Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Horizon Cloud Service comparison

Citrix and Omnissa are both solutions in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category. Citrix is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5, while Omnissa is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. Citrix holds a 13.0% mindshare in VD, compared to Omnissa’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Citrix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of Omnissa users who would recommend it.

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Read 127 Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) reviews

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6,594 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Horizon Cloud Service

Read 11 Horizon Cloud Service reviews

1,227 Views
1,043 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Horizon Cloud Service

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Citrix DaaS and Horizon Cloud Service compete in the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) market. Citrix DaaS leads in simplicity and cost-effectiveness, whereas Horizon Cloud Service excels in feature-rich offerings at higher costs.

Features: Citrix DaaS offers comprehensive scalability and security features, empowering enterprises with extensive control and customization. Horizon Cloud Service emphasizes seamless integration with existing infrastructure and advanced desktop management capabilities, offering features like intuitive management interfaces, extensive virtual desktop customization, and impressive integration capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Citrix DaaS could enhance its feature-rich offerings to match the robust capabilities of competitors and improve integration flexibility. Horizon Cloud Service could focus on simplifying deployment processes and reducing the dependency on advanced technical expertise. Both solutions could aim for more streamlined management tools to enhance user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Citrix DaaS offers a straightforward deployment process with excellent customer support, enabling quick setups and issue resolutions. Horizon Cloud Service provides flexible deployment models but demands more time and technical expertise. Despite delivering strong customer support, its deployment complexity remains an area for improvement.

Pricing and ROI: Citrix DaaS provides a cost-effective solution with clear ROI, utilizing an efficient licensing model and affordable setup costs, making it suitable for budget-conscious enterprises. Horizon Cloud Service requires a higher initial investment but justifies its long-term ROI with its substantial feature set, appealing to organizations prioritizing advanced capabilities over upfront costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Horizon Cloud Service Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Horizon Cloud Service

August 2025

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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

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

3rd

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)

Horizon Cloud Service

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

10th

Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 13.0%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 2.0%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)	13.0%
Horizon Cloud Service	2.0%
Other	85.0%

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Featured Reviews

Grant Waddell

Head of IT Architecture & Operations Support at Lyntia

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.

Read full review

SivaKuppala

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a good product. I don't have any complaints."

"It provides the flexibility of being used on any device which makes the employee experience better, in terms of ease of use."

"It has very good performance in delivering 3D applications over WAN."

"The App is the most valuable feature."

"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."

"XenDesktop has helped our users to work remotely with a better user experience."

"The architecture I built had a robust failover mechanism for the endpoints, and the interface was user-friendly."

"Citrix is one of the companies that is delivering virtual apps and desktops in a big way. They are mature enough to understand the level of stability required and deliver it."

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

"The main benefit of Horizon Cloud Service is that it is cloud-based, allowing our organization to leverage the service without having to manage all infrastructure directly."

"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."

"The interface is much easier to use compared to Microsoft and other VDI vendors that are well known on the market. I like VMware so much more than the others. With Horizon Cloud, you don't need to spend a lot of money upfront to buy the infrastructure. You can use it the on the cloud, so it lowers the barriers to entry. It's easier to test it and get started. Some clients stay in the cloud, but others prefer to go on-premise. It depends on the nature of the client."

"The tool remains pretty stable."

"Horizon Cloud Service provides deployment flexibility across multiple clouds with a scalable architecture that easily scales virtual desktops and applications up or down based on demand."

"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 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."

More Horizon Cloud Service pros

Cons

"The initial setup is complex."

"There have been many issues with stability."

"Some customers find the price to be a significant factor. They have a hard time understanding the extra cost of the services"

"Using the app layering feature can be quite difficult and cumbersome."

"The application is now very complex. We started with Citrix on PCs. Now, to access the same application, we need to have a StoreFront Server, the Delivery Controller, and Citrix License Server. It's now very complex."

"I would like to see simplification in the management of the on-prem infrastructure component of Citrix DaaS, particularly in the studio tool used to manage the DaaS infrastructure."

"The sales team does not focus on client needs but instead focuses on selling higher-priced items."

"I think Citrix's support is good, but sometimes it is a little slow."

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

"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."

"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."

"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."

"The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices."

"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."

"The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."

"There should be more emphasis on the Workspace One access part of the solution. This is essentially identity management provided with Horizon. There needs to be some kind of integration because you are able to have all of these desktops on any device, but you have to have this other component to make it easier from a single sign-on perspective. That's why there should be an emphasis on Workspace One access. It actually comes free with the product, but people don't really know how powerful it can be."

"It is very expensive. Its price needs to be improved. They can do a better job with external resources such as a USB or a hard drive. When I tried to connect using these external resources, it failed a lot of times. I had to do a shared connection with a local laptop and then connect from a network standpoint, rather than through VMware Horizon point. They definitely have weaknesses with external connections. A lot of companies probably don't let people use external connections because it defeats the purpose of having a cloud solution and keeping the data in a secure area. You can copy to an external device, and you can lose the data. A lot of companies may not focus on this feature, but if you are providing it, you should make it work."

More Horizon Cloud Service cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the tool's price a three."

"If you look at cost, then you must look at the number of users that you are covering. If you are only using it for some users, then it is very expensive. However, if you have a massive amount of users, then it begins to be interesting to use Citrix. Because once you are managing thousands of servers with one guy, your maintenance costs decrease per user."

"Citrix licensing is expensive."

"You can buy an on-cloud or on-prem license. You can switch between on-cloud users and on-prem users. Its licensing is cheap. It is from $8 to $15 per user. It is not that expensive when you compare the cost of buying new hardware with the cost of the license. For example, at $15 per user, it costs around $180 for a year, which is cheaper than buying a $600 PC that at a certain stage, you will again have to change because its hardware is not supported. It may also get damaged or stolen. So, you can compare the cost of the actual hardware that you have to buy and the time spent in supporting the clients with the cost of its license."

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

"Their licensing model used to be on a per-year basis, where you would negotiate the cost per user for a year. For instance, if you had 25,000 users, you could negotiate the cost accordingly. However, they are transitioning to a subscription-based model where the cost is incurred monthly."

"The solution is affordable."

"We don't have a lot to compare it to, but we certainly think whatever we pay is worthwhile at this point in time. It's very reasonable."

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

"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."

"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."

"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."

"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."

"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 an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."

"VMware Horizon Cloud is a low-cost solution. The model that they have is consumption-based. However, some features are expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Media Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	43
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	68

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?

My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.

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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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Horizon Cloud?

The tool remains pretty stable.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Virtual Desktop vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 51% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 5% of the time

Rocket Exceed TurboX vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 3% of the time

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

Compared 1% of the time

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

Horizon 8 vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 18% of the time

Azure Virtual Desktop vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 13% of the time

Amazon Appstream vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 11% of the time

VMware Workstation vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 9% of the time

More Horizon Cloud Service Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

September 2025

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Horizon Cloud Service

September 2025

Download Horizon Cloud Service product report

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS

Interactive Demo

Citrix

Demo not available

Omnissa

Overview

Enable secure, flexible work with the leader in virtual apps and desktops

Deliver desktop as a service (DaaS) from any cloud or datacenter

Get started with Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) in minutes to provide a familiar, high-performance digital workspace experience to your users. We’ll manage the infrastructure and security. You focus on your business.

Citrix

The VMware Horizon Cloud Service delivers feature-rich virtual desktops and applications using a purpose-built cloud platform that is scalable across multiple deployment options, including fully managed infrastructure from VMware, public cloud infrastructure from Microsoft Azure, or on-premises hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). The service supports a cloud-scale architecture that makes it easy to deliver virtualized Windows desktops and applications to any device, anytime. And, with a flexible subscription model and turnkey solutions, organizations can easily get up and running and scale quickly.

Omnissa

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

Marriott, Sprint

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Horizon Cloud Service

August 2025

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