Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs VMware Fusion Pro comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (5th), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)
VMware Fusion Pro
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 8.9%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Fusion Pro is 25.3%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Mohd Abdul Aziz Shah Sulaiman - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers secure and unified access to apps, desktops, and content for enhanced productivity
Citrix Workforce is good, but it needs improvement in diagnosing network issues. When errors occur, it is difficult to determine if they're due to network issues, Workspace issues, or environment issues. The error messages are too vague, just stating "connection error" without specifying if it's an IP address issue, connectivity problem, or something else related to the network. This lack of detail makes troubleshooting difficult. We often have to reinstall everything in Workspace, without knowing the root cause. Even after engaging with Citrix and sending logs, the feedback is often unsatisfactory, not meeting my expectations. This trial-and-error approach isn't effective problem-solving. While these issues aren't everyday occurrences, when they do happen, they can be catastrophic for our operations team.
Bruce Lundberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Create custom virtual environments quickly with minor macOS integration issues
The primary advantage of VMware Fusion Pro is its simplicity in creating custom virtual machines. It allows quick construction and provides connectivity to full VMware server systems, enabling remote management. It facilitates downloading images from main VMware servers for local testing. The ability to construct a virtual environment on my laptop meets my needs, even ones I wasn't aware of.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is stable."
"You can connect to any printer, and from anywhere you can print documents using a compressed channel. It is easy and the bandwidth is very low."
"It is a very scalable solution."
"The Provisioning Services are the most valuable feature. We have Premium licensing, so Provisioning Services is huge for us, along with the Virtual Apps and Desktops part. It allows us to have a vDisk for every region, one that can easily be copied between them if we need to, to limit the amount of updates we have to do."
"It is user-friendly and easy to use."
"It has very good performance in delivering 3D applications over WAN."
"It provides the flexibility of being used on any device which makes the employee experience better, in terms of ease of use."
"The app protection feature is one of the most valuable because it provides good security, as nobody is going to be able to look into your screen while you are sharing the screen. And if someone has installed a keylogger in your system, your keystrokes will be jumbled up and they would not make any sense to the keylogger. App protection is one of the coolest security features that I have encountered on any platform."
"It is a highly stable solution."
"The whole point of it is to run Windows VMs on a Mac. This is the most valuable feature. There is snapshotting, but we don't really use that. The Pro version allows me to actually attach to the Windows ESXi infrastructure at the backend, and I'm able to create a session that I can attach to the VMware hooks at the backend, so one is running a VM, and the whole operating system is running on the actual Mac. The other one is literally a frontend to the VMs that are running in the infrastructure at the backend. These are the two main features I use."
"For me, VMware Fusion Pro has been invaluable, allowing me to meet all my needs with a single system."
"The primary advantage of VMware Fusion Pro is its simplicity in creating custom virtual machines."
"The product is easy to use and has a simple user interface."
"The most value that it provides is that it is versatile."
"VMware Fusion Pro offers simplicity of use and stability."
"The most important feature of VMware Fusion is that it helps me rapidly launch a new OS."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is complex."
"Citrix duplicates multiple processes."
"Dependency on server virtualization after v7.x is an issue which I encountered in small environments."
"Latency is also a major problem when adopting Citrix for video editing software or 3D editing software, especially editing 4K video or large file size. The Citrix virtualized solution becomes too slow, so we cannot use the VDI."
"Tech support can be slow if you do not receive help from the US representatives."
"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 takes time to load."
"Some customers find the price to be a significant factor. They have a hard time understanding the extra cost of the services"
"Its installation process could be simpler."
"The only issue I've experienced with VMware Fusion Pro is that it doesn't register correctly with the main macOS system, causing repeated notifications about background installations. This is a minor inconvenience."
"VMware Fusion's licensing cost needs improvement."
"The way they handle snapshotting can be improved. One time, I moved a machine from one to another, and I tried to pull it up on the second machine, but it didn't work. This was because I had not cleaned up the snapshot before I deleted it and moved it across. So, when I tried to pull it up, it wouldn't let me bring it up. The backups for the VMs themselves can also be improved. I pretty much have to rely on Windows backups and not something on VMware. That's where it needs improvement. I am able to upload from my Fusion into the ESXi easily. I'm able to spin something up on Fusion and push it into the big arena, but the reverse is not as easy, that is, trying to pull something down from that. I would love to have a functionality where I could pull something from the VMware infrastructure into Fusion, but I'm not sure if I can take something from ESXi and pull it into Fusion."
"Additionally, enhancing the API interactions could improve the ability to manage VS and deploy various kinds of guests."
"The only issue I've experienced with VMware Fusion Pro is that it doesn't register correctly with the main macOS system, causing repeated notifications about background installations."
"I would like to see newer and updated cloud functions."
"Fusion is not meant to be scalable. It runs on desktops and laptops, indicating limitations in scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Citrix is expensive."
"My company opts for the yearly subscription model to pay towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.​"
"If one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the tool's price a three."
"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is an expensive solution."
"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."
"The licensing, in general, is expensive. A lot of customers battle to pay the amount. It's very difficult to ensure that your solution provides the business value that the customer is after."
"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."
"Starting with version 12, it is now free on a Mac for personal use. Fusion Pro has a cost."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven or eight. It is highly-priced."
"The cost varies depending on the season and whether it is scaled up or scaled down, but I would guess that it's approximately $1,000 per month."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions are best for your needs.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
10%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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. Although it works well on the apps side, the desktop aspect still has room for i...
What do you like most about VMware Fusion?
The product is easy to use and has a simple user interface.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Fusion?
The pricing of VMware Fusion Pro is reasonable. The licensing covers all minor version updates, while major updates require payment every three years. Buying it once can sustain you for years witho...
What needs improvement with VMware Fusion?
The only issue I've experienced with VMware Fusion Pro is that it doesn't register correctly with the main macOS system, causing repeated notifications about background installations. This is a min...
 

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

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
NetApp
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. VMware Fusion Pro and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.