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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Citrix XenServer vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

Application Virtualization Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)26.6%
Microsoft App-V21.9%
Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)16.5%
Other35.0%
Application Virtualization
Server Virtualization Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Citrix XenServer4.8%
Proxmox VE16.7%
VMware vSphere16.5%
Other62.0%
Server Virtualization Software
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Workstation14.5%
VMware Fusion Pro18.6%
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)13.0%
Other53.9%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Jörg Köhler - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting benefits from robust consulting while also recognizing the need for improved disk management
When it comes to optimization, that's one of the weaker points of Citrix XenServer, especially regarding disk management, which is somewhat clumsy. Backup-related issues and disk management should be improved. Especially concerning backup, as discussions with Veeam engineers about Citrix XenServer backup strategy indicate there might not be a solution from Veeam soon. License optimization is not such a significant problem, but licenses are quite complicated. Vendors constantly invent new license models, making it difficult to order the correct licenses needed. There is not a big difference between Citrix and VMware products because Citrix can implement Windows and Linux anyway.
Gary Comorau - PeerSpot reviewer
Creating and destroying test machines has simplified our operations and reduced manual recovery time
The Snapshot feature has helped with workflows by allowing us to more easily reconstruct something if we lose it or need it. We've been making Snapshots on a consistent basis, mainly of servers. The VX Rail has worked effectively because we can create machines as we need them. It's helpful for resetting and has helped with our operations because I had set up failover servers on Vertex, but we don't have to do that anymore since VMware will just create a new machine immediately if we have a problem. We're doing our domain servers on there, and we've been very happy with that. We appreciate that we can create machines simply to test things out and then destroy them. I use it for a test machine for checking emails, so if the email has a virus in it, we can just destroy the machine and create a new one. We're slowly moving into the VMware environment, although the pricing with Broadcom has been a disaster.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Citrix DaaS’s most valuable feature is the virtualization of applications and desktops."
"The most beneficial feature is seamless remote access, particularly for applications rather than full endpoints. Security features include full data encryption and integrated SSL VPN through NetScaler for secure access."
"It has the best remote working features."
"It virtualizes the application on your desktop."
"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 improvement in scalability. Managing multiple OSs centrally doesn't reduce many problems, and the product remains almost on par with its competitors like VMware Vue."
"Instead of pointing to any single feature, I would say the most valuable aspect of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is the overall product itself. Virtualized apps and desktops, in theory and in practice, are very helpful to users."
"The most valuable feature is how secure the solution is."
"The remote desktop feature allows employees to work from home."
"We can easily migrate VMs from one host to another."
"Citrix Hypervisor integrates easily and I can manage the infrastructure better. If I need to take a machine down to expand the hard drive, I do not have to physically be here. I do not need to order new equipment or new hard drives. I can shut it down, increase the drive space and bring it back up."
"This solution allows the end users to clone, start, stop, or remotely control their VMs."
"I find Citrix XenServer valuable for small to medium-sized businesses."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is very fast. It also works very well for physically small servers."
"Citrix XenServer is suitable when working with VDI solutions. It provides essential capabilities and stability, which are crucial."
"Citrix is easy to use and is stable."
"The Snapshot feature has helped with workflows by allowing us to more easily reconstruct something if we lose it or need it."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"We initially intended to work with Hyper-V because we are selling a virtual appliance and thought our customers would want to run that on Hyper-V."
"Technical support is very good."
"VMware Workstation’s most valuable feature is virtualization technology."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
"The solution's technical support team is excellent."
"VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox."
 

Cons

"The product advances really fast. For some customers, we need better backwards compatibility."
"For us, pricing is the most important feature to improve."
"Latency is also a major problem when adopting Citrix for video editing software or 3D editing software, especially editing 4K video or large file size. The Citrix virtualized solution becomes too slow, so we cannot use the VDI."
"Citrix duplicates multiple processes."
"The product is currently not working well in hosting conferencing software like Zoom, Team, and Salon."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"The visibility the solution provides across SaaS, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments, for user and application traffic, is also limited if you do not enable all the services and is based on which services you are utilising. Citrix provides end-to-end visibility based on their services you are utilising."
"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."
"Assigning the order of virtual server startup is not very easy and this can be improved."
"The interface has to be updated."
"The solution would benefit from faster technical support."
"It can be useful to have a web management program because we have to install our client-server. We have to properly manage the host, if we had administration tools through a web interface it would be a benefit."
"While Citrix Hypervisor remains a reliable virtualization platform, several areas could be improved to better meet enterprise needs."
"We'd like them to add more automation to the product."
"The marketing of Citrix lacks effectiveness. Although the product is technically competitive, it is not widely known or used due to poor marketing."
"The manageability of the solution needs improvement. It's an extremely bad product to handle."
"The problem we are facing with stability is that the network adapter causes crashes of the VM when we're using it for developing purposes."
"The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The dashboard can be improved."
"The product could provide the features available in Microsoft Hyper-V."
"They could include official support for macOS virtualization within VMware Workstation."
"I would want to see features included that make deployment easier."
"Eventually, we had to get some licenses with Broadcom, and all the costs went up dramatically to the point where if I had it to do over again, I might have made a different decision."
"The product’s virtual machine data backup feature needs upgrading."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.​"
"In the past, the prices of the product were great. With the acquisition of Citrix by your company, the prices have drastically increased. For my company, it has become a bit of a problem to sell products from Citrix."
"As for the cost, it is neither cheap nor expensive. Personally, I find it quite expensive, especially if you want to add more features. The security features we use include App Protect and Endpoint Protection."
"Citrix is a mid-range cost solution compared to some others out there."
"In terms of pricing with the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, I think it has gotten better over the years. Citrix has found more dynamic ways to be able to revive licensing models that fit many different scenarios that organizations have. We have been able to evolve our own licensing over the years to accommodate our situations between concurrent versus user device licenses. Now, when we move into the Citrix Workspace realm, we definitely have some awesome options there."
"The pricing is a little bit high, but it's good value for the product's stability and efficiency."
"Citrix solutions cost a lot in comparison with competitors, like Azure Virtual Desktop or VMware Horizon. Those solutions cost around 50 to 60 percent less, per month per user, than Citrix."
"A perpetual enterprise license costs approximately $300 USD."
"Citrix Hypervisor can be fairly expensive."
"We migrated from VMware to XenCenter to cut costs."
"There are three editions available and I believe they are perpetual licenses."
"The pricing and licensing is so important. Customers do consider the price seriously."
"We used it only for some desktop licenses, so the pricing is great. We used the free licenses for server virtualization."
"There is a license required to use this solution. You need a license on every server, but the license is more for support than anything else. The cost is not expensive, it is a fraction of the cost of VMware. When you look at the cost overall and features, Citrix Hypervisor has a very attractive offering."
"To subscribe to the paid version with support, it is approximately $6,000 per year."
"There are free and paid versions. The free version is limited in features but not by time limit. The paid version has more features."
"The price of the solution per workstation is approximately 200 Francs annually. We pay a total of 800 francs. Everything is included in the price such as the support."
"The tool is not the cheapest."
"The pricing is a bit steep in my opinion for testing and there are other options."
"The solution’s pricing is moderate."
"VMware is expensive. Licensing can be tricky. For example, I recently had a client running VMware vSphere Essentials and wanted to migrate to a more scalable solution. However, they had no choice but to purchase a completely new license and deploy a completely new instance of VMware."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"The product is expensive."
"With all its support and ease of use, VMware Player's pricing is fair."
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Comparison Review

VL
Jan 13, 2015
vSphere vs. RHEV vs. Hyper-V vs. XenServer
We have used the following functions: 1. Hypervisor: to ensure that the virtual server provide web and email services to the company, thus providing a stable operation a with single sign-on integration of an AD server and vCenter. 2. Network and Storage: centralized data server…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise68
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise18
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

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. ...
What do you like most about Citrix Hypervisor?
The core function enables multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server. This maximizes hardware utili...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Hypervisor?
Licensing with Citrix XenServer is very cost-effective. Organizations save substantial money because competing soluti...
What needs improvement with Citrix Hypervisor?
I would say I would need a self-service portal as an additional feature to see in the future to make it even better.
Which VMware solution would you go with - Workstation or vSphere?
VM Workstation’s setup is so easy, you can use it almost instantly, it works well with Windows and Linux. We like VM ...
What do you like most about VMware Workstation?
The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up.
What needs improvement with VMware Workstation?
The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.
 

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
Hypervisor
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval
U.S. Army Shared Services Center, SoftLayer, Educational Services of America, Independent Bank, and SK Telecom.
Akademiska Hus
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