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Horizon Cloud Service vs Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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

Horizon Cloud Service
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (3rd)
Red Hat Enterprise Virtuali...
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
16th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 4.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops is 1.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Horizon Cloud Service4.6%
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops1.9%
Other93.5%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

SivaKuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at Wipro Limited
Centralized management enhances multi-cloud flexibility with cost efficiency improvements
The cost of Horizon Cloud Service is high, however, it could be optimized. The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help. Improvements in application performance, especially for resource-heavy applications like intensive 3D workloads, are needed. More built-in automation for routine tasks like patching and upgrading could reduce administrative effort.
RobertThompson 1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Free version available but hard to understand
Personally, I don't think it has any commendable features. The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra work involved with the Red Hat virtualization. It doesn't just work out of the box. You have to read through about six different documents, and everybody's experience is different. So it's kind of annoying. That would be the main thing. If you're not a Linux geek, it's very hard to understand. And it's probably because I came out of the Windows world. I learned this as part of my cross-training, but I just found the way that it happens with VMware and all that stuff to be easier to use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From the scalability perspective, that's one of the great things, because even with the basic setup, which has essentially very few components, you can run 10,000 desktops straight off the bat."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is easy to use and the full development cloud is very good."
"The main benefit of Horizon Cloud Service is that it is cloud-based, allowing our organization to leverage the service without having to manage all infrastructure directly."
"Its advanced management features are the most valuable, especially power management. One of the really important things was to be able to have power management in a consumption world. This means that unlike a Microsoft environment, you could actually turn off virtual desktops or have them start up and shut down. If you're consuming resources in the public cloud, you want to be able to do that because when you're not using those, such as at the weekend, you want to be able to turn them off. So, the advanced options for managing the BDIs are very important."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is the ability to manage a great number of desktops at once and the remote access for users that are working from outside of the office or from different offices in the country."
"I honestly liked the application itself because it was just like using a desktop. You could copy and paste, inside and outside, and you could use multiple monitors. You could access it anytime, anywhere, no matter whether you were in the office or out of the office. I could leave the office, go somewhere, go back in, and everything would be there. I could just leave it up and running. I absolutely love this feature in VMware Horizon Cloud."
"Horizon Cloud Service provides deployment flexibility across multiple clouds with a scalable architecture that easily scales virtual desktops and applications up or down based on demand."
"There's lots of good support out there in the community."
"The most valuable features are automated deployment and transparent movement for virtual machines over all our locations."
"The improvement to our organization is managing all our KVM-based virtual machines in a management environment."
 

Cons

"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"There should be more emphasis on the Workspace One access part of the solution."
"There should be more emphasis on the Workspace One access part of the solution. This is essentially identity management provided with Horizon. There needs to be some kind of integration because you are able to have all of these desktops on any device, but you have to have this other component to make it easier from a single sign-on perspective. That's why there should be an emphasis on Workspace One access. It actually comes free with the product, but people don't really know how powerful it can be."
"It is too expensive as compared to other solutions because of which we don't use it that much."
"The product has a lot of bugs."
"The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices."
"Our technical support of VMware is good, but the main problem is it takes a lot of time."
"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."
"The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra work involved with Red Hat virtualization."
"The best improvement for oVirt 4.2 is to enable backup features for major backup products of virtual machines."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."
"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."
"For what you get, it is very compelling. You've got to look at the total cost of ownership of this type of piece of software in terms of being able to utilize it as a cloud service. I don't have to run everything on-premises. When you look at the total cost of just being able to use it and then being able to point it to any public or private cloud, it is very compelling. You have one less thing to manage."
"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."
"It is too expensive as compared to other solutions because of which we don't use it that much. We tend to go more for Hyper-V or Azure just because VMware licensing is quite up there. We sway people away from VMware Horizon Cloud. We have some clients who already have it. They stay on it for a little while, and then most of them end up moving off when we provide them a better solution that isn't as license heavy cost-wise."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is a low-cost solution. The model that they have is consumption-based. However, some features are expensive."
"I use the free developer stuff right now."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Performing Arts
10%
Construction Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon Cloud?
The cost is considered normal, not remarkable but not outrageous. In terms of expense, compared to other virtualization products, I would rate it as a six.
What needs improvement with VMware Horizon Cloud?
The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices. Horizon Cloud Service should continue improving their protocol and work with other h...
What is your primary use case for VMware Horizon Cloud?
Our primary use case focuses on virtual desktop and application hosting. This is spread across different industries. We have a large number of employees, and we are one of the largest GSIs globally...
What needs improvement with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?
Personally, I don't think it has any commendable features. The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra ...
What is your primary use case for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?
I've used it more as a user than as an administrator setting it up. Just mainly getting access to legacy systems and programming that's not Windows 11 compatible.
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Marriott, Sprint
Casio, Telef‹nica, British Airways
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon Cloud Service vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.