We performed a comparison between Parallels Desktop 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."Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS. It works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"I like how, with Parallels, you can either boot into Mac or Windows to get better control over the resources of the laptops since you're sharing the resources in dual mode."
"Client compatibility with many systems makes it very versatile. The reporting that is included is awesome."
"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."
"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 stability is ok - once I finished the setup, the system was quite stable."
"We can provision the servers without the need for another third-party solution."
"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."
"It is robust. We have some 75 users using it and it doesn't lag. It's very speedy."
"There may have been some issues with device drivers on my Mac. Similarly, there are some issues with transferring data from Parallels to the Mac."
"The biggest challenge is compatibility between VMware and Parallels because the two systems are incompatible. It can be challenging if you are switching between Windows and Mac. I recommend sticking with one product because there isn't good compatibility between the different products."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's application virtualization feature needs improvement."
"Currently in the RD Session Hosts – Sessions section, I can see what server a user is logged into but not what app he is using. Being able to do so would be immensely helpful when a non-technical user is complaining of issues, but I can’t tell which app he is using, and he is actually logged into multiple servers since they serve multiple apps."
"Opening a ticket should be available from the actual RAS console. It is cumbersome to go to a portal, hunt around for five minutes for a link to open a ticket, answer questions meant to direct you towards FAQs instead of live support, then fill out information (license #, version #, etc.) which could more easily be supplied by sending a ticket straight from the console with all of that information automatically specified."
"The product does not utilize SQL for reporting purposes. Also, it does not support some hypervisors similar to Citrix. These particular areas need improvement."
"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."
"The main issue we have with all of our users is printing. Randomly, a printer will disconnect or someone won't connect to it and I will have to reset the print service and then nobody can print. That's the big headache we've had over the course of the five years."
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Parallels Desktop is ranked 9th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 2 reviews while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 12th in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) with 24 reviews. Parallels Desktop is rated 7.6, while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Parallels Desktop writes "A great platform to develop interoperable code on". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". Parallels Desktop is most compared with VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation, NComputing vSpace, NVIDIA GRID and VMware Horizon View, whereas Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, Citrix Workspace, Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service), VMware Workstation and NVIDIA GRID. See our Parallels Desktop vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) report.
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