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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Horizon 8 vs Workspace ONE UEM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Citrix DaaS offers cost savings and efficiency with enhanced security and remote access, benefiting larger implementations despite high initial costs.
Sentiment score
7.1
Users report positive ROI with Horizon 8 through reduced hardware needs, better efficiency, and cost savings in administration.
Sentiment score
7.0
Users generally experience returns from Workspace ONE UEM through security, cost savings, and compliance, despite increased costs for some.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Citrix DaaS customer service is generally well-rated, though technical support experiences vary based on location and individual expectations.
Sentiment score
5.8
Horizon 8 support is praised for proficiency but faces concerns about delays, complexity, and off-hours accessibility.
Sentiment score
6.0
Workspace ONE UEM support receives mixed reviews, highlighting quick responses but also delays and inconsistent initial resolutions.
The first level often wastes time because I usually have to escalate to an engineer for proper support.
Citrix support is better than Microsoft support.
The support team is helpful and offers assistance.
Our support from VMware expired last December.
It is not poor support, but it is not perfect support we're getting right now; it is not an immediate solution, and it may take two or three days.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Citrix DaaS is highly scalable, allowing seamless deployment and integration across platforms, with efficient adaptability to increased demands.
Sentiment score
8.2
Horizon 8 offers exceptional scalability and adaptability but requires technical expertise and may encounter budget constraints for large deployments.
Sentiment score
7.7
Workspace ONE UEM scales effectively, integrating smoothly with cloud environments, though complexities arise in larger on-premises setups.
It supports over 100 apps and 20,000 users in our organization, demonstrating impressive scalability.
Citrix DaaS offers vast scalability options as workloads can be deployed across multiple data centers like Azure, Google, or AWS.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Citrix DaaS is stable and reliable, excelling with proper configuration and management, ensuring minimal downtime and strong performance.
Sentiment score
7.9
VMware Horizon 8 is stable with few issues, with ratings between 8-9, but requires strong infrastructure and proper configuration.
Sentiment score
7.6
VMware Workspace ONE UEM is stable and reliable, with the cloud version outperforming competitors despite some setup challenges.
Citrix DaaS allows for satisfactory stability by facilitating workload deployment in various data centers including Azure, Google, or AWS.
Especially with the integration of NVIDIA, we experience multiple problems including crashing applications, crashing desktops, spontaneous logoffs, black screens, and systems that no longer respond or cannot reconnect.
 

Room For Improvement

Citrix DaaS needs improvements in performance, user experience, integration, support, pricing flexibility, and administrative tools for better efficiency.
Horizon 8 needs better pricing, integrations, documentation, Linux support, analytics, security, NVIDIA integration, and simplified deployment.
Workspace ONE UEM requires improvements in reporting, interface simplicity, support speed, pricing, platform consistency, integration, and security features.
More direct access to engineers would speed up resolution.
Creating App-V applications is not an easy task and could take from hours to weeks without success.
I would like to see improvements in Horizon 8, specifically integration with NVIDIA for graphical performance upgrades because it creates many issues such as crashing and black screen systems, causing users to lose access to their current desktop and work.
We have limited capabilities since we are not using a multi-instance solution, just single instances.
Another concern is that support is getting reduced by Workspace ONE; some customers are saying there are support issues on Workspace ONE right now.
 

Setup Cost

Citrix DaaS is premium-priced, offering robust features, but its complex, costly licensing faces competition from VMware and Microsoft.
Horizon 8 pricing is high but may offer long-term savings and value, especially with bundled options.
VMware Workspace ONE UEM is seen as premium with flexible pricing, competitive due to features, but costs can increase.
Citrix DaaS is considered expensive, especially for companies that do not require multi-cloud.
I rate the cost-effectiveness of GenApp of Citrix equal to our CMS; it is quite cost-effective.
After VMware was bought by Broadcom, the pricing was ridiculous, but now that Onmises has VMware Horizon 8, the pricing is back to an acceptable level.
 

Valuable Features

Citrix DaaS offers seamless remote access with quick deployment, high security, and optimized management, enhancing productivity and user satisfaction.
Horizon 8 offers centralized management, rapid provisioning, seamless remote access, strong security, and efficient scalability for virtual desktops.
Workspace ONE UEM provides efficient device management, security, and integration with user-friendly multi-platform support and centralized administration.
The scalability of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is impressive, supporting over 100 apps and a user base of 20,000 within our organization.
With Citrix, all connections are outgoing, minimizing firewall vulnerability.
The solution has data leak prevention features that ensure data is not copied from the base machine to VDI.
From a security point of view, security in Horizon 8 is one of the main points in keeping the system resources from the company away from bad actors. You can keep the desktops completely isolated, and you don't need to share your file shares or database with the end-user system.
In UEM, the most helpful part of Windows Management is the baseline policy and central script; using this, you can replace all the AD GPO policy.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 12.8%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon 8 is 7.5%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Workspace ONE UEM is 2.4%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Muhammad JunaidJawed - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps ensure data leaks do not occur from the base machine to VDI while multi-instance capabilities remain limited
I have been using Horizon for two years. It provides my DevOps team access to PAM and server through the provider The solution has helped ensure data leaks do not occur from the base machine to VDI, and it saves data through API copyright. The solution has data leak prevention features that…
Ajit Pratap Kundan - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool that needs to improve scalability but is useful to manage user
There is a need for better user lifecycle management within VMware Identity Manager, along with better user governance, including the separation of duties of the users. In my company, we are not able to create a policy for the separation of duties of the users, so it is an area where improvement is required. The official authentication and fingerprint authentication should be part of VMware Identity Manager, and I feel these areas are currently missing. The scalability of the product needs to improve. The product should be tightly integrated with the third-party products because it's not like a customer is going to purchase all the VMware products, as they might have different solutions for different purposes.
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Comparison Review

it_user8922 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 23, 2013
Comparison of VMware View 5.2 VS Citrix XenDesktop 5.6
Recently I attended the VMware Partner Exchange 2013 and there was a session called “Technical Battleground – View VS XenDesktop”. In this post I will try and cover the differences that VMware showcased during their session and I am going to add an additional column for my comments and thoughts on…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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. ...
How does VMware Workspace One compare with VMware Horizon 7?
VMware Workspace One has a powerful set of helpful features. The solution offers very good documentation, the initial...
What do you like most about VMware Horizon 7?
VMware offers a friendly environment, and it's easy to provide the user with the package. It is a bundled solution th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon 7?
We paid a lot of money for software that is not really fully operational out of the box. We had to have patches from ...
How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What do you like most about VMware Workspace ONE?
The platform provides a stable environment for operations and quickly creates new environments. Additionally, it offe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Workspace ONE?
I would rate the pricing a three out of ten. It's a highly affordable solution. If a customer knows the value of the ...
 

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
VMware Workspace ONE, VMware AirWatch, Workspace ONE Assist, VMware Identity Manager, Workspace ONE Access, VMware Horizon Air
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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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
LCMC Health
Australian Sports Commission, Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, Lomond School, Merck, United Bank, Medical College of Wisconsin, Latymer Upper School, 2gether NHS Foundation Trust, Dowling Aaron Inc., Trillium Lakelands District School Board, Harrogate Grammar School, Duke University Football, Delta Air Lines, Adventist Health System, Giochi Preziosi, Cramlington Learning Village, Intermountain Healthcare, Safexpress, TAG Aviation
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Citrix, Omnissa and others in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Updated: August 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.