Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs ISL Online comparison

Citrix and ISL Online are both solutions in the Remote Access category. Citrix is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while ISL Online is ranked #20 with an average rating of 9.5. Citrix holds a 4.9% mindshare in VUS, compared to ISL Online’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Citrix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ISL Online users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

Citrix DaaS and ISL Online are two prominent remote access solutions. User reviews suggest Citrix DaaS has a slight edge in support and comprehensive features, while ISL Online is often praised for its cost-effectiveness and simpler deployment.

Features: Citrix DaaS is recognized for its enterprise-level features, including extensive app and desktop virtualization options, high scalability, and integration with major cloud providers. ISL Online excels with its streamlined remote access capabilities, ease of use, and quick setup.

Room for Improvement: Users of Citrix DaaS indicate a need for improved cost-efficiency and simplified management interfaces. ISL Online users point out desires for enhanced security features and more detailed analytics.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Citrix DaaS users often experience longer deployment times owing to its extensive configuration options, although they appreciate the responsive customer service. ISL Online is commended for quick and straightforward deployment processes and reliable customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Citrix DaaS typically involves higher initial setup costs and ongoing expenses, but offers significant ROI through its robust capabilities. ISL Online attracts users with competitive pricing and a compelling return on investment through its efficient remote access service.

To learn more, read our detailed Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ISL Online Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ISL Online

January 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Remote Access category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.6%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 4.9%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ISL Online is 1.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Remote Access

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

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DavidWood1

Senior Infrastructure Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

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.

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Stephen Yarrow

Remote Support Engineer at Driver Information Systems Limited

Great for remote support sessions with no maintenance and excellent technical support

The remote support session is great. We really like ISL Light. That's what we use all the time. We use it almost every day. Some people use other solutions like Splashtop, for instance, where you can do unattended support. Personally, I don't like unattended support. I would worry if it would be secure. There's no way I'd want someone logging onto my machine when I'm not here. With this, I log to ISL, I give them a pin number, and they have to physically type in the pin number and physically agree to them sharing their screen. It's much more secure than some of the other solutions like TeamViewer and Splashtop where you can do unattended support. It's more secure than any of the other products out there, available at the moment. The stability is great. It's got very good uptime. The technical support is great. Setting up the solution is easy and there's no maintenance involved.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Intune's feature that I have found most valuable is its auto-pilot feature."

"The biggest asset is the range of device management options available with Intune, whether it is a Windows device, a Linux device, a Mac device, or mobile devices."

"The many policies available in Microsoft Intune for managing our devices are valuable."

"It provides control over all mobile devices that are being connected to the corporate network."

"The automatic patching is the most valuable feature of Intune."

"Microsoft Intune is easy to use, and it is able to enforce policies towards multiple devices. It is able to bring multiple classes of devices into the same security posture. I found that very useful."

"The solution’s most valuable feature is its ease of use."

"One of the main features of the solution is it allows the management of many devices in different ways."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"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."

"It is a lightweight application that incorporates multi-factor authentication."

"XenApp is a fast, secure and reliable solution for remote connections that is completely different than and superior to older Windows solutions."

"It is a stable solution. We don't usually have problems with the platform...It is a very scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature has to be the non-persistent desktop. If one of my users messes something up and blows away their desktop, it goes back to what it was originally, before they had an issue."

"The most valuable feature is connectivity. The remote connection is the reason we are using this solution."

"Before we adopted a VDI storage solution, our customers' personal information was leaked. This happened a lot. But since we adopted a VDI solution, these kinds of issues have happened rarely."

"Citrix Virtual Apps is the most valuable feature. Many customers use this feature to publish only applications, and not the full desktop. They can publish the internal resource or allow the end-user to reach a site or an application without having the full desktop. That's why they love this feature. It helps them save on resources."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) pros

"Setting up the solution is easy and there's no maintenance involved."

"The most valuable feature is safety."

"We like drawing utilities inside ISL. That helps us mark specific regions on the screen, so that end users know what to focus on."

"The code can be delivered in multiple ways, including an email with a link for an unattended connection."

"We can also monitor our systems at any time from practically anywhere."

"ISL Online is easy to use. It provides a single platform on which we can do everything, and it's very low maintenance. After installation, you don't need an IT manager or staff to watch over it. It's secure. It's most important for us."

"It's much easier to connect with other services, and it's working great. We haven't had any problems."

"I personally really appreciate the file transfer feature as it is really easy to use."

More ISL Online pros

Cons

"Areas for improvement in Intune include expanding support beyond Samsung devices to accommodate other Android manufacturers like Redmi and Motorola."

"Intune could add more features that are relevant to the core application control functions. For example, it would be helpful if it had more control over the on-prem environment from the cloud platform. Greater Teams availability in the Saudi market would also be helpful."

"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."

"Setting up Intune Autopilot can be a little complicated."

"The interface is not as modern as some competitors in terms of single pane of glass visibility across the entire landscape. It has a very Azure vibe and may not be as graphically appealing as other products."

"I would like to see better integration with Microsoft."

"I would like the ability to install the agent on devices from suppliers, which would enable us to implement a zero-trust strategy for guest devices."

"There are a lot of small use cases where we realized that some technical solution was missing in Microsoft in comparison to other products. For example, it lacks something similar to sensing or location-based rules and configurations."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"Some customers find the price to be a significant factor. They have a hard time understanding the extra cost of the services"

"The solution's technical support is not so good."

"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 solution is resource-intensive, it takes a lot of Bandwidth and a lot of the resources of the server."

"The initial setup is very complex."

"The video conferencing feature needs to be improved."

"The ITSM adapters need to be enhanced."

"The product should expand its capabilities for integrating with other environments."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) cons

"I would like to be able to access and manage all brands of smartphones."

"We miss the possibility to communicate via head-set in ISL. At the moment, we combine ISL for visual communication with Skype for verbal communication."

"They need to better advertise the features."

"There could be a section in the menu describing the new features and changes."

"I would like to have a little bit more information when new features are released. They have added features that I didn't know about in the past. It would be easier for me to implement new features and consolidate them with other systems in our network if I knew beforehand."

"There have been times during updates when something wouldn't work quite right, however, they are quick with updates and quick with fixes."

"It would be helpful if they had iSupport for supporting Apple phones."

"If there is an update or new feature on ISL Online, I don't know about it. I would be happy to receive a newsletter or notification of new features or updates."

More ISL Online cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"No one can compete with Microsoft when it comes to price, and the features it is offering."

"Microsoft Intune is expensive."

"Intune is inexpensive. It also comes bundled in some Office 365 licenses, so you can choose to purchase it separately or as a package."

"I am satisfied with the pricing."

"Even if they charge a premium, they aim to provide equal value."

"The pricing is competitive, but it is not cheap."

"Microsoft Intune has a user-based subscription model. You can go for a monthly or a yearly payment."

"It is not a cheap solution. The price for a device when you start using it at a large scale can be improved. It is covered under our enterprise agreement. We pay once a year. I am not aware of any additional costs."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"In terms of pricing with the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, I think it has gotten better over the years. Citrix has found more dynamic ways to be able to revive licensing models that fit many different scenarios that organizations have. We have been able to evolve our own licensing over the years to accommodate our situations between concurrent versus user device licenses. Now, when we move into the Citrix Workspace realm, we definitely have some awesome options there."

"It is quite expensive, but so are the competitors on the market."

"Citrix is expensive."

"The Citrix license model has changed. It costs around $240 per user for a single username, but a concurrent license costs double."

"We are seeing a return on investment with Citrix Workspace."

"Based not only on the cost of Citrix, but additional costs like firewalls, IPS, and other solutions, the total cost of switching users from using normal laptops with VPNs to connection via Citrix were so huge that the CEO of our company decided to postpone the deployment process."

"We have more than a million seats under management so we get the best price."

"Citrix solutions cost a lot in comparison with competitors, like Azure Virtual Desktop or VMware Horizon. Those solutions cost around 50 to 60 percent less, per month per user, than Citrix."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) pricing and cost advice

"We have a pay-per-use license available for 500 minutes within one year for 95 Euros. However, this option is not popular. Alternatively, we can purchase a one-year license for 339 Euros; if we need two licenses, the cost is double, and for three licenses, the cost is triple with a ten percent discount. For 99 Euros a year, we can open multiple sessions on the same computer with a multi-session subscription."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Real Estate/Law Firm

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 ...

See all answers

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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?

My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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. ...

See all answers

What do you like most about ISL Online?

The most valuable feature is safety.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ISL Online?

The cost of one license is static; however, if we buy multiple licenses, we will receive a discounted rate. Furthermo...

See all answers

What needs improvement with ISL Online?

I would like to be able to manage all brands of smartphones.

See all answers

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ManageEngine Endpoint Central vs Microsoft Intune

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Azure Virtual Desktop vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 21% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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TeamViewer vs ISL Online

Compared 100% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

February 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

February 2025

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

Download Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) product report

Buyer's Guide

ISL Online

February 2025

Download ISL Online product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Microsoft

Citrix

Demo not available

ISL Online

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Enable secure, flexible work with the leader in virtual apps and desktops

Deliver desktop as a service (DaaS) from any cloud or datacenter

Get started with Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) in minutes to provide a familiar, high-performance digital workspace experience to your users. We’ll manage the infrastructure and security. You focus on your business.

Citrix

ISL Online empowers organizations by providing versatile remote support solutions. It connects IT professionals with clients seamlessly, allowing efficient management of servers and business applications across different platforms.

ISL Online stands out in the industry by facilitating remote customer support with reliability and security. It enables IT companies to troubleshoot and assist clients by establishing stable connections effortlessly. The software ensures easy file transfers and categorization of devices, supporting multiple platforms for high uptime. With simple setup, users can manage devices remotely without interference. Enhancements include session recording, drawing tools, and an easily accessible code for remote connections. These features support organizations in maintaining efficiency and high service levels.

What are the key features of ISL Online?

Seamless Remote Connections: Facilitates interference-free connectivity.
Efficient File Transfer: Simplifies file retrieval and updates.
Platform Support: Ensures stability across devices and operating systems.
Security: Offers secure, attended access with ISL Light.
Session Tools: Includes drawing utilities and session recording.

What benefits to look for in ISL Online reviews?

Responsiveness: Offers quick customer support and feedback.
Reliability: Maintains consistent performance and uptime.
Security: Provides secure connections with simple code access.
Flexibility: Allows easy management of unattended devices.

ISL Online is extensively implemented in sectors like national broadcasting companies and public administration offices, aiding in secure remote support and unattended server control. Its flexibility allows these industries to manage devices efficiently, ensuring quick and effective technical assistance.

ISL Online

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval

Mitsubishi Chemicals, Konica Minolta, Raifeissen bank, Terpel, Singtel, Teleroute, SOS Kinderdorf, Arsys, EMAAR, Dutco, Alterdata

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ISL Online

January 2025

Free Report: Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ISL Online

Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ISL Online and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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