Citrix XenServer Reviews

My company is an integrator that provides services for other companies. Our current client use Citrix Hypervisor's virtual desktop solution to allow third parties to access their system. It's all technical people that access this platform to provide services within SAP or whatever product they're using.

Citrix Hypervisor is quick to deploy and easy to manage.

Citrix could provide more tools to help the client manage the solution because we need to build our own tools in some cases. Everything is available through PowerShell, but then you need to build your own scripts to do the more advanced work.

I've used Citrix Hypervisor for six years.

Citrix is highly stable.

Citrix is scalable enough for our needs, but we don't manage tens of thousands of VDIs. It's easy to grow and add more hosts when needed, so the scalability is good for us.

Citrix support is good. We've never had significant issues that required us to open complex tickets, but they were responsive when we needed them.

We have provided VMware for some clients. However, many clients prefer Citrix because it's cheaper.

Deploying Citrix Hypervisor was straightforward.

I don't manage the the licensing. I know generally that Citrix is cheaper than VMware, but I don't know by how much.

I rate Citrix Hypervisor 10 out of 10. It's working fine. 

We use Citrix Hypervisor to have greater control over our infrastructure. For example, file services, domain controllers, databases, and the entire active directories within it.

We are able to easily manage our infrastructure with the use of Citrix Hypervisor.

Citrix Hypervisor integrates easily and I can manage the infrastructure better. If I need to take a machine down to expand the hard drive, I do not have to physically be here. I do not need to order new equipment or new hard drives. I can shut it down, increase the drive space and bring it back up. I find that hypervisor updates are extremely easy to do.

I find that the features in Citrix Hypervisor are not as rich as with VMware. It would be a benefit if they had some of the other features VMware has, such as the ability to expand a drive on the fly. You do not have to take down the machine to do it but in Citrix you do.

In a future release, Citrix Hypervisor should update its features to provide as many features as VMware does.

I have been using Citrix Hypervisor for nearly two years.

Citrix Hypervisor has been very stable. I have been impressed with updating of the hosts. For example, in the interface, you will be notified when there are updates and to perform the updates is quite simple.

The solution is scalable. If you need additional resources, you could add hosts. When I started at my current company we had three hosts and now we have five. We have increased the number of servers that we have, along with memory, and could then provide additional offerings because we have the resources to do so.

We have approximately 130 to 150 users using the solution in my company.

Citrix Hypervisor's technical support is very good. They provide high-level support and are very responsive. Once you are in contact with the support, they will remote into your system, and take a look at how the system is operating internally. They usually resolve any issues relatively fast.

I have previously used VMware.

The installation of Citrix Hypervisor is simple once you get used to it. My background was more with VMware, but when I joined this organization, they used Citrix. Once you learn the intricacies it is simple. There are some elements of the installations that are complex that could be simplified. If you have used a similar solution before this one it not too hard to figure out.

I am the only one in the company that does the maintenance of the solution.

The solution virtualizes the environment which saves on environmental and hardware costs.

There is a license required to use this solution. You need a license on every server, but the license is more for support than anything else. The cost is not expensive, it is a fraction of the cost of VMware. When you look at the cost overall and features, Citrix Hypervisor has a very attractive offering.

I rate Citrix Hypervisor an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is for cloud automation.

This solution allows the end users to clone, start, stop, or remotely control their VMs.

The most valuable feature is the cost; it is a free product.

The self-service user portal needs to be more granular and be more customizable.

The stability of this solution is great, so far.

In terms of scalability, so far so good.

There are approximately two hundred users, with their roles being QA and development. I do expect that the usage will increase a little bit.

There is a paid option for this solution that comes with support, but with the free version that I am using, it is not supported. That is probably a weakness in most corporate environments, but we use it for QA and stuff of that nature.

Previously we were using vCenter from VMware. Our company was purchased and split in half, and I didn't know if we would be continuing the enterprise licensing with VMware so I had to find a free solution. 

The initial setup was straightforward.

It took about four weeks to deploy. We have a small environment.

I handled the deployment personally, and I am the person who maintains the solution for now.

Had I been using the paid version, at $6,000 for an annual license, I believe that it would have paid for itself already.

We use the free version, so there is no charge. To subscribe to the paid version with support, it is approximately $6,000 per year. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

I looked at VMware's vRealize Automation, but it was eliminated due to our budget constraints. 

I really like this solution, but it is not widely known. I'm really surprised that more people don't know about it. I find that it suits our needs pretty well.

Considering what I am getting for the cost I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. There are more powerful solutions out there, but they're very costly.

If I were paying for the support then I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We migrated from VMware to XenCenter to cut costs.

This solution is more cost-effective and hardware-efficient with Citrix VDI.

The support for this solution is phenomenal.

The built-in networking features are a little limited.

Prior to this solution, we used VMware.

We primarily use the solution for virtualization and for building other things on top of it. Mostly we sell the solution to other customers and offer them support.

The solution integrates well with other solutions, which makes it really strong as a primary solution to deploy.

The solution is too expensive and people are kind of moving away from Citrix. It's starting to become a problem. It is a primary reason that while we are rebuilding we're going to seek out open-source solutions.

The solution is stable.

The solution is highly scalable and can be highly integrated with other solutions, which makes it very good.

Technical support is good. I would rate them eight out of ten.

Sometimes there are difficulties when you look at the reseller model because you need to go through the reseller to get help, and often they are just salespeople. For us, in Botswana, resellers are typically in South Africa and they are more interested in sales than assistance.

These resellers are only interested in sales. When you are an assistant or a developer like we are, they can't really support you. They can only offer licenses to you. That is actually where the problem is. They have their sales quarters. If you don't meet their quarter they'll cut you off the next time and you have to reapply and go through their checks again, which is not a Citrix problem, but a partner weakness that should be re-considered.

The initial setup has a moderate level of difficulty. Someone with a good understanding of the technology will be okay, but if someone who is new to the solution may experience challenges. 

When you try to show clients Citrix, the price kind of scares them away. It's quite expensive.

We are rebuilding our whole news infrastructure. We stopped using the solution for some things, but we will use it once we are finished with what we are currently building.

We're using a hybrid deployment model. We're also a Citrix partner.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I really like the solution. It works well.

We use it for different VDI scenarios and application publishing.

I've found the following features to be the most valuable: user personalization layer, app layering, provisioning, and notification services for integration between different domains.

There are several areas that need improvement including the stability of the networking stack and networking management.

Storage monitoring also needs to be improved because at the moment, we cannot monitor GFS2 partitions on Citrix Hypervisor. This means that we need to find third party solutions.

I've been using it for 16 years.

Overall, the stability is good. However, when there are problems in some areas, such as networking, it results in problems overall with the stability of Citrix Hypervisor.

The scalability is okay for small- and medium-sized businesses. However, additional features like site recovery for multi-domains and multi-data center deployment scenarios will be useful for different customers.

As for technical support, sometimes we spend a lot of time explaining what we need to do, what we do, etc. with a lot of emails, conversations, and chats that are not very efficient. Then at other times, we have really perfect and amazing conversations with support engineers, and they quickly provide solutions and resolve our problems.

Overall, however, I've seen a decrease in the expertise of Hypervisor vendors. Previously, the time for resolution from vendor support was less than it is now.

We have used RDS, VMware, and Parellels. We switched to Citrix Hypervisor because of its scalability, management, and stability. CVAD was also a factor.

The initial setup is really easy. If you have basic knowledge of IT technology, deployment is not really difficult. However, additional components like provisioning require more knowledge and expertise, but they can be handled by mid-range admins.

Depending on the case, deployment can take from two hours to several days.

You should try Citrix Hypervisor. You may have pain points sometimes, but if you build it and tune it well for your requirements, this solution can help you do your job in different scenarios without any problems. It's all about business continuity and the stability of your solution.

Overall, I would rate Citrix Hypervisor at seven on a scale from one to ten.

We primarily use the solution to deploy some services for our final users. 

The solution's security is its most valuable aspect.

The customization is very good.

Technical support is very, very good. They are very knowledgeable and responsive.

The pricing is good if you compare it to what else is on the market.

Overall, I can't think of a feature that is lacking. We've been pretty satisfied overall.

We've been using the solution for a while. We've used it over the last 12 months at least.

The stability is very good. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We find it good. It's reliable.

The scalability is good. If a company needs to expand it, it should be able to rather effectively. It's so easy to create new users and add new features that can be integrated into the solution.

We do plan to increase usage. There may be about 50 people now, however, but by the end of the year, we may be up to 100 or so.

The solution offers very good technical support. We've been very satisfied with the level of service that they provide.

We didn't previously use a different solution. This is our first product for our company to use in this manner.

The initial setup is not complex. It's pretty straightforward. It was easy.

Depending on the configuration and the number of users the deployment times differ. Typically, it will take between one and three hours.

We used three to five people for deployment and maintenance.

We used a Citrix integrator that assisted us in the implementation.

I'd say that the ROI has been good, however, it is not so easy to calculate that. When you get satisfaction from the users and the way they can work around the solution, that's the best return of investment that you can get from any kind of solution.

We pay for licensing yearly. It's a subscription-based license. We find the price to be quite good.

We are a reseller.

This may be the best solution on the market for these purposes. We've been very happy with it so far.

I'd rate the solution for nine out of ten.

The primary use case of this solution is for providing virtual machines to the customers.

It reduced the number of physical workstations. There was a requirement to have several different workstations physically.

Also, it helped us to keep it standard. This allowed more management of the virtual machines.

The most valuable features are being able to host many virtual machines and being able to patch machines. For example, have a primary and secondary machine and being able to put the user on one machine and patch up the other one and rotate.

Some of the tools are different from VMware and there are some issues with speed in the network.

They need to have some cleared individuals on their team.

There are some limits, and technical support could be improved. The online documentation could be better found within the accounts. 

There is an issue with having an actual account versus a standard account. 

You need a licensed account to look up technical support.

Better return time when reaching out for support would be an improvement.

I had been working with Citrix Hypervisor for approximately six years.

They incremented every new version that came out from XenServer 6 to 7.5.

There were several times where there were some glitches or it crashed. 

Our network is a standalone one that is not connected to the outside. Being able to either update or get any type of support without allowing outside into the internal network was sometimes difficult.

It's a scalable solution. It's easy to scale.

We looked at scaling and going into machine creation services where you have one machine and that's the gold master machine in the update.

We have approximately 150 users in our organization. 

Their roles were mostly purposes, usual work.

I have used technical support. They were helpful but not helpful for the environment that I worked with because of security reasons. We couldn't give access to the internal network.

Previously, we did not use another solution. We started with Citrix Hypervisor.

I was not a part of the setup process.

I would definitely suggest that you do a trade study with other Hypervisors available.

I would rate Citrix Hypervisor a six out of ten.