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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Microsoft Virtual Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 4, 2025

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 Application Virtualization
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
126
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (5th), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (3rd), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)
Microsoft Virtual Server
Ranking in Application Virtualization
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Virtualization category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 27.1%, down from 27.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Virtual Server is 1.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Virtualization
 

Featured Reviews

Mohd Abdul Aziz Shah Sulaiman - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers secure and unified access to apps, desktops, and content for enhanced productivity
Citrix Workforce is good, but it needs improvement in diagnosing network issues. When errors occur, it is difficult to determine if they're due to network issues, Workspace issues, or environment issues. The error messages are too vague, just stating "connection error" without specifying if it's an IP address issue, connectivity problem, or something else related to the network. This lack of detail makes troubleshooting difficult. We often have to reinstall everything in Workspace, without knowing the root cause. Even after engaging with Citrix and sending logs, the feedback is often unsatisfactory, not meeting my expectations. This trial-and-error approach isn't effective problem-solving. While these issues aren't everyday occurrences, when they do happen, they can be catastrophic for our operations team.
ChimeremezeNwabueze - PeerSpot reviewer
Eliminates the need for physical hardware and is not platform dependent
You can detach and reuse the storage drive without disrupting the virtual server, which is quite useful. Additionally, it provides options like network security groups to protect virtual machines from unauthorized access. The tool offers compatibility with various operating systems through the Azure Marketplace. You can access a wide range of Windows operating systems, both enterprise and commercial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are many features that I like, but the stability over the Internet is exceptional. Even if there's bandwidth fluctuation or network jitter, it performs well, offering a seamless experience to end-users without noticeable disruptions."
"Its user-friendliness is most valuable. It was easy to log in and navigate. Some of such solutions are not very user-friendly, but this one was."
"Centralization and security are the most valuable features of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops."
"The most valuable feature is the watermark because most of the time our employees connect from a remote location. In case they photograph the DDA or some data, the watermark will show which user did so and from which IP they connected. That makes it more secure."
"XenApp is a fast, secure and reliable solution for remote connections that is completely different than and superior to older Windows solutions."
"Among the most valuable features is the Citrix Workspace, which allows us to drive that thin-client connection and the remote control/remote access capabilities. Those things have allowed us to connect an awful lot of people quickly from home and that's obviously helped during the pandemic."
"Security is a shining point of the Citrix Workspace. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a very robust solution when security is a concern. Furthermore, the content collaboration data-hosting that Citrix integrates with Virtual Apps and Desktops is among the best there is."
"I recommend Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) for companies distributed across the world because it facilitates easy configuration and deployment without extensive infrastructure."
"The standout features are its seamless network integration, robust data restoration capabilities, and versatile computing functions."
"The solution is good at allowing end users to connect anytime and anywhere."
"The product is easy to set up."
"The tool is productive and performs well. The server speed is also fast."
"Microsoft Virtual Server is a stable and easy-to-use solution."
"You can detach and reuse the storage drive without disrupting the virtual server, which is quite useful. Additionally, it provides options like network security groups to protect virtual machines from unauthorized access."
"The product is reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the stability of the solution."
 

Cons

"Where improvement could be driven is in terms of clarity as to the functionality of some of the solutions. If you go back to the older Citrix Xen products that we had, we understood those really well. As we've come into the new workstation premium suite, there is a lot of additional functionality that we perhaps have not yet fully exploited. It is not because we can't, but simply because we don't yet understand the depth of functionality that's offered."
"Pricing can be lower and roaming profiles need to be fixed to work consistently."
"It is not easy to set up."
"Templating the deployment process could use improvement. When you start, there are a large number of details that are quite client-specific, although they do share common themes. To get somebody up and running in a day is very difficult to do. They should streamline by use case."
"I think Citrix's support is good, but sometimes it is a little slow."
"We would like to be able to provide VDI, a full desktop, to each of our users."
"The solution's cost has almost doubled this year, and it could be made cheaper."
"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."
"Support could always be a bit better."
"As certain medium-level complexities are involved in the product's setup process, the product's setup phase can be considered for improvement."
"The tool must provide more freedom to the customer."
"The main thing that could be improved is the licensing cost."
"Microsoft Virtual Server's cost was an area of concern...I feel Microsoft Virtual Server will be stopped in a couple of months or a couple of years, and it will be completely replaced with SQL Server data warehouse and Microsoft Fabric."
"Microsoft Virtual Server needs to improve its stability."
"We've faced challenges with migrating virtual machines from one host to another. Also, managing Microsoft updates has been a struggle. We have to update the host node every month when new updates are released, and our virtual machines go down every time there's an update. This causes downtime repeatedly and irritates our clients. It should also be lightweight."
"Microsoft Virtual Server should improve its network performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have more than a million seats under management so we get the best price."
"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."
"We are just now approaching the end of our initial purchase, which was an excellent price for us as an academic institution. We got a very good deal to get us on board. That license is up for renewal in about a year, and we are nervously waiting to see what the pricing will be."
"The tool is expensive."
"It's costly in the market. But it is not expensive for the company. For the company, it's relatively inexpensive because the core of the work is compensated with the price."
"The licensing, in general, is expensive. A lot of customers battle to pay the amount. It's very difficult to ensure that your solution provides the business value that the customer is after."
"The Citrix licensing scheme is really straightforward and simple. It doesn't have hidden costs. You get what you pay for. It is easy to understand what is on the product, so it's simple to get a clear idea of how much it costs. Licensing is not an issue."
"Where Citrix really needs to improve is in their support and in the way that they manage their licenses. Everything else comes second because if I'm not in a position where I can get proper support or manage my own licenses in an easy way, then it is pointless. Today, I am at a point where I may not be able to use Citrix anymore because they want to take away some of the licenses that I bought, pretending they are not valid anymore. That is frankly unacceptable. If they don't solve this, everything comes second because I cannot use my product."
"The price of this product could be better."
"Microsoft Virtual Server is a low-cost solution."
"Microsoft Virtual Server is an expensive solution."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The product is expensive."
"Some of the licensing costs are monthly, and others are yearly."
"The solution has a yearly license. If we switch to a yearly subscription plan for Microsoft Virtual Server, it would be cheaper in the long run. The price per month would be higher, but the overall cost for the year would be lower."
"Compared to the other products in the market, I believe that the prices of Microsoft Virtual Server are on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
No data available
 

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. Although it works well on the apps side, the desktop aspect still has room for i...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Virtual Server?
One feature I would like to see is better compatibility with macOS. Due to business policies, macOS isn't currently available in the Azure Marketplace. Microsoft should come to agreement with it.
 

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
Virtual Server, MS Virtual Server
 

Interactive Demo

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
Paylocity, ASELSAN, Sochi Organizing Committee, Supervisor of Elections, Orange County, Florida, Netgem, Nav Canada, The British & Irish Lions
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Microsoft Virtual Server and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.