"In terms of scalability, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops have a lot of technologies baked in there that allow an organization to scale up or down, as required. Further, leveraging Azure for scalability has added value to our organization. For example, pre-COVID-19, we had very few resources in Azure. We had some Virtual Desktops and no application servers. When COVID-19 came along, we knew people were going to be home. We knew that we had to ramp up very quickly. We fully leveraged MCS to be able to scale. Being able to take a single image and build 400,000 Virtual Desktops, all within minutes, was second to none in terms of any other technology out there that we could have used. The scalability to be able to do that in Azure, where we really don't have to worry about storage and compute power because Microsoft does that for us, was fantastic. It was almost like giving our environments steroids. It has been amazing in terms of that scalability. Now, as people start coming back to the office, we can just as quickly scale down so the compute and resource costs in Azure aren't so great anymore."
"Relative to other solutions, Citrix has fewer conditions and fewer parameters. Citrix also provides some flexibility because it can be used on any device."
"We've been able to scale the environment quite nicely by using the Citrix Remote PC. I can't say enough about that. And because that relies on utilizing your existing hardware resources, and making those available as a part of your Citrix farm — with a second level of authentication and security pieces around it — we added some 4,000 workstations without an additional overhead or cost."
"Citrix Virtual Apps is the most valuable feature. Many customers use this feature to publish only applications, and not the full desktop. They can publish the internal resource or allow the end-user to reach a site or an application without having the full desktop. That's why they love this feature. It helps them save on resources."
"The only thing that is really important for me is being able to connect from wherever I am. It is important for me because sometimes I am in places where there are not enough safe conditions to be able to work safely, in terms of security and confidentiality of my data. Being able to access internal resources from a secure platform allows me to work without fearing that my data has been stolen."
"The user experience when using the solution's technology remotely is definitely superior to our VPN and/or Windows Remote Desktop. It's a much better user experience for those folks."
"First of all, the manageability of the applications for publishing is valuable. Second, it is about being able to run the applications on all main platforms. Third, its licensing is valuable. You can either switch to the cloud and keep on-prem. You can work with this hybrid scenario."
"The most valuable feature of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is the security and it is easy to work with."
"The solution has very smooth connectivity and is very user friendly."
"We have scaled the solution and find this easy to do."
"Good screen draw feature and ability to use two monitors."
"The technical support is good."
"Everything is really good and it works well."
"It's simple and easy to use."
"The installation is straightforward."
"The performance is one of the main features of this solution."
"There is room for improvement because it has a lot of dependency on Active Directory and other things. If they could come up with something similar and native, a complete solution portfolio would help."
"In the bank, a major part of all our applications is Microsoft App-V. If App-V is at end of life, then we need a new technology to replace it. As of today, I haven't seen in Citrix Studio that there is a new technology embedded directly in it to replace App-V."
"Licensing service installation and configuration was the biggest challenge for all Citrix solutions, but now they have fixed a lot of issues."
"The user profiles could use some improvement."
"If Citrix can develop something which can have more reach towards the backend infrastructure, other components of the Citrix environment, that would be ideal."
"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are not easy to set up. However, I have the experience and I can do it easily. It could be easier 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 improvement around the Analytics piece is super important. There has been a lot of maturity over the last year in that area, though a lot more needs to be done. Also, a lot more of the value of those Analytics needs to be sold to end users. Citrix is working on a lot of things that are ahead of the curve and a lot of organizations aren't quite there yet with implementing those technologies and capabilities."
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is only available for the professional version of the Windows operating system. This restricts a lot of users. The feature should be available for all versions."
"We've had issues with security breaches."
"We'd like, in the future, if it would work with Linux or Unix-based operating systems or even Mac."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"I would like to be able to access the remote desktop using a web-based interface, rather than having to use the client."
"Remote Desktop Services doesn't scale well."
"Lacks a notification feature when internet is down."
"In a future release, they could improve by providing more advanced technology and better buffering for if the connection is degraded or lost."
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Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is ranked 1st in Remote Access with 23 reviews while Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is ranked 3rd in Remote Access with 21 reviews. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops writes "Allows the end user device flexibility when remotely accessing my organization's resources". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services writes "Easy to set up and reliable, but needs an additional control panel". Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is most compared with VMware Horizon View, Citrix Workspace, TeamViewer, Microsoft App-V and Amazon WorkSpaces, whereas Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is most compared with TeamViewer, VMware Horizon View, Parallels Access, VMware Horizon 7 and Citrix Workspace. See our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops vs. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services report.
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