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BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

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

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Ranking in Remote Access
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
242
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (2nd), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
BeyondTrust Privileged Remo...
Ranking in Remote Access
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Privileged Access Management (PAM) (10th)
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...
Ranking in Remote Access
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Application Virtualization (1st), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (3rd), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Remote Access category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.6%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access is 2.6%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 4.6%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Remote Access
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
Hahn Rolf - PeerSpot reviewer
Securely manage high-privilege remote access with granular configurations
I recommend that we improve integration with other products like PasswordSafe, aiming for smoother integration. Better alignment between products would enhance manageability from a single point. Additionally, BeyondTrust should focus on automating the update process to reduce unnecessary ticket creation. Improved quality control for non-English language versions is needed to avoid translation and layout errors.
DavidWood1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible Deployment, reliable performance, and fast transmission speeds
Provisioning Server is a fantastic option for image management in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. It offers excellent performance and reliability. On the other hand, while Machine Creation Services can be scaled easily, they can significantly increase storage consumption. For instance, creating a Windows 10 image in MCS typically requires at least 80 GB of storage, in addition to any separate disks needed. To store changes made by users in Machine Creation Services, the differencing disk must be equal in size to the base disk, leading to significant storage consumption. On the other hand, Provisioning Server uses image versioning, creating a new image version every time it's modified. As a result, virtual machines streamed from the server revert to their original state after a reboot, which is similar to their state during the first boot. Using the provisioning server, I start by configuring a virtual machine with either a 2016 or 2019 server operating system. I install the necessary Citrix client provisioning server target device software, followed by installing the required applications. After that, I capture the entire configuration to a file share. The image is then streamed from the file share to the hypervisor, which can handle multiple machines. In some large-scale deployments, we have used a single image to provision thousands of servers. Once the image is captured and stored on the file share, it is set to read-only mode, and any changes made to it are not accepted until it is put in read-write mode. When a virtual machine is rebooted, it returns to its previous state before the changes were made. This feature can be beneficial in situations like a virus outbreak, where a simple reboot of the virtual machines can remove any malicious code or changes. A provisioning server offers a faster recovery time from a bad change and is generally faster than machine creation services. With the provisioning server, changes are not accepted until the read-write mode is enabled, and if a virus outbreak occurs, rebooting the machines restores them to the previous state. On the other hand, machine creation services' speed is dependent on the storage's speed, and recovery time from a bad change can take longer, especially with a large number of devices. If a bad change is made with machine creation services, the replication process can take a while to revert, whereas, with a provisioning server, all machines can be rebooted quickly. Within thirty minutes, I can restore my system to its previous state using the provisioning server.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like Intune's ability to install software to a device remotely and push policy through the Azure portal."
"One of the biggest advantages of Microsoft Intune is that it brings the management of Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and even Linux under a single pane of glass."
"While I don't think you can ever have full visibility and control, Intune certainly allows us to see the applications being used and tells us if things like Windows patches aren't applied to machines. It does a good job. That visibility makes life a little easier."
"The feature I like the most is that we can perform remote tasks. If we want to retire or wipe out personal data or corporate data from a device, we can use Microsoft Intune remotely, and with the click of a button, data is removed automatically. Nothing needs to be done from the end-user side."
"I can see that the patch management process is much improved with the bundled patch management option available in Microsoft Intune compared to the KPI deployment required by the other deployment solutions."
"The ease of applying security policies to applications we deploy is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Intune."
"The initial setup is not overly complex or difficult."
"Technical support, in general, has been quite helpful."
"The product has improved remote support capabilities since it works fine."
"Based on the feedback from my colleagues who have never complained about the technical support, I would say that the product's support team is good."
"Its initial setup process is straightforward."
"The security provided by PRA when it comes to access for remote and privileged users has been outstanding. It has met all of our objectives, everything from password rotation to securing and allowing us to clamp down access to the auditing and monitoring features."
"I like all of it. You can access computers that are on a DMZ. You can access computers that are off the network and on the network. You pretty much have access to computers wherever they are. As long as they have the client on them, you can get to them. So, it is convenient, but its main feature is that you can use your smart card to elevate your privileges remotely. That's a great feature."
"We can truly elevate our admin rights while we're in there to fully take control of a system and manage it as if it was sitting right here on our desk. Most of the organization has gone to remote work or work from home. With that being the case, this solution allows us to be able to still work with our end-users, even though they're not always sitting on our network."
"The secure access must be audited live, ensuring patient data protection."
"This product is very stable and scalable. This is an excellent platform."
"Citrix has had the top remote display for the last 20 years, and there is a huge technological gap between Citrix and its competitors."
"XenDesktop has helped our users to work remotely with a better user experience."
"The most valuable feature is the seamless application edition with the low-level network bandwidth because we have between 10 and 15 sites in France with a low level of communication needs. We need to deploy our main application, the ERP system, and we needed an efficient solution to provide a solution to the remote sites, with very small links between the data center and the remote site."
"The shadow feature is extraordinary and helps a lot when supporting remote users."
"Its user-friendliness is most valuable. It was easy to log in and navigate. Some of such solutions are not very user-friendly, but this one was."
"I use Citrix DaaS to connect to devices."
"With this product, everyone can have a similar kind of desktop environment."
"The feature that I like is that it is fast."
 

Cons

"A more incisive reporting tool with automated progress updates and graphical representation would be beneficial, as the current manual method lacks efficiency and visual clarity."
"There could be more wizard-driven policy development or creation. Some of the policies can get quite complex. If they have a wizard that assists the administrators in creating the policy, that will be a great job."
"There should be more support for macOS. Even though macOS is supported by Intune and Microsoft is working very hard to get more features into Intune to manage macOS, that's one thing they can give a lot more attention to."
"Intune needs to incorporate more tools to reduce the number of third-party applications we rely on."
"Microsoft Intune lags market leaders, such as Apperian, in its MAM capabilities."
"The reports aren't complete, and it's not easy to build custom reports. For example, Windows Autopilot isn't working well in cases where the computers don't have a good internet connection. Then the option is not good enough."
"Microsoft Intune's app deployment presents challenges for non-MSI and non-store apps, particularly EXEs, requiring the use of a Win32 wrapper tool and adding overhead to the process."
"Intune could be improved by expanding its third-party patching capabilities for a more comprehensive solution."
"One of our gaps or pain points is having multi-factor authentication at the endpoint and using the PRA password injection from BeyondTrust, which does not work in our environment. We can only have MFA at the login of BeyondTrust to check out the password. Therefore, we can't meet our security requirements of having it on the endpoint."
"Its management is through two different portals, and you can't get from one portal to the other. I have to literally open up another website and go into it a different way. There are no inner links between the two. They should interlink the actual virtual server and the appliance. In general, there should be one interface for management for admins."
"At the moment, I don't see any major problems with it. If anything, they can just change the look and feel of the login screen because it looks too simple to me. It does not have so much information. When you get to the login screen of the solution, you should have more information. We also have BeyondTrust Remote Support, and the login page looks similar to BeyondTrust Privilege Remote Access. I would love to see more rich information on the login screen or landing page so that rather than having a regular sign-in screen or page where you just provide a username and password and get into the solution, you should have more insight into what the solution does. I've mentioned this to them every time I have had an opportunity."
"When doing protocol panel jumps, the tool does not restrict what is recorded on the user's computer."
"Its access process for third-party vendors needs to be simplified."
"The integration client, backup solution, and SSO setup and provisioning could be improved. There isn't any documented or supported user provisioning currently, which slows down the processes of onboarding and assigning permissions. I would like to see this improved soon."
"I recommend that we improve integration with other products like PasswordSafe, aiming for smoother integration."
"It would be very nice if it has an enterprise vault. Currently, it can interact with Password Safe, which is a separate solution and equivalent to Thycotic Secret Server. Instead of having Password Safe as a separate entity, they should combine it with BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access. They have done it in some way, but it is not an enterprise tech solution."
"The Endpoint Management solution needs improvement when it comes to mobile device management. For example, they are still not supporting Windows 10 and this feature is required by many customers."
"The only thing we have found to be detrimental is when we have tried to find training. I realize that we're looking at it at the worst time possible, with a pandemic going on, but it seems that most of the training offered is learn-by-yourself online."
"The ITSM adapters need to be enhanced."
"Direct connection of USB devices on the terminals to be used by streamed applications is very important for printing and the usage of token authentication, but the current version does not support this one hundred percent."
"It is slow. When everybody is logged in, it does have a tendency to slow down. You can tell the connectivity slows down a little bit, but it's still a good product."
"I think they can improve the troubleshooting to make it easier for users to solve problems on their own. For example, it could provide an error code and some instructions on how to reconnect to the database or do something proactive to fix the issue with the system."
"Templating the deployment process could use improvement. When you start, there are a large number of details that are quite client-specific, although they do share common themes. To get somebody up and running in a day is very difficult to do. They should streamline by use case."
"They can simplify the process of printers. Printers were quite a difficult issue. It took us a long time to iron this issue out. We have the most simple use case where people connect from home to either a virtual machine or their physical desktop. We tried more complex solutions like Machine Creation Services, and they were more overhead than they were worth for us. I found them difficult to work with and confusing, and they were not worth the work for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While I can't provide insights from a business perspective, it's worth noting that the pricing may differ significantly, and the discount we received might not be reflective of standard business rates."
"Its licensing model is not complex, but it is very expensive compared to other solutions. They can bring more models and reduce the pricing. They should allow customers to select the features they want and price it accordingly."
"It comes as a bundle, so you do not really know what the prices are. Microsoft does not break it down to the user cost for us. It is just bundled with our E5 license."
"We have the business premium licenses for the solution."
"Microsoft Intune's pricing is reasonable."
"Intune is moderately expensive. You can get the license bundled with Office 365 E3 or E5 licenses. The E5s are a bit expensive, but you get some cheaper solutions with Intune."
"Pricing can be improved."
"Our Office 365 Business Premium license, including Office 365 and Intune Management, offers excellent value."
"I wasn't directly involved in the licensing and pricing, but I can say that PRA is licensed per endpoint added to the Vault. I would advise users to take frequent exports of their license usage package; it's a simple feature that provides a spreadsheet of every machine in the Vault. This helps to cut down on duplicate licenses, which can happen by adding the same endpoint using an IP address and a fully qualified domain name, for instance. The implementation is an additional cost, and they offer several tiers, so the price varies. There are also some optional add-ons, so I would advise people to research the product well and find out precisely what they need regarding features. The Advanced Web Access add-on provides some required functionality when interfacing with websites; that's one to consider."
"Its price is pretty good for the features and services that it provides. It is not outrageous. I'm not aware of any additional charges or anything like that."
"I wish it was a little bit cheaper, but when a product is as solid as this, I understand what the cost does. It helps them to make sure it stays that way. If you want a reliable, solid product, you're going to pay more."
"I rate the product's pricing a four on a scale of one to ten, where one is high, and ten is low. It is an expensive product."
"PRA was one of the cheapest solutions that we evaluated."
"Though the solution was a bit expensive, the overall pricing was average."
"My client found the solution a bit expensive but considering their use case and requirements, they didn't have any other choice. As far as I know, implementation and licensing are the only costs."
"The price is pretty expensive, but you get what you pay for and this is a great product."
"The licensing of Citrix Workspace is worth it. However, it is expensive. Citrix is probably more competitive now than VMware, but it is still a costly solution."
"It's my understanding that the solution license fee for each user is around $300 US. If we buy a personal laptop for each employee every five years, then the total cost is five times $300 US, or $1,500 USD. So we could buy 100 personal laptops instead of the Citrix solution."
"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is an expensive solution."
"We are just now approaching the end of our initial purchase, which was an excellent price for us as an academic institution. We got a very good deal to get us on board. That license is up for renewal in about a year, and we are nervously waiting to see what the pricing will be."
"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 spent nearly 1,50,000 Euros for 250 licenses."
"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."
"They offer licensing per user. From time to time, they give discounts. Because it's a hybrid model, you can deploy some portion of it on cloud and some portion your on-prem."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What do you like most about BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access?
The product has improved remote support capabilities since it works fine.
What needs improvement with BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access?
I recommend that we improve integration with other products like PasswordSafe, aiming for smoother integration. Bette...
What is your primary use case for BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access?
We use the tool for vendor access, providing secure vendor access to manage systems. Most of our use cases involve se...
What do you like most about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
I have found that Citrix DaaS is still a complex product, especially on the desktop side, which affects scalability. ...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Bomgar Privileged Access
XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Horizon Beverage, Air Liquide, Gateway Bank of Florida
Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval
Find out what your peers are saying about BeyondTrust Privileged Remote Access vs. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
841,431 professionals have used our research since 2012.