We performed a comparison between Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is the ability to remote into a system that is not on-premises."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is its security and simple configuration."
"It's scalable enough for our needs and very reliable."
"The performance is one of the main features of this solution."
"The solution works on Microsoft servers."
"Installing Microsoft Desktop Services is straightforward."
"Good screen draw feature and ability to use two monitors."
"It's almost an out of the box function once you have installed the other components."
"We can provision the servers without the need for another third-party solution."
"Simplicity of the interface is a valuable feature."
"Allows us to publish applications accessible by current-generation HTML5 browser or OS-specific client (Windows, Android, iOS), and it supports popular single sign-on and multi-factor authentication protocols."
"We can publish apps and desktops on Terminal Servers and seamlessly share printers. We also combine Parallels with Deepnet Security to get two-factor authentication."
"Its price and ease of use are the most valuable. It is simple and has good performance."
"Setup was straightforward. Our particular use case involved an Active Directory forest involving two data centers and three domains. User authentication against Active Directory was the easiest to set up and validate of any application installed in the last three years."
"Ease of use in publishing apps and installing the agent. The Interface is fairly intuitive after some tinkering. Although I inherited the app only two-thirds deployed, I was able to complete the deployment and service it over the last year without referring to any documentation."
"We use RAS to publish cloud desktops to our clients. The ability to easily publish resources to a subset of users is what we find most valuable."
"The only problems that you're going to have with the remote desktop are going to be firewall ports, security, and NLA, which is a net network level access control, or TLS transfer layer security or some other SSL-type of security."
"The reliability of the solution could improve."
"The biggest reason we don't use the solution for our company's clients is the solution's prices."
"Microsoft Remote Desktop Services could improve by having graphical acceleration."
"Its look and feel could be updated. In Azure Remote Desktop Services (RDS), which is a VDI solution, we would like to see linked clones. It is a Hyper-V solution, and it doesn't support linked clones and uses a lot of storage. That's why we don't use it. VMware has a similar solution that supports linked clones for the master image."
"We've had issues with security breaches."
"The user interface needs improvement."
"Teams component can be a bit cumbersome to use. It takes some time to get it working as expected."
"We have had significant, ongoing issues with printing. It would be great to have a best practice for dealing with printing that we can offer to our customers."
"From a seller's point of view, there are a lot of things that they could do better in the sales cycle."
"We would like the ability to provide a popup message, such as a maintenance notification. That same notification on the Parallels client would be awesome."
"If the solution crashes, then all the customers connected through that agent, lose their session."
"Improvement is needed in performance monitoring of the client's endpoint, and automatic re-connection of the client in the event of circuit disruptions (this works well generally but can present challenges)."
"The product does not utilize SQL for reporting purposes. Also, it does not support some hypervisors similar to Citrix. These particular areas need improvement."
"The customization of the web interface could possibly use some improvement. Little things, like being able to place a background image instead of just choosing from a palette of colors, would be nice."
"HALB is not stable in our environment. When running two HALBs we have stability problems, so we use an active one and a passive for backup. Also, it would be nice to implement an upgrade of the environment without having to stop the servers. As it is, this must be done during off-hours."
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Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is ranked 1st in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 76 reviews while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 12th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 24 reviews. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is rated 8.0, while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services writes "Easy to set up and reliable, but needs an additional control panel". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is most compared with TeamViewer, VMware Horizon, Citrix Workspace, VMware Workstation and VMware Horizon View, whereas Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Citrix Workspace, Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), Parallels Desktop, NVIDIA GRID and VMware Workstation. See our Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) report.
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