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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs VMware Workstation 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Citrix DaaS offers cost savings and efficiency with enhanced security and remote access, benefiting larger implementations despite high initial costs.
Sentiment score
1.0
VMware Workstation enhances cost savings, enabling efficient application testing and integration, resulting in improved job performance and satisfaction.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Citrix DaaS customer service is generally well-rated, though technical support experiences vary based on location and individual expectations.
Sentiment score
2.9
VMware Workstation's customer service is mixed, with varying responsiveness and reliance on community resources after HP acquisition.
The first level often wastes time because I usually have to escalate to an engineer for proper support.
Citrix support is better than Microsoft support.
On a scale of one to 10, I would rate their support or customer service a two or three since they never did anything.
The documents provided for Workstation were not hard to understand.
It's a very special way of working with VMware Workstation.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Citrix DaaS is highly scalable, allowing seamless deployment and integration across platforms, with efficient adaptability to increased demands.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware Workstation is versatile, supporting multiple VMs, though opinions vary on scalability for larger operations and single installations.
It supports over 100 apps and 20,000 users in our organization, demonstrating impressive scalability.
Citrix DaaS offers vast scalability options as workloads can be deployed across multiple data centers like Azure, Google, or AWS.
VMware Workstation is scalable enough for larger companies, though it requires some skills.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Citrix DaaS is stable and reliable, excelling with proper configuration and management, ensuring minimal downtime and strong performance.
Sentiment score
7.8
VMware Workstation is highly reliable, with improved stability post-v6, though minor virtual network issues may occur in specific scenarios.
Citrix DaaS allows for satisfactory stability by facilitating workload deployment in various data centers including Azure, Google, or AWS.
We are using the network in a very specific way, and this network adapter causes crashes in the VM.
 

Room For Improvement

Citrix DaaS needs improvements in performance, user experience, integration, support, pricing flexibility, and administrative tools for better efficiency.
VMware Workstation needs performance, usability, and cost improvements, enhanced stability, better documentation, and streamlined integration and scalability.
Creating App-V applications is not an easy task and could take from hours to weeks without success.
More direct access to engineers would speed up resolution.
Eventually, we had to get some licenses with Broadcom, and all the costs went up dramatically.
We faced challenges with backup due to limitations in the free version, requiring us to switch to a paid version.
We are using the network in a very specific way, and this network adapter causes crashes in the VM.
 

Setup Cost

Citrix DaaS is premium-priced, offering robust features, but its complex, costly licensing faces competition from VMware and Microsoft.
VMware Workstation is pricey but offers integration benefits with cost-saving opportunities through sales and varies by user needs.
Citrix DaaS is considered expensive, especially for companies that do not require multi-cloud.
 

Valuable Features

Citrix DaaS offers seamless remote access with quick deployment, high security, and optimized management, enhancing productivity and user satisfaction.
VMware Workstation offers user-friendly virtualization, multi-OS operation, and superior testing flexibility, outperforming alternatives like Oracle VirtualBox.
With Citrix, all connections are outgoing, minimizing firewall vulnerability.
The scalability of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is impressive, supporting over 100 apps and a user base of 20,000 within our organization.
I use it for a test machine for checking emails, so if the email has a virus in it, we can just destroy the machine and create a new one.
VMware Workstation works correctly and has more features compared to Oracle VirtualBox.
Simply being able to run several Windows PCs with different development environments has had the largest impact on our operational efficiency.
 

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
127
Ranking in other categories
Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (4th), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)
VMware Workstation
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
57
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 13.0%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 14.5%, down from 15.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Workstation14.5%
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)13.0%
Other72.5%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Grant Waddell - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Gary Comorau - PeerSpot reviewer
Creating and destroying test machines has simplified our operations and reduced manual recovery time
The Snapshot feature has helped with workflows by allowing us to more easily reconstruct something if we lose it or need it. We've been making Snapshots on a consistent basis, mainly of servers. The VX Rail has worked effectively because we can create machines as we need them. It's helpful for resetting and has helped with our operations because I had set up failover servers on Vertex, but we don't have to do that anymore since VMware will just create a new machine immediately if we have a problem. We're doing our domain servers on there, and we've been very happy with that. We appreciate that we can create machines simply to test things out and then destroy them. I use it for a test machine for checking emails, so if the email has a virus in it, we can just destroy the machine and create a new one. We're slowly moving into the VMware environment, although the pricing with Broadcom has been a disaster.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise68
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise17
 

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...
Which VMware solution would you go with - Workstation or vSphere?
VM Workstation’s setup is so easy, you can use it almost instantly, it works well with Windows and Linux. We like VM Workstation primarily to test environments to determine how well a solution will...
What do you like most about VMware Workstation?
The product is stable, very easy to deploy, easy to use, easy to configure, and easy to set up.
What needs improvement with VMware Workstation?
The product's integration capabilities are an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.
 

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