Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops vs Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
We performed a comparison between Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Many PeerSpot users use Microsoft Remote Desktop Services as it is already embedded into their Microsoft operating systems (at no additional cost) and can scale on demand. The PeerSpot users that work outside of the Microsoft universe choose Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops due to its excellent virtualization capabilities and that it is a mature, reliable solution.
"The product is simple to set up, and its deep integration with Microsoft is also a valuable feature."
"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."
"There are many features that I like, but the stability over the Internet is exceptional. Even if there's bandwidth fluctuation or network jitter, it performs well, offering a seamless experience to end-users without noticeable disruptions."
"I use Citrix DaaS to connect to devices."
"The App is the most valuable feature."
"For our company's customers, I feel that the product is stable."
"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."
"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."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pros →
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is that it scales well."
"What I found most valuable in Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is accessibility because the solution lets you take control of your computer remotely."
"The most valuable features are the desktop session and desktop virtualization."
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is highly stable."
"The most valuable feature is performance."
"The solution works on Microsoft servers."
"Microsoft is very reasonable in its approach to cost."
"Pricing can be lower and roaming profiles need to be fixed to work consistently."
"Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help."
"Pricing and technical support need improvement."
"The monitoring and management is in need of improvement."
"Using the app layering feature can be quite difficult and cumbersome."
"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."
"My only issue with Citrix is that they frequently rebrand their products. I'm using the app and everything is fine but after a couple of years, it's entirely different. There were an enormous number of Citrix tools readily available. My immediate concern was selecting the correct ones."
"Licensing service installation and configuration was the biggest challenge for all Citrix solutions, but now they have fixed a lot of issues."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Cons →
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services needs to improve its security."
"I would like to see the hard drives work without locking up and integrate the local drives in the next release."
"The only issue I experienced was with the initialization of the session, which affected the stability of the solution."
"Sometimes the server stops working, and we don’t know why. Occasionally we’ll get a message to the effect of "There is no remote license.""
"We encounter challenges with portability, especially for users of iOS devices."
"The solution should have better security."
"For Microsoft, maybe bandwidth optimization is one of the areas that need improvement."
"The biggest reason we don't use the solution for our company's clients is the solution's prices."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Microsoft Remote Desktop Services Pricing and Cost Advice →
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is ranked 3rd in Remote Access with 90 reviews while Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is ranked 2nd in Remote Access with 76 reviews. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) writes "Flexible Deployment, reliable performance, and fast transmission speeds". 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 DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is most compared with Amazon Appstream, VMware Horizon View, Citrix Workspace, Amazon WorkSpaces and Apache Guacamole, whereas Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is most compared with TeamViewer, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace, VMware Workstation and OpenText Exceed TurboX. See our Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services report.
See our list of best Remote Access vendors and best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
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