a concern for me and my client. While the client has support for Windows 11, it appears that the Citrix Workspace is only compatible with Windows 10, which does not support the newest version. This is an area that I believe could be improved upon."

"Our experience of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is good, but the environment can become complex and difficult to manage at times."

"There is room for slight improvement in performance optimization and interface refinement."

"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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Price-wise Amazon Workspaces is cheaper than most services available."

"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."

"The tool's pricing depends on company turnover and the organization's relationship with Amazon. I rate it a six out of ten."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a two."

"There are several different options available, but it can range anywhere from $85 to $150 a month per machine."

"The pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make."

"The solution is expensive."

More Amazon WorkSpaces pricing and cost advice

"They offer licensing per user. From time to time, they give discounts. Because it's a hybrid model, you can deploy some portion of it on cloud and some portion your on-prem."

"The licensing is $125 USD per user."

"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is an expensive solution."

"The cost of the Citrix software reflects what I would expect a product of that nature, in that market, to be. Understanding the licensing is quite a bit more complicated, because one of the things about Citrix is that you can buy licensing at different levels... Yet I still like the idea because it means that if all you need is a basic load balancing solution, then you don't need to buy an advanced or premium license."

"The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a four out of ten."

"The pricing is a little bit high, but it's good value for the product's stability and efficiency."

"It's my understanding that the solution license fee for each user is around $300 US. If we buy a personal laptop for each employee every five years, then the total cost is five times $300 US, or $1,500 USD. So we could buy 100 personal laptops instead of the Citrix solution."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Government

14%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon WorkSpaces?

Performance and scalability are valuable features.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon WorkSpaces?

The pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make. The investment is almost the same as having your own on-premises solution, with the added costs of ...

What needs improvement with Amazon WorkSpaces?

There is always scope of improvement in the stability.

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...

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Product Reports

Amazon WorkSpaces

Download Amazon WorkSpaces product report

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Download Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) product report

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) report

Also Known As

WorkSpaces

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

Learn More

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Citrix

Overview

Amazon WorkSpaces is a fully managed desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) solution provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It allows users to access a virtual desktop environment in the cloud from various devices, including laptops, tablets, and thin clients.

With Amazon WorkSpaces, users can have a complete desktop experience with their familiar applications and data, while the underlying infrastructure and management tasks are handled by AWS. The virtual desktops provided by Amazon WorkSpaces are persistent, meaning that user data and settings are retained even when disconnected from the virtual desktop.

Amazon WorkSpaces Features:

Desktop Experience: Provides a complete Windows or Linux desktop experience for users.
Device Flexibility: Accessible from various devices such as computers, tablets, and thin clients.
Managed Service: AWS manages infrastructure, updates, patches, and backups.
Flexible Scaling: Easily scale the number of virtual desktops based on needs.
Security and Compliance: Built-in security features and compliance capabilities.
Cost-Effective: Pay-as-you-go pricing model for optimized cost management.
Integration with AWS Services: Seamlessly integrates with other AWS services.
User Profile Management: Supports saving and applying user-specific settings.
Application Compatibility: Supports a wide range of applications.

Amazon WorkSpaces Benefits:

Flexible Accessibility: Users can access their virtual desktops from various devices, providing flexibility and mobility.
Simplified Management: AWS manages the underlying infrastructure, reducing the burden of desktop management for organizations.
Scalability: Easily scale the number of virtual desktops up or down based on business needs, accommodating workforce changes.
Enhanced Security: Built-in security features and compliance capabilities ensure data protection and regulatory compliance.
Cost Savings: Pay-as-you-go pricing eliminates upfront infrastructure costs, allowing organizations to optimize their desktop infrastructure expenses.
Integration with AWS Services: Seamlessly integrate with other AWS services for enhanced functionality and capabilities.
User-Friendly Experience: Offers a familiar desktop environment with customizable settings and application compatibility.

Reviews from Real Users

Sachin Narvekar, IT-IS LEAD at Tata Consultancy, writes that "Amazon WorkSpaces is a virtual desktop platform. So, instead of having your laptops, and desktops, you can have your data on the cloud.”, he also adds, "Security, streaming, faster performance, scalability, and the fact that it is very much cost-effective, are some of the solution's valuable features."

Ravi-Bhardwaj, Manager at Ravi RITS Enterprice, states that “The solution has improved the organization because now any user who doesn't have a corporate laptop can connect to the system, security is still high, and it uses very low bandwidth.”

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Sample Customers

GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services

Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval

Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)