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Amazon WorkSpaces vs Horizon Cloud Service comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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 WorkSpaces
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
9th
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Horizon Cloud Service
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
11th
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 2.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 4.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon WorkSpaces2.6%
Horizon Cloud Service4.2%
Other93.2%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Sachin Narvekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead, AWS at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Migration to cloud for secure and shared workspaces enhances productivity
There could be an end-to-end tool similar to AWS Transform that helps from assessment to migration. A single orchestrator tool could assist with discovery, implementation, and image building for Amazon WorkSpaces. 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.
SivaKuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at Wipro Limited
Centralized management enhances multi-cloud flexibility with cost efficiency improvements
The cost of Horizon Cloud Service is high, however, it could be optimized. The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help. Improvements in application performance, especially for resource-heavy applications like intensive 3D workloads, are needed. More built-in automation for routine tasks like patching and upgrading could reduce administrative effort.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The infrastructure is readily available, with minimal latency, which each user can benefit from."
"We can work remotely using the solution."
"Performance and scalability are valuable features."
"The most valuable features are easy provisioning, an active directory, and mobile access."
"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."
"Security, streaming, faster performance, scalability, and the fact that it is very much cost-effective, are some of the solution's valuable features."
"The product is easy to access. You can access the solution from anywhere at any time."
"Amazon WorkSpaces offers several best features including ease of access, security, scalability, anywhere access, and device flexibility."
"Its advanced management features are the most valuable, especially power management. One of the really important things was to be able to have power management in a consumption world. This means that unlike a Microsoft environment, you could actually turn off virtual desktops or have them start up and shut down. If you're consuming resources in the public cloud, you want to be able to do that because when you're not using those, such as at the weekend, you want to be able to turn them off. So, the advanced options for managing the BDIs are very important."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."
"The tool remains pretty stable."
"The product’s on-premise version has the ability to create an image of any updates or changes in the system."
"From the scalability perspective, that's one of the great things, because even with the basic setup, which has essentially very few components, you can run 10,000 desktops straight off the bat."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is easy to use and the full development cloud is very good."
"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is the ability to manage a great number of desktops at once and the remote access for users that are working from outside of the office or from different offices in the country."
 

Cons

"The agent sometimes has connectivity issues, but otherwise, it's good."
"There is always scope of improvement in the stability."
"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."
"One area that can be improved is the ability to install third-party apps."
"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."
"If they had a cheaper option for graphics pro, I think that it would be beneficial and I would use it."
"Its features for the hardware version could work faster."
"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."
"It is too expensive as compared to other solutions because of which we don't use it that much."
"Our technical support of VMware is good, but the main problem is it takes a lot of time."
"There should be more emphasis on the Workspace One access part of the solution."
"The product has a lot of bugs."
"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"In the design phase, sometimes the tools for designing Horizon solutions have issues when they're calculating the number of nodes and platforms needed to support the VDI systems."
"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."
"The cost of Horizon Cloud Service is high, however, it could be optimized. The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is not very cheap and it is not too pricey."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is very expensive."
"Price-wise Amazon Workspaces is cheaper than most services available."
"The tool's pricing depends on company turnover and the organization's relationship with Amazon. I rate it a six out of ten."
"There are several different options available, but it can range anywhere from $85 to $150 a month per machine."
"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."
"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."
"For what you get, it is very compelling. You've got to look at the total cost of ownership of this type of piece of software in terms of being able to utilize it as a cloud service. I don't have to run everything on-premises. When you look at the total cost of just being able to use it and then being able to point it to any public or private cloud, it is very compelling. You have one less thing to manage."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is a low-cost solution. The model that they have is consumption-based. However, some features are expensive."
"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."
"It is too expensive as compared to other solutions because of which we don't use it that much. We tend to go more for Hyper-V or Azure just because VMware licensing is quite up there. We sway people away from VMware Horizon Cloud. We have some clients who already have it. They stay on it for a little while, and then most of them end up moving off when we provide them a better solution that isn't as license heavy cost-wise."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon Cloud?
The cost is considered normal, not remarkable but not outrageous. In terms of expense, compared to other virtualization products, I would rate it as a six.
What needs improvement with VMware Horizon Cloud?
The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices. Horizon Cloud Service should continue improving their protocol and work with other h...
What is your primary use case for VMware Horizon Cloud?
Our primary use case focuses on virtual desktop and application hosting. This is spread across different industries. We have a large number of employees, and we are one of the largest GSIs globally...
 

Also Known As

WorkSpaces
VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Marriott, Sprint
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Horizon Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.