Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Reviews

I use it for VDI; it's a virtual desktop community.

It's a full SSL solution, so no additional VPN or security features can be added. The solution itself provides SSL connectivity. It's a good solution.

It would be great if they included VPN features and improved connectivity.

I have been using it for four years now.

It is stable once configured.

It is a scalable solution. There are around a thousand end users. 

It is regularly used. We plan to expand its usage in the future.

We have vendor support. Because it's a new solution for us, we wanted support directly from the vendor until we build internal capacity.

The tech support is fast, knowledgeable, and customer-friendly.

The initial setup's complexity depends on your expertise. It should be done by an expert. For our team, we have an expert who handles installation and deployment.

So, it was straightforward for us.

It integrates smoothly with our existing infrastructure without needing additional resources. It's straightforward.

We have seven experts who manage everything from the Citrix side. It depends on the client's interests and requirements.

It is good in ROI aspect for our case.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. I would recommend it if anyone with VDI connectivity use case wants to use it.

If a client wants remote connectivity and resource sharing, I recommend Citrix. VMware Horizon is another option with similar features. It depends on the requirements.

I use the solution in my company for hybrid users and support.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the convenience and the ease of setup the tool provides.

From an improvement perspective, I want to have multiple logins in one JUMP file, if possible. Nowadays in my company, we have to spare one PC as a jump point for the user. My company's purpose is to have multiple jump points. Improvements are required to be made in the solution since, presently, with the tool, hybrid users have to get involved with multiple logins.

In the future, the product should have some mobile applications. Though in our company, we can use the product through mobile by using Microsoft desktop, the screen is not that friendly enough.

I have been using Citrix Workspace for two years.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution as seven and a half out of ten. There are some issues with the product's scalability, considering that Citrix found a loophole in the solution after my company had used it for two years. My organization needs to see whether the loophole found by Citrix is dangerous and whether we will be exposed to vulnerabilities. Most organizations use Citrix Workspace with standard settings and as per what is suggested by Citrix.

More than 1,000 people use the tool in my company.

I rate the technical support a nine out of ten. I am happy with the support offered by the product.

Positive

I have experience with Microsoft Remote Desktop. If I compare Microsoft Remote Desktop and Citrix Workspace, I would say that Microsoft Remote Desktop is used internally in our company. Citrix offers license-based tools. In our company, we prefer using Microsoft Remote Desktop. Microsoft Remote Desktop uses more resources and networks compared to Citrix. Citrix offers more optimized solutions.

The product's initial setup phase is simple and easy.

The solution is deployed on the hybrid model.

If one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the tool's price a three.

In terms of security features, the product offers MFA functionalities. Citrix has yet to disclose some issues with the tool's security features. I heard that Citrix found some loopholes in the product, and they have yet to be covered up.

The product can be easily integrated with other tools.

I recommend the tool to others.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

I use it to deliver applications and desktops over the Internet and secure data.

The main benefits include:

• enhanced security,
• return on investment since we're only delivering applications,
• flexible work hours for remote employees, and
• ensuring data and applications are always accessible and
• availability of the systems.

The challenge is that people don't want to take their data or applications from the data center. When I need to deliver an application or data securely to a laptop connected to the Internet, or to someone working from home who may not be able to have the application installed due to GDPR or compliance issues, or because the laptop or desktop lacks the power to run those applications or process that data, in this situation, Citrix DaaS allows for secure delivery over the Internet without exposing it to the rest of the world, keeping it within the data center.

To integrate Citrix DaaS with other infrastructure components, such as Active Directory, which is an integral part, and other applications like SaaS or the printing system, these need to be locally installed or packaged and delivered to our Citrix infrastructure. 

The integration depends on various factors:

• type of applications, 
• connectivity, and 
• actual business use case driving that integration. 

So, it's quite subjective, but it largely depends on these factors.

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.

From the productivity perspective, the seamless end-user experience is key for productivity and user experience. This is managed through the HDX technology, which ensures a smooth and efficient workflow.

The experience with HDX technology has been amazing, especially for organizations dealing with videos, AutoCAD, and 3D image rendering. 

Unlike competitors like VMware or AVD, Citrix DaaS handles these tasks smoothly without the choppiness, providing excellent video playback and stable collaboration tool calls, like Teams, Zoom, or Webex, by efficiently compressing voice data to utilize minimum bandwidth without distorting the original quality.

I would like to see simplification in the management of the on-prem infrastructure component of Citrix DaaS, particularly in the studio tool used to manage the DaaS infrastructure. 

This simplification should make it easier for admins to understand and execute their tasks, possibly through an overview of operations and the availability of helpful articles or resources. 

Making the studio tool more user-friendly would not only ease the administration of the Citrix infrastructure but also ensure it is configured correctly.

I'm also interested in a feature that would allow end users to hide their screens. For instance, when launching a Citrix VDI on my laptop, as soon as I start sharing my screen, the VDI should lock out, preventing the person I'm sharing my screen with from seeing anything on that VDI. 

However, there are scenarios where an end user might want to share the VDI screen as well. Currently, whether this is possible or not is not controlled by the end user. Introducing a feature that provides end users the ability to share their screen along with the VDI would be beneficial.

I've been working with it for nearly 12 years.

In my 12 years of customer-facing experience and managing over 80+ accounts, the environment, once stabilized, remains stable for a good amount of time unless it's tampered with.

I manage around 80+ accounts for Citrix virtualization across the entire virtualization stack, involving approximately 1.4 million users.

Both scalability and reliability are really good. If supporting components like Active Directory, networking, and storage are functioning well, then Citrix DaaS proves to be highly reliable. 

Scalability is easy too, thanks to Citrix's image management system, which allows for quick expansion, scaling thousands of machines in hours, a feat not possible with physical infrastructure.

The technical support is neutral, indicating there is room for improvement.

Neutral

I also handle accounts for VMware Horizon, Azure Virtual Desktop, and AWS Workspace, among others.

The main challenge with Citrix is its pricing. However, it offers a robust feature list, great stability, and the best audio and video experience over the Internet.

I would classify the initial setup as medium complex. It's not extremely complex, but due to the involvement of various technologies and the need for advanced configuration—such as coordination with the Active Directory team, understanding storage, and networking—it's not straightforward either. 

For someone familiar with these technologies, the setup process might be seen as straightforward.

I work with both on-premises and cloud versions.

The implementation strategy is always very simple, though people often confuse deployment strategy with mere installation. 

Before deployment, it's crucial to understand the business use case for deploying Citrix infrastructure. This involves assessing what type of users are involved, whether they're suitable for VDI, and if there are any within this user base who cannot use VDI and instead need physical laptops. 

This assessment covers their profile needs, required bandwidth, and resources. After this assessment, a testing phase, followed by a pilot, should be undertaken before a full rollout. This thorough approach is essential; without it, many customers face issues.

Therefore, the timeframe truly depends on several factors, such as the type of applications, the number of servers, and the number of users involved. So, it really varies.

On average, it might take around eight weeks. A lot of resources would not be needed if you have the right resource or a team with the right skill set. They would be able to deploy and scale it very easily.

Citrix itself doesn't require much maintenance, but it's important to have people with the necessary skill set to identify issues related to other components like networking or storage.

Implementing Citrix DaaS with thin clients, rather than physical laptops, has resulted in savings of 27% to 29%. 

Additionally, moving 1,000 users from physical laptops to thin clients and VDI solutions can save around 40,000 kilograms of carbon emissions, benefiting both the environment and the company's economy, provided thin clients are used.

Anyone looking to deploy Citrix DaaS needs to first understand their business use case and determine why they want to offer Citrix DaaS as either an application or desktop version to their end users. 

It's crucial to assess whether their end users truly need this solution. If so, they should understand the profile requirements and how applications will behave when virtualized or moved to the cloud. 

After this assessment, proceed with testing, then a pilot, and finally, roll out to production.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Our use case for Citrix Workspace in our environment is optimizing connectivity for over 5,000 shopping centers. It helps us provide secure access to our data center.

The product's technical support services need improvement. They have different priority support engineers, including schedule support and case support. The schedule support engineer could be more productive. Along with that, the case support engineer could study the issues in depth and give a prompt response. Instead, they give basic suggestions and respond very slowly.

Integrating a 64-bit network directly into the environment could eliminate the necessity for third-party solutions. This enhancement would help users who need a workspace to install components. Horizon provides functionality where users can seamlessly connect via the website without requiring a dedicated client installation. 

Our company has been using Citrix Workspace for over ten years. I started using it two years ago.

The platform is stable. However, we sometimes encounter glitches during upgradation.

We have more than 10,000 Citrix Workspace users working in our environment and have conducted 17,000 sessions.

I have used VMware Horizon before. I recommend a preference for Workspace for virtual app delivery. However, regarding Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and desktops, Horizon is a much more flexible environment, as users can directly access the website and log in without needing a dedicated workspace.

It is a complicated system to maintain. We have around seven executives in the virtualization team and over 300 executives in the IT department working on the maintenance.

Citrix is expensive. In comparison, VMware is less expensive and gives free licenses as well.

Citrix Workspace substantially enhances team productivity. It allows us to mute users who adhere to a policy of not allowing direct VPN access for security reasons. It is easy to use.

No essential documentation is available for understanding the integration process with existing infrastructure. We have to refer to other portals more than Citrix for the same.

I rate it a nine out of ten.

The tool supports remote work, allowing users to access apps and data from anywhere with the same speed as if they were in the office.

The most beneficial feature is seamless remote access, particularly for applications rather than full endpoints. Security features include full data encryption and integrated SSL VPN through NetScaler for secure access.

I have found that Citrix DaaS is still a complex product, especially on the desktop side, which affects scalability. Although it works well on the apps side, the desktop aspect still has room for improvement in scalability. Managing multiple OSs centrally doesn't reduce many problems, and the product remains almost on par with its competitors like VMware Vue.

The tool was once the leader in this market, and while it still offers competitive functionality, it could have enhanced security features and third-party integrations. For example, OneDrive can't be fully integrated, and Outlook's email indexing often has issues, leading to search problems for end users.

In the last two years, Citrix DaaS' technical support has lagged, particularly in India, where it was previously quite good. While I wouldn't say it has completely deteriorated, there has been some slowness. If earlier the quality of support was around 85% to 90%, it has now slowed down to about 70%. This decline might be related to a decrease in customers using the product.

Neutral

The initial setup is also complex due to the number of components in Citrix DaaS' architecture, and customers typically need partner support to deploy it. While it has tried to simplify by moving complexities to the cloud, the on-premise components still pose challenges.

I rate the overall product a six out of ten. 

The entire development environment is accessed only through the virtual desktop setup using Citrix DaaS.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the desktop virtualization, which allows me to connect from anywhere. The solution's security feature provides a secure environment for the organization by preventing copying the content outside the virtual desktop.

The Citrix DaaS application is a bit heavy when it comes to mobile access, and it should function more smoothly. For example, the Citrix mobile app takes a long time to log in and should work even faster. Compared with the Outlook mobile app, the Citrix mobile app shows some lag in authentication.

I have been using Citrix DaaS for four to five years.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

Citrix DaaS is quite a scalable solution. We can quickly set up new desktops. With a simple configuration, we can create multiple instances and seamlessly give users access. Around 20 to 25 users use the tool in our organization, and we have plans to increase the usage.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for scalability.

I previously used VMware Horizon. I switched to Citrix DaaS because it seemed more secure.

The solution’s initial setup is very easy.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution’s initial setup ten out of ten.

The solution has a fast deployment, and it can be deployed in less than ten minutes.

The tool provides a good return on investment because it reduces the maintenance of user hardware. We don't need powerful user hardware, like a powerful laptop; any simple laptop is enough to connect. We can add the required intra virtually to the virtual desktops so it gives the required performance.

We are using Citrix DaaS in the IT industry. The solution's security aspect has influenced our trust in using it for remote access. I would recommend Citrix DaaS to other users for its security and performance.

Overall, I rate Citrix DaaS a nine out of ten.

The main use case for me is the solution’s ability to provide remote users access to enterprise LAN over thin Internet-connected devices securely and efficiently.

I have found the NetScaler or ADC devices by Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops valuable. The product is simple to set up, and its deep integration with Microsoft is also a valuable feature.

Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help.

I have been using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops for the past 14 years.

It is a stable solution. It is a fire-and-forget solution. Once you set it up, things keep happening, and you don't even have to monitor it until you want to get some statistics.

The solution is scalable. Approximately 10,000 users use the solution in my company. We often use Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops in our company, but it all depends on the use cases. If we find the solution convenient for our projects, we will definitely use it. However, we'd only do it on a case-to-case basis. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is our go-to solution for any server-based computing.

The customer support for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops should be more knowledgeable.

The setup is pretty simple and easy. We keep deploying it very often based on our requirements, but the complete setup can be done in three days or less than three days for a 1000 people user base. It's more of a fire-and-forget solution. It will take three days if you have the entire idea. If you want to chart out from the beginning, that could take around two months. However, if you know what you're doing, it can be done in three days.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a decade-old technology. We don't need any consultants to set it up. Any candidate with five to six years of experience should be able to set it up. We analyze the applications, the customers, and the users. We also consider the type of user base and the type of applications, and then we plan our infrastructure to meet their requirements and do a POC before deploying the solution. Considering Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a 24/7 uptime solution, we need at least six technical staff for its deployment and maintenance.

We do have an ROI using this solution.

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is an expensive solution.

I use the latest LTSR version of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

Someone who needs an enterprise solution with a stable working environment should go for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. If there is no 24/7 requirement, and they can manage a few hours of outage, people should look at alternatives for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. This solution is for critical users who cannot do without it. Banking and finance customers should adopt the cloud version of this solution and not the enterprise version.

Overall, I rate Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops an eight out of ten.

My company started with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service, which is presently renamed and referred to as Citrix DaaS. The majority of my company's customers use Citrix DaaS to deploy specific kinds of virtual desktops. Citrix DaaS is also used to deploy virtual machines with GPU or with a certain graphics capacity.

In general, Citrix DaaS has the ability to be very granular in the policies part to achieve the best user experience possible, even in cases where the bandwidth is very poor.

Recently, my company has started to face some troubles with Citrix at an organizational or corporate level, meaning we have no problems with Citrix as a product. After some new company recently acquired Citrix, my company has observed that it has become quite complex for our partners to maintain apps and follow the vision of Citrix, which expects its users to use Citrix products. I have issues with Citrix as a company and not with the products.

I have experience with Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) for twenty years. My company deals with multiple versions of the product. My company has a partnership with Citrix.

For our company's customers, I feel that the product is stable. My company has planned out well enough to do some periodic checkups and update patches for our customers, but not in the time frame that falls in less than six months.

My company deals with around 12 to 15 customers Who need the product in their complex Citrix-based environment.

In our organization, we have very little installation of Citrix products for our administrative purposes, so not more than five people use Citrix DaaS in the company. If you look at the number of our customers using Citrix DaaS, I would say that there are about 2,000 users.

The solution's technical support is not so good. The solution's technical support was great in the past. Considering the past, I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Under the present circumstances, I rate the technical support a six to seven out of ten.

Neutral

Half of my company's customers deployed the product on an on-premises model, while the other half deployed it on Citrix Cloud Broker. I feel that the majority of my company's customers have deployed the product on an on-premises model. Citrix Cloud is for the brokering process only.

Speaking if the product is worth the money, I would say that I need to think twice or thrice before investing in it.

In the past, the prices of the product were great. With the acquisition of Citrix by your company, the prices have drastically increased. For my company, it has become a bit of a problem to sell products from Citrix.

We started to use Citrix DaaS in our company, and I had the opportunity to hold on to my experience related to products from Citrix even when I moved from one company to another. I used Citrix in my company, Quanture, to deploy applications from the beginning, but it is mostly used for virtual desktops. My company uses Citrix DaaS for some specific phases in the tile industry, where the work is about manufacturing or producing tiles. In the production area, the tile company I deal with needs to develop a schema and design of the tiles using virtual desktops and virtual workstations with a certain graphic potential functionality. Citrix DaaS was a solution my company could provide to our customers so that they could replace costly workstations with virtual machines.

To those who plan to use the solution, I suggest that they initially take care of the PoC area because it is only useful, and they would appreciate the product if they intend to use it.

Citrix DaaS is a powerful solution. I recommend the product to only those who involved their IT staff during the PoC process, along with some end users, since if you don't involve the right people in the initial phases, there could be future problems with the product.

I rate the product a nine out of ten.

I rate the company named Citrix a six or seven out of ten.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.