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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Horizon 8 vs Microsoft Remote Desktop Services 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Citrix DaaS reduces costs and boosts flexibility, efficiency, and continuity, offering long-term savings and environmental benefits.
Sentiment score
7.1
Horizon 8 users experience ROI within 2-3 years through reduced expenses, improved efficiency, and effective virtual desktop management.
Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services allows efficient remote work with rapid deployment, offering great value despite perceived high costs.
 

Customer Service

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
5.8
Horizon 8's customer service is responsive and knowledgeable but faces issues with technical expertise and support variability.
Sentiment score
5.1
Users find Remote Desktop Services user-friendly, often minimizing support needs, with Premier support and online communities offering effective solutions.
The first level often wastes time because I usually have to escalate to an engineer for proper support.
The support team is helpful and offers assistance.
Our support from VMware expired last December.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Citrix DaaS offers scalable, easy expansion, efficiently handling demands with flexible Azure integrations despite some expense concerns.
Sentiment score
8.2
Horizon 8 is praised for adaptability and flexibility, supporting diverse needs despite technical challenges and cost concerns for some users.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services scales well for most organizations, though some experience bandwidth issues or prefer alternatives.
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
7.3
Citrix DaaS offers reliable, stable performance with high availability, ensuring user satisfaction for large-scale virtual desktop deployments.
Sentiment score
7.9
Horizon 8 is rated highly for stability and performance, but requires proper configuration and support for integration issues.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is praised for stability, reliability, and consistent performance, although occasional disconnections can occur.
Citrix DaaS allows for satisfactory stability by facilitating workload deployment in various data centers including Azure, Google, or AWS.
Especially with the integration of NVIDIA, we experience multiple problems including crashing applications, crashing desktops, spontaneous logoffs, black screens, and systems that no longer respond or cannot reconnect.
 

Room For Improvement

Citrix DaaS struggles with performance, setup complexity, high costs, and requires enhancements in integration, support, and user experience.
Horizon 8 struggles with cost, Linux integration, setup, documentation, support, remote management, multimedia, Azure, Teams, and licensing issues.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services faces challenges with security, integration, performance, user interface, and cross-platform support, requiring updates and improvements.
More direct access to engineers would speed up resolution.
I would like to see improvements in Horizon 8, specifically integration with NVIDIA for graphical performance upgrades because it creates many issues such as crashing and black screen systems, causing users to lose access to their current desktop and work.
We have limited capabilities since we are not using a multi-instance solution, just single instances.
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

Citrix DaaS pricing is costly yet competitive, with versatile licensing, complex management, and strategies needed for cost optimizations.
Horizon 8 has high costs, but offers long-term value and potential savings through bundled licensing and subscription flexibility.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers seamless integration with Windows, but complex, costly licensing and support fees challenge user flexibility.
Citrix DaaS is considered expensive, especially for companies that do not require multi-cloud.
I rate the cost-effectiveness of GenApp of Citrix equal to our CMS; it is quite cost-effective.
After VMware was bought by Broadcom, the pricing was ridiculous, but now that Onmises has VMware Horizon 8, the pricing is back to an acceptable level.
These licenses are not cheap, as they add up in cost.
 

Valuable Features

Citrix DaaS offers high-performance remote access with strong security, seamless app virtualization, and scalability for consistent user experiences.
Horizon 8 offers centralized management, scalability, enhanced security, and high performance with VMware integration and user-friendly interfaces.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers secure, scalable remote access and management with seamless Windows integration and user-friendly performance across devices.
With Citrix, all connections are outgoing, minimizing firewall vulnerability.
The solution has data leak prevention features that ensure data is not copied from the base machine to VDI.
From a security point of view, security in Horizon 8 is one of the main points in keeping the system resources from the company away from bad actors. You can keep the desktops completely isolated, and you don't need to share your file shares or database with the end-user system.
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.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 10.5%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon 8 is 7.4%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is 5.9%, down from 12.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Muhammad JunaidJawed - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps ensure data leaks do not occur from the base machine to VDI while multi-instance capabilities remain limited
I have been using Horizon for two years. It provides my DevOps team access to PAM and server through the provider The solution has helped ensure data leaks do not occur from the base machine to VDI, and it saves data through API copyright. The solution has data leak prevention features that…
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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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
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
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

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 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

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
Remote Desktop Services
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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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
Bank Alfalah Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about VMware, Citrix, Omnissa and others in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Updated: May 2025.
857,585 professionals have used our research since 2012.