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

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

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
7.6
Microsoft Intune enhanced productivity, improved security, and reduced costs by streamlining device management and minimizing third-party service needs.
Sentiment score
7.1
Citrix DaaS reduces costs and boosts flexibility, efficiency, and continuity, offering long-term savings and environmental benefits.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services allows efficient remote work with rapid deployment, offering great value despite perceived high costs.
Everything we've gained from it makes my job easier day after day, and I see value in it as an engineer.
Importantly, when someone leaves the company, it helps protect document access on their devices.
Applications are deployed through Intune, and we see fewer tickets for common issues because we can resolve them through the solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Intune support is mixed; premium plans often better, but efficiency and responsiveness need improvement in device-related issues.
Sentiment score
6.6
Citrix DaaS' customer support receives mixed reviews, with praise for expertise but concerns about response times and support quality.
Sentiment score
5.1
Users find Remote Desktop Services user-friendly, often minimizing support needs, with Premier support and online communities offering effective solutions.
When a support ticket is submitted, it directly reaches someone with Intune support expertise.
When I contacted Microsoft, they had the same expertise, if not more, which is phenomenal because I felt heard and my problem was solved.
Sometimes, the support provided is excellent, and the representative is knowledgeable, while other times, the service needs improvement.
The first level often wastes time because I usually have to escalate to an engineer for proper support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Microsoft Intune's scalability, cloud-based integration, and efficient management make it ideal for growing businesses and diverse environments.
Sentiment score
7.9
Citrix DaaS offers scalable, easy expansion, efficiently handling demands with flexible Azure integrations despite some expense concerns.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services scales well for most organizations, though some experience bandwidth issues or prefer alternatives.
The scalability of Microsoft Intune is ten out of ten.
Ideally, we want to automatically segregate devices based on user properties like primary use, but currently, dynamic groups seem limited to device properties.
It supports organizations with 200 endpoints and those with more than 15,000 endpoints.
Citrix DaaS offers vast scalability options as workloads can be deployed across multiple data centers like Azure, Google, or AWS.
My impression is that most of the solutions, especially today, make sense for large corporations with 2000 seats or more.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Intune is praised for its stability and reliability, despite occasional sync delays and minor bugs.
Sentiment score
7.3
Citrix DaaS offers reliable, stable performance with high availability, ensuring user satisfaction for large-scale virtual desktop deployments.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is praised for stability, reliability, and consistent performance, although occasional disconnections can occur.
We have not experienced downtime, bugs, or glitches.
Microsoft Intune has been very stable.
A couple of years ago, the performance was not as good as it is now, but there are noticeable backend improvements.
Citrix DaaS allows for satisfactory stability by facilitating workload deployment in various data centers including Azure, Google, or AWS.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Intune needs improved reporting, better non-Microsoft support, user-friendly interface, competitive pricing, and enhanced cross-platform management.
Citrix DaaS struggles with performance, setup complexity, high costs, and requires enhancements in integration, support, and user experience.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services faces challenges with security, integration, performance, user interface, and cross-platform support, requiring updates and improvements.
Features like unlocking devices sometimes fail, and the support offered for other operating systems is insufficient.
There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now.
Many third-party companies offer single-pane-of-glass reporting that shows you what your update environment looks like, how your patch is doing, application status, etc., but Intune's reporting is not intuitive.
Citrix should have different pricing based on company size.
It should be easier to create a template and duplicate users.
The only problem I see is that when I am connected, there is a certain lag because of the network.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Intune's flexible pricing is cost-effective in Microsoft 365 bundles with varied licensing models and negotiable enterprise agreements.
Citrix DaaS pricing is costly yet competitive, with versatile licensing, complex management, and strategies needed for cost optimizations.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers seamless integration with Windows, but complex, costly licensing and support fees challenge user flexibility.
Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs.
The Intune suite and add-ons, such as batch management and remote help, are costly.
It costs approximately forty euros per user per month.
Citrix DaaS is considered expensive, especially for companies that do not require multi-cloud.
These licenses are not cheap, as they add up in cost.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Intune excels in integration, security, and management features, boosting productivity and security for Windows and BYOD environments.
Citrix DaaS offers high-performance remote access with strong security, seamless app virtualization, and scalability for consistent user experiences.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers secure, scalable remote access and management with seamless Windows integration and user-friendly performance across devices.
Intune excels in configuration and compliance management for Windows 10, ensuring devices receive timely updates and adhere to organizational standards.
Dynamic groups allow us to set conditions for automatic membership, eliminating the need for user intervention or manual review and ensuring a seamless workflow.
Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management.
With Citrix, all connections are outgoing, minimizing firewall vulnerability.
The main benefits that Microsoft Remote Desktop Services provide to me include streamlining my working process, ensuring security, and offering flexibility to connect to virtual desktops and apps from multiple devices.
A valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is its native integration with Microsoft platforms.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Remote Access
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
271
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...
Ranking in Remote Access
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Application Virtualization (1st), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (3rd), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)
Microsoft Remote Desktop Se...
Ranking in Remote Access
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Remote Access category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.7%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 4.2%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is 10.3%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Remote Access
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
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.
Terje Romen - PeerSpot reviewer
Accessing the same desktop experience from anywhere but user template creation needs improvement
Mostly we are quite happy with it. However, some of us want a more powerful desktop. When not present, we use a remote tool called Splashtop, which is a good solution for some users. We have about ten licenses for those who need a powerful workstation at the office. We have not used many different tools. We are never in contact with Microsoft. These are quite basic configurations, to be honest. It's not complicated. AI is coming to or is already in some applications we are using. Not system-wise, however, it might be good. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's quite good, yet certainly not perfect.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
In limited use cases, Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is free as it is defaulted by any Microsoft license. The paid...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
I think it does what it does well, so there is nothing that needs improvement. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is v...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
Remote Desktop Services
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval
Bank Alfalah Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.