Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops comparison

Citrix and Red Hat are both solutions in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category. Citrix is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.1, while Red Hat is ranked #14 with an average rating of 6.0. Citrix holds a 12.1% mindshare in VD, compared to Red Hat’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Citrix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Read 126 Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) reviews

8,832 Views
6,801 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Virtuali...

Read 2 Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops reviews

426 Views
426 Comparison Views

50% willing to recommend

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Red Hat Enterprise Virtuali...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Citrix DaaS and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops are competitors in the desktop virtualization market. Citrix DaaS appears to have an edge with its advanced feature set and ease of deployment.

Features: Citrix DaaS provides comprehensive scalability, seamless cloud integration, and extensive security options. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops offers open-source flexibility, robust virtualization capabilities, and competitive pricing. Each platform provides unique benefits, but Citrix's enriched feature set is particularly attractive for large enterprises seeking advanced functionalities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Citrix DaaS is known for a streamlined deployment process and strong support network, which simplifies setup. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops typically requires intricate configurations and mostly relies on community-driven support, which can be less accessible.

Pricing and ROI: Citrix DaaS involves a larger initial investment but tends to deliver long-term value with its robust features and stability. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops offers a lower upfront pricing model that appeals to organizations aiming to reduce initial costs while still achieving satisfactory returns over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

July 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

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

126

Ranking in other categories

Application Virtualization (2nd), Remote Access (4th), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)

Red Hat Enterprise Virtuali...

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

14th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

2.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 12.1%, up from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Featured Reviews

Grant Waddell

Head of IT Architecture & Operations Support at Lyntia

User-friendly and easily accessible, but cost could be made cheaper

We use Citrix Workspace on Citrix Cloud. We have all of our servers on the AWS public cloud. There are a number of tools that we can implement that would save us costs. However, we've stuck to Citrix for convenience. If the prices keep increasing, we will have to consider other solutions. Users need to understand the tool's limitations correctly and what they require from a usability perspective. They should also understand the configuration of security policies. In some cases, people are unable to download or upload files onto their PCs, which is necessary for them to do their work. Users should understand the limitations of the product or the configuration options. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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RobertThompson 1

Information Security Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Free version available but hard to understand

Personally, I don't think it has any commendable features. The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra work involved with the Red Hat virtualization. It doesn't just work out of the box. You have to read through about six different documents, and everybody's experience is different. So it's kind of annoying. That would be the main thing. If you're not a Linux geek, it's very hard to understand. And it's probably because I came out of the Windows world. I learned this as part of my cross-training, but I just found the way that it happens with VMware and all that stuff to be easier to use.

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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

"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."

"In terms of scalability, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops have a lot of technologies baked in there that allow an organization to scale up or down, as required. Further, leveraging Azure for scalability has added value to our organization. For example, pre-COVID-19, we had very few resources in Azure. We had some Virtual Desktops and no application servers. When COVID-19 came along, we knew people were going to be home. We knew that we had to ramp up very quickly. We fully leveraged MCS to be able to scale. Being able to take a single image and build 400,000 Virtual Desktops, all within minutes, was second to none in terms of any other technology out there that we could have used. The scalability to be able to do that in Azure, where we really don't have to worry about storage and compute power because Microsoft does that for us, was fantastic. It was almost like giving our environments steroids. It has been amazing in terms of that scalability. Now, as people start coming back to the office, we can just as quickly scale down so the compute and resource costs in Azure aren't so great anymore."

"It provides the flexibility of being used on any device which makes the employee experience better, in terms of ease of use."

"The feature that I like is that it is fast."

"Citrix Workspace can present desktop applications with ease, in an efficient and secure manner. The performance is good, it is a great piece of software."

"The ROI for us has been that when we had Hurricane Harvey last year, Xendesktop came in very handy for us. Even though people had electricity in Texas, many networks were down. Our offices could still get into our network and do work that was needed. It is an excellent virtual office that works anywhere, anytime and anyplace. It is worth our investment."

"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 most valuable feature is the ability to connect to our on-premise applications, through the Workspace app and the Workspace experience. The user experience when using the solution's technology remotely is good. Our users are able to work and it's seamless. The performance is also good."

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

"There's lots of good support out there in the community."

"The most valuable features are automated deployment and transparent movement for virtual machines over all our locations."

"The improvement to our organization is managing all our KVM-based virtual machines in a management environment."

Cons

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

"It would help if it were a little simpler. It's a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution."

"I heard that Citrix found some loopholes in the product, and they have yet to be covered up."

"I think Citrix's support is good, but sometimes it is a little slow."

"Pricing can be lower and roaming profiles need to be fixed to work consistently."

"Pricing and technical support needs improvement."

"The Citrix Workspace interface could improve. Additionally, if they are able to provide a mobile application"

"The user profiles could use some improvement."

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

"The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra work involved with Red Hat virtualization."

"The best improvement for oVirt 4.2 is to enable backup features for major backup products of virtual machines."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."

"You can buy an on-cloud or on-prem license. You can switch between on-cloud users and on-prem users. Its licensing is cheap. It is from $8 to $15 per user. It is not that expensive when you compare the cost of buying new hardware with the cost of the license. For example, at $15 per user, it costs around $180 for a year, which is cheaper than buying a $600 PC that at a certain stage, you will again have to change because its hardware is not supported. It may also get damaged or stolen. So, you can compare the cost of the actual hardware that you have to buy and the time spent in supporting the clients with the cost of its license."

"If you look at cost, then you must look at the number of users that you are covering. If you are only using it for some users, then it is very expensive. However, if you have a massive amount of users, then it begins to be interesting to use Citrix. Because once you are managing thousands of servers with one guy, your maintenance costs decrease per user."

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

"The price of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is approximately $300 for the new version called Dash and the license is approximately $900 annually."

"The cost of the Citrix software reflects what I would expect a product of that nature, in that market, to be. Understanding the licensing is quite a bit more complicated, because one of the things about Citrix is that you can buy licensing at different levels... Yet I still like the idea because it means that if all you need is a basic load balancing solution, then you don't need to buy an advanced or premium license."

"We spent nearly 1,50,000 Euros for 250 licenses."

"A perpetual enterprise license costs approximately $300 USD."

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

"I use the free developer stuff right now."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

University

19%

Manufacturing Company

16%

Government

11%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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. Although it works well on the apps side, the desktop aspect still has room for i...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?

I use the free developer stuff right now.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?

I've used it more as a user than as an administrator setting it up. Just mainly getting access to legacy systems and programming that's not Windows 11 compatible.

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Compared 48% of the time

Amazon Appstream vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 7% of the time

Rocket Exceed TurboX vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 4% of the time

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Compared 4% of the time

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

Horizon 8 vs Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

Compared 46% of the time

Oracle VDI vs Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

Compared 34% of the time

More Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

July 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

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

June 2025

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops report

Download Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops product report

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

Interactive Demo

Citrix

Demo not available

Red Hat

Overview

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

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops complete desktop environments are hosted virtually. Users connect to these virtual desktops using either inexpensive thin clients or re-purposed PCs. No data is actually stored on the thin client - it's stored in a secure centralized location and can be accessed from anywhere. Red Hat Virtualization is an open, software-defined platform that virtualizes Linux and Microsoft Windows workloads. Built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), it features management tools that virtualize resources, processes, and applications providing a foundation for a cloud-native and containerized future.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

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

Casio, Telef‹nica, British Airways

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

July 2025

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