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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Horizon 8 vs Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) 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

As of May 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 10.0%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon 8 is 7.6%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is 2.1%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

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.
Tim  Abboud - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly, reasonably priced, and simple to install
It can be challenging to assess the stability of Horizon because it relies heavily on the underlying infrastructure, including vCenter, network, and storage performance. It is important to pay attention to these factors when evaluating the stability of the system. We rely on vCenter, network, and storage performance, and any weakness in these areas will affect the performance of Horizon. When discussing this with customers, I always emphasize the importance of these factors. If the foundation is solid, Horizon should not experience any performance issues. If the fundamentals are weak, we will encounter issues with Horizon on a regular basis. However, the product itself, VMware Horizon, is highly stable. While the Horizon product itself is very stable, it is important to be well-informed about any potential side effects from using other related products.
JohanSkibdahl - PeerSpot reviewer
Secure access across devices with cost-effective seamless integration
One valuable feature is the ability to securely use a wide range of devices to access the company's infrastructure. The inclusion of all necessary components, such as load balancer and gateways, in a monthly fee is also beneficial. In terms of Parallels Desktop, the coherence mode that allows Mac and Windows applications to run seamlessly side by side is highly regarded.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature that I like is that it is fast."
"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."
"Remote work has been enhanced"
"The scalability is fine. We have about 400 users, who are supported by six staff members. We use the product company-wide throughout 40 different locations, and we currently do not have plans to increase the scale of use."
"The most valuable feature is the automatic software upgrades because they take place on only three or four servers, rather than on 50 or 60 machines."
"My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications."
"The shadow feature is extraordinary and helps a lot when supporting remote users."
"The installation and maintenance are good.​"
"This product works quickly and is reliable."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it is easy to set it up, and the user experience it provides is just like a normal desktop."
"VMware has a lot of experience in virtualization — they are the pioneers in virtualization."
"From my standpoint, the desktop is the most valuable feature."
"Great for desktop management, particularly when it comes to all the upgrades."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The thin image offers efficiency and stability for the system, which is not always available in other alternatives."
"The solution has data leak prevention features that ensure data is not copied from the base machine to VDI, and API copyright capabilities."
"The connection is compressed so we don't need a lot of resources to run it."
"You have the opportunity to virtualize applications in different locations. Everything is in one pane or one window, which is quite good."
"The solution is powerful, and it has good speed and performance."
"We use RAS to publish cloud desktops to our clients. The ability to easily publish resources to a subset of users is what we find most valuable."
"It has allowed us to centralize the software location so we don't have to update the software client on 70 computers."
"It provides flexible access to Windows applications from many types of devices."
"Its price and ease of use are the most valuable. It is simple and has good performance."
"One valuable feature is the ability to securely use a wide range of devices to access the company's infrastructure."
 

Cons

"Tech support can be slow if you do not receive help from the US representatives."
"It takes time to load."
"The product’s customization feature needs improvement."
"We would like to be able to provide VDI, a full desktop, to each of our users."
"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."
"When I needed support for a couple of things, three people intervened. Each time, three people gave me a different answer. In the end, they did not manage to give the right answer. At a certain point, they stopped replying."
"It would help if it were a little simpler. It's a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution."
"The initial setup has room for improvement."
"VMware Horizon View can improve by making it easier to use for first-time users. You should learn the whole concept of VMware to be able to use it."
"Considering the tool's weaknesses, the product probably has scope for some improvement in the context of how the applications or Linux operating systems are delivered using VMware Horizon View."
"We have limited capabilities since we are not using a multi-instance solution, just single instances. The solution underutilizes its capabilities."
"The technical support offered by VMware is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"There are some licensing issues in VMware Horizon"
"What I would like to see improved is not so much about the product. It's more about how to get information about products. It's always too much sales pitching and fancy works and stuff."
"It would be beneficial to see improvements in client-side functionalities, especially for some Linux clients."
"VMware has purchased by Dell, they started to remove a lot of their support for non-Intel hardware and that's a bit of a problem. They dropped a lot of support for hardware that people commonly use and it just so happened that this hardware is not Intel. It makes it difficult to get assistance."
"Opening a ticket should be available from the actual RAS console. It is cumbersome to go to a portal, hunt around for five minutes for a link to open a ticket, answer questions meant to direct you towards FAQs instead of live support, then fill out information (license #, version #, etc.) which could more easily be supplied by sending a ticket straight from the console with all of that information automatically specified."
"The product does not utilize SQL for reporting purposes. Also, it does not support some hypervisors similar to Citrix. These particular areas need improvement."
"We would like the ability to provide a popup message, such as a maintenance notification. That same notification on the Parallels client would be awesome."
"It needs Windows scaling on Android/iOS devices. At present, the concept of delivering apps to Android and iOS devices is appealing, but the reality is the screen size on these devices is so small that, unless there is some scaling option, it is not really usable."
"The customization of the web interface could possibly use some improvement. Little things, like being able to place a background image instead of just choosing from a palette of colors, would be nice."
"We have had significant, ongoing issues with printing. It would be great to have a best practice for dealing with printing that we can offer to our customers."
"From a seller's point of view, there are a lot of things that they could do better in the sales cycle."
"Sometimes you need to understand how to use load balancing and the gateway in order to scale, which means the team may need some additional technical knowledge."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We recouped 60 to 70 percent of the hardware costs."
"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."
"We're paying for a standard license and, in my view, the price is too high. I would be satisfied with it if it were reduced by about 20-30%. Right now, I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The pricing is a little bit high, but it's good value for the product's stability and efficiency."
"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."
"I don't quite remember the specifics of what we had. I believe we had a 25-user license, and I don't recall it being overly expensive."
"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 Virtual Apps and Desktops is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is quite reasonable."
"There is a monthly subscription for the use of this solution and it is expensive."
"I rate the product cost a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."
"VMware Horizon is expensive and I would rate it an eight out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing of VMware Horizon View a five out of ten. The price is average."
"The price of VMware Horizon 7 is more than some other solutions."
"The license is very costly, as well as the renewal cost."
"VMware Horizon View is an expensive product. My company needs to opt for a subscription-based pricing model when it comes to the licensing costs attached to the product."
"The pricing has always been competitive, and the new SPLA licensing model works great for our business and clients."
"I think the new pricing is a little bit high. If the price was lower, we could use it for many more customers. If there was one improvement to be made to this product, it would be a small-business version, at a much lower price point."
"We currently use Parallels side-by-side with an Azure cloud-hosted solution. This may be from a lack of product knowledge on my part, but we still need to work out the most effective way to shut down servers outside of hours, thereby reduce hosting costs. I am not entirely convinced Parallels does this well yet."
"It justifies the price. In terms of licensing, initially when we got the product it was an unlimited licensing strategy. We knew would grow in the coming years. So initially, we took a plan which had no limit. After a year or so the strategy changed and we were being limited to 105 licenses, that was the minimum... If there was flexibility for increasing the number of licenses that would be great because you never know how much you are going to grow in the next year."
"It is inexpensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The product is not expensive. I rate its pricing a three or four out of ten."
"Parallels is a cost effective alternative to Citrix."
"Just compare it to Citrix and you will see the value in it."
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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
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)?
The solution is powerful, and it has good speed and performance.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)?
The pricing for Parallels RAS is straightforward with a monthly fee for a minimum of 15 licenses. For Parallels Deskt...
What needs improvement with Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)?
A potential improvement could be reducing the dependency on Microsoft solutions for Parallels RAS. As for Parallels D...
 

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
Parallels RAS
 

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
LCMC Health
Arsari Group _ PT Netmarks Indonesia, Izhevsk Elektromekhanicheskiy Zavod (IEMZ) _ Kupol, Abilene Diagnostic Clinic, Fylde Borough Council, YARSTROYREZE LLC, VSK Insurance House, Melenkovsky District of Vladimirskaya Oblast, Sofrigam SA, Antenna International, KingsGate Community Church, Norwegian American Hospital, Island Hotels Group, Medway Council, Medway Council, Voices of September 11th, MacDonald Training Center, Kansas Childrenês Service League, Scope,Next Generation Clubs, WTC Communications, Opera Australia, HSE Integrated, Danier, Bridgwater College, Kern County Mental Health, Tony Tiendas, Spears Manufacturing, Managed Insurance Services Inc., Intuitive Medical Software, M.J. Soffe, Mazda Motors, Israel Military Industries (IMI), Telfair, Upic Solutions, Teleflora, Fisher & Company
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Omnissa, Citrix and others in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Updated: April 2025.
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