Horizon 8 vs Microsoft Remote Desktop Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 4, 2022
 

Categories and Ranking

Horizon 8
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
Microsoft Remote Desktop Se...
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 7.9%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is 5.4%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
Unique Categories:
Remote Access
17.3%
 

Featured Reviews

Joel White - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 20, 2023
Assist to offer a secure desktop experience to our remote users
The solution has enabled us to offer a secure desktop experience to our remote users. This ensures that our personally identifiable information and HIPAA data remain protected, eliminating the risk of being copied to a local, potentially mobile, device. Everything is contained within a centralized…
Dennis Oo Jenn Ning - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 5, 2024
Provides support and remote access to servers with easy integration
We use the solution for support and remote access to servers We use Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for its convenience and remote access capabilities. Using our Active Directory policies, we can connect again and then do remote printing and file copying. We use it on our SAP system. The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is that VMware Horizon is easy to setup."
"Horizon View provides virtual desktops on demand."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is secure remote access to resources."
"It is a stable product."
"The benefits of this solution are that it is modern and it works perfectly well with the rest of the VMware environments we have. Having this vertical integration is what matters to us as an organization and this solution excels in this area. You deploy it and it works without much hassle."
"Great sorting feature to create UI on demand."
"It is stable and easily scalable."
"It is a stable solution. It is wonderful for multi-user environments, and it supports different virtual machines and operating systems. You can go for any kind of virtual machine. It has many features, especially for a call center. You don't have the issue of computers going down from time to time. You just need to copy the virtual machine to deploy it. You also don't need many people to maintain computers. With Horizon 7, you just need one or two people."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is its security and simple configuration."
"The initial setup is not that difficult. I have gone through the RDS initialization steps, which only seem easy."
"The most valuable features are availability and security."
"We use it to connect to the legacy system."
"The most valuable feature of this solution at the moment is the HTML5 web client. You get a browser experience, not just the terminal sort of client, and the integration with Azure multi-factor application."
"It is a stable product."
"It's pretty stable."
"The solution works on Microsoft servers."
 

Cons

"The support team's technicalities and the pricing of the solution need improvement."
"Reporting could be improved, we currently have to export manually."
"I would love to see so they can actually allow the use of Linux, from a hosting environment as well as from a VDI client environment."
"There should be a function where one can connect and work; whenever not required, one can deprovision it."
"There is room for a more cost-effective pricing structure, as it could be more affordable."
"The tool is not future-proof anymore."
"In the next release, the performance, the speed, and the price need to be improved."
"The product has to improve its performance and connectivity."
"There could be some improvement in the integration of the solution."
"The stability could be improved."
"In the next release, I would like to see better performance over slower networks, and integration with Linux, but this is something that we're going to get out of Microsoft in terms of a unified solution."
"There are times I get disconnected from the service and when one or two attempts to establish a remote connection. Microsoft should show where the problem is, I have to find it by myself."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is its security and simple configuration."
"The reliability of the solution could improve."
"My customers are worried that the RDP protocol can be easily compromised and would like the option to use an alternative like Blast."
"We face frequent disconnections."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"VMware Horizon is expensive. It should provide a special price for more user licenses."
"I don't know about the price. I know there are different tiers with the license, but I'm not sure exactly what it costs anymore."
"For long-term use, perpetual licenses are more cost-effective, and for short-term use, subscription-based would be more cost-effective."
"There are different editions available at different cost points."
"The VMware Horizon 7 license is for three months. We are in the testing stage, we are still evaluating the product. We are sure now that we need to buy a license for the production environment."
"The price of VMware Horizon 7 is more than some other solutions."
"The product is extremely expensive."
"The pricing depends on the use cases. It depends on the company's needs and budget. For us, it was okay, not too expensive."
"I would say it's expensive as there similar products available for free."
"There is a licensing cost."
"The pricing is moderate."
"The solution comes free with Microsoft Windows."
"The cost is fair."
"I am aware that for Azure we do have an extra license because we are leveraging on different tenants."
"I recall that you don't need to pay for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services because that's included in Windows."
"The tool's pricing is high in the Slovenian market. I rate it a nine out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 setup is easy, and the product is very stable and reliable. I think the fact th...
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 that is readily deployable. The advantage lies in its simplicity, it requires mini...
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 VMware to get it into production. Hence, we lost a lot of time implementing the ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
The tool must be cheaper. It should provide an option to pay the license fee once in a year or once in two years.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
When we update the environment, we face problems sometimes, and the users cannot use the system.
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
Remote Desktop Services, MS Remote Desktop Services
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Bank Alfalah Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.