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Amazon Appstream vs Amazon WorkSpaces comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Appstream
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Amazon WorkSpaces
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) category, the mindshare of Amazon Appstream is 25.4%, up from 22.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 14.4%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
 

Featured Reviews

RH
Offers good performance, efficiency, and network
There is also a way in the tool for retaining customers' favorites, but it is not available natively. When you log in to your desktop, on the desktop or laptop that you are working on, you have your favorites, you have your document repository, like your documents, your personal documents that you have on your computer. I saw that there was no native way of retaining those in a non-persistent desktop. The end-user has to perform dual authentication. One is for AWS authentication, and the other used to be for Active Directory, so it is a little problematic for the end users, as it is a double work for them. I don't know if the tool has lately dealt with the area of dual authentication or not.
Bhaskar Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Management console is very easy to use, readily available infrastructure and easy to scale
It's very stable. There is a big difference between traditional physical servers and cloud servers. With physical servers, we need to plan for purchasing, procurement, capacity, storage, get quotations, and then procure them. That took some time. Maybe it would take more than one month or maybe two months to procure and then install. With AWS, it is readily available. Just pay and immediately create the VPC, network, and everything. It is very easy. Within two or three hours, we can implement any server or launch any application. Within five minutes, we can just spin up and publish our servers on the Internet.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The tool is good from a latency, efficiency, and network point of view."
"Some companies use applications like Word or Excel, and they can leverage cloud services to optimize their hardware consumption."
"Amazon WorkSpaces is very fast."
"The tool has low latency and multimedia support. For instance, running Zoom calls on Amazon WorkSpaces seamlessly supports local microphones, speakers, and web cameras. This feature is transparent for applications, allowing me to use the Zoom application without requiring exceptional support for remote web cameras or microphones. Amazon WorkSpaces provides this functionality at the operating system level, enabling effortless video conferencing. To my knowledge, Microsoft Remote Desktop does not offer the same support."
"The best feature is that it operates very quickly. It depends on the regional location. If we choose a nearby location, nearby servers, it will be best for users to use."
"The infrastructure is readily available, with minimal latency, which each user can benefit from."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We can work remotely using the solution."
"The best thing about Amazon WorkSpaces is the security it provides."
"The product is easy to access. You can access the solution from anywhere at any time."
 

Cons

"The end-user has to perform dual authentication...it is a little problematic for the end users, as it is a double work for them."
"You might experience some performance issues, such as delays in data retrieval."
"You cannot install external applications without doing some additional configurations inside the solution as opposed to your normal desktop or laptop."
"Amazon WorkSpaces needs to improve on releasing the most number of patches immediately as quickly as possible. And they need to enable more USB options to connect a mobile phone to that particular workspace."
"The solution lacks a shadow mode option, and it needs to have it."
"I would say that it is a little complex to configure."
"If they had a cheaper option for graphics pro, I think that it would be beneficial and I would use it."
"Making it more self-service friendly would be the implement I'd be looking for. When we have to add new applications, we have to go through the IT to do that, and they need to do some configuration changes. I believe they have to reevaluate the computation and storage and the memory. So this is this is something that as an unrequired and should be changed. Also, the initial start time takes couple of minutes and it is easy for get distracted during the time. So if it can reduce the start time to a reasonable start of time to a reasonable time of five to ten seconds. That will be great."
"The speed and performance are not always the greatest. It can be improved."
"An area that could be improved is it could work better on VPN."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The bundle works out to be approximately $20.00 per month."
"They have hourly and monthly pricing, and because our use case is, more of a sporadic use, so I go for hourly pricing. Again, the details of the pricing is handled by the procurement. From an end user perspective, pay as you use hourly is suitable"
"It is very expensive."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a two."
"There are several different options available, but it can range anywhere from $85 to $150 a month per machine."
"I think that the price can be lower. We have cases where the customer needs to have lower costs. So since we don't have options, like, shadow mode, they need to decrease pricing or have other models for reduced pricing."
"Price-wise Amazon Workspaces is cheaper than most services available."
"The solution is not very cheap and it is not too pricey."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Appstream?
There is also a way in the tool for retaining customers' favorites, but it is not available natively. When you log in to your desktop, on the desktop or laptop that you are working on, you have you...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Appstream?
I personally don't use the tool. I am not a consumer of it. I basically designed it. I work for an IT company and have designed and implemented Amazon Appstream and Workspace in many organizations....
What do you like most about Amazon WorkSpaces?
Performance and scalability are valuable features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon WorkSpaces?
The pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make. The investment is almost the same as having your own on-premises solution, with the added costs of ...
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkSpaces?
There is always scope of improvement in the stability.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Appstream 2.0, Appstream, Appstream 2.0
WorkSpaces
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SolidWorks, EVARI, MathWorks, AVENA, Vanguard, Macquarie University
GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Appstream vs. Amazon WorkSpaces and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.