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Horizon 8 vs Horizon Cloud Service 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 8
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
Horizon Cloud Service
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 7.2%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 2.1%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Horizon 87.2%
Horizon Cloud Service2.1%
Other90.7%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

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…
SivaKuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 features of VMware Horizon in our education organization are its Graphics Virtualization Unit (GVU) integration."
"Users can log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is secure remote access to resources."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon is the VDI service, which helps externals use their own devices while keeping the data inside our data center."
"Managing all operating systems in a single environment helped a lot in organizing and integrating it."
"The most important feature of this solution is the connectivity with every device, such as iPad, iPhone, and other terminals. The security of the solution is very good."
"Horizon 7 is scalable - we can add more machines or servers easily."
"It is a stable product."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."
"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."
"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."
"The tool remains pretty stable."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is easy to use and the full development cloud is very good. The main features of VMware are included. It's a cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure software that allows you to permit the virtual desktops and applications to any device from the single unified management control. These are managed from the dedicated remote session desktop."
"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"The solution is quite expensive. They should work to lower the costs if possible."
"My deployment is complex and I hope it will only take a month."
"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."
"The solution should provide easy configuration."
"They could incorporate an application library for application learning and licensing."
"There is room for improvement in the integration with other parts of the suite. For example, you currently need separate windows to manage app volumes and the dynamic environment manager (DEM)."
"We have seen and face notable challenges in the configuration aspect specifically while creating and assigning groups which have proven to be a very cumbersome and tiring process. Apart from this the Reliance on the Active Directory as the only directory has its own limitation, which include the requirement to purchase a windows server for an environment outside the standard set up."
"There are some licensing issues in VMware Horizon"
"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."
"The product has a lot of bugs."
"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."
"It is very expensive. Its price needs to be improved. They can do a better job with external resources such as a USB or a hard drive. When I tried to connect using these external resources, it failed a lot of times. I had to do a shared connection with a local laptop and then connect from a network standpoint, rather than through VMware Horizon point. They definitely have weaknesses with external connections. A lot of companies probably don't let people use external connections because it defeats the purpose of having a cloud solution and keeping the data in a secure area. You can copy to an external device, and you can lose the data. A lot of companies may not focus on this feature, but if you are providing it, you should make it work."
"The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices."
"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."
"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"In the design phase, sometimes the tools for designing Horizon solutions have issues when they're calculating the number of nodes and platforms needed to support the VDI systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a monthly subscription for the use of this solution and it is expensive."
"The price of VMware Horizon 7 is more than some other solutions."
"I would rate the pricing of VMware Horizon View a five out of ten. The price is average."
"The pricing can be relatively competitive, but sometimes you have to go back to VMware and ask for additional discounts. You can make it competitive If you're prepared to put in the work. The list prices and standard discounts may not be competitive, but if you push hard enough, you can get the price to where you need it to be."
"VMware Horizon is expensive. It should provide a special price for more user licenses."
"Customers pay a licensing fee."
"The license cost has increased significantly, so we’re helping some customers with Azure VMware desktop solutions to save on licensing."
"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 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."
"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."
"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."
"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."
"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
10%
Media Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business61
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

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 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...
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Marriott, Sprint
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. Horizon Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
873,003 professionals have used our research since 2012.