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Horizon 8 vs Horizon Cloud Service 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

Horizon 8
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
Horizon Cloud Service
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 9.5%, down from 16.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 1.3%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Tim  Abboud - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly, reasonably priced, and simple to install
It can be challenging to assess the stability of Horizon because it relies heavily on the underlying infrastructure, including vCenter, network, and storage performance. It is important to pay attention to these factors when evaluating the stability of the system. We rely on vCenter, network, and storage performance, and any weakness in these areas will affect the performance of Horizon. When discussing this with customers, I always emphasize the importance of these factors. If the foundation is solid, Horizon should not experience any performance issues. If the fundamentals are weak, we will encounter issues with Horizon on a regular basis. However, the product itself, VMware Horizon, is highly stable. While the Horizon product itself is very stable, it is important to be well-informed about any potential side effects from using other related products.
Vaisakh Natesh M - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, stable, and scalable
VMware Horizon Cloud is easy to use and the full development cloud is very good. The main features of VMware are included. It's a cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure software that allows you to permit the virtual desktops and applications to any device from the single unified management control. These are managed from the dedicated remote session desktop. It is a multiple cloud deployment that provides flexibility. You can choose cloud capacity management by VMware or infrastructure management with Microsoft Azure. Advanced user configuration management through dynamic environment management is available. There are many self-serve options.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very stable solution...It is a very scalable solution."
"Users can log in from anywhere and from a variety of devices."
"The application delivery is it's most valuable feature."
"VMware Horizon View is an easy-to-use solution."
"The benefits of this solution are that it is modern and it works perfectly well with the rest of the VMware environments we have. Having this vertical integration is what matters to us as an organization and this solution excels in this area. You deploy it and it works without much hassle."
"The solution has data leak prevention features that ensure data is not copied from the base machine to VDI, and API copyright capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is that VMware Horizon is easy to setup."
"The solution has good performance and functionality. However, if the network connection was poor we noticed a decrease in performance."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."
"The interface is much easier to use compared to Microsoft and other VDI vendors that are well known on the market. I like VMware so much more than the others. With Horizon Cloud, you don't need to spend a lot of money upfront to buy the infrastructure. You can use it the on the cloud, so it lowers the barriers to entry. It's easier to test it and get started. Some clients stay in the cloud, but others prefer to go on-premise. It depends on the nature of the client."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is easy to use and the full development cloud is very good. The main features of VMware are included. It's a cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure software that allows you to permit the virtual desktops and applications to any device from the single unified management control. These are managed from the dedicated remote session desktop."
"I honestly liked the application itself because it was just like using a desktop. You could copy and paste, inside and outside, and you could use multiple monitors. You could access it anytime, anywhere, no matter whether you were in the office or out of the office. I could leave the office, go somewhere, go back in, and everything would be there. I could just leave it up and running. I absolutely love this feature in VMware Horizon Cloud."
"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is the ability to manage a great number of desktops at once and the remote access for users that are working from outside of the office or from different offices in the country."
"The tool remains pretty stable."
"Its advanced management features are the most valuable, especially power management. One of the really important things was to be able to have power management in a consumption world. This means that unlike a Microsoft environment, you could actually turn off virtual desktops or have them start up and shut down. If you're consuming resources in the public cloud, you want to be able to do that because when you're not using those, such as at the weekend, you want to be able to turn them off. So, the advanced options for managing the BDIs are very important."
 

Cons

"Considering the tool's weaknesses, the product probably has scope for some improvement in the context of how the applications or Linux operating systems are delivered using VMware Horizon View."
"It would be beneficial if VMware invested in developing a robust reporting engine, providing insights into user activities, locations, and more."
"Lacks sufficiently robust audio redirections."
"There is room for a more cost-effective pricing structure, as it could be more affordable."
"VMware Horizon could be improved with more integration. It is also very costly for Enterprise Plus, which is a drawback. The renewal costs for the license are very, very high."
"VMware has purchased by Dell, they started to remove a lot of their support for non-Intel hardware and that's a bit of a problem. They dropped a lot of support for hardware that people commonly use and it just so happened that this hardware is not Intel. It makes it difficult to get assistance."
"There is room for improvement in support. The response time could be faster."
"The installation is complex and could be easier. The full installation with testing took a couple of weeks to complete."
"The product has a lot of bugs."
"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."
"It is very expensive. Its price needs to be improved. They can do a better job with external resources such as a USB or a hard drive. When I tried to connect using these external resources, it failed a lot of times. I had to do a shared connection with a local laptop and then connect from a network standpoint, rather than through VMware Horizon point. They definitely have weaknesses with external connections. A lot of companies probably don't let people use external connections because it defeats the purpose of having a cloud solution and keeping the data in a secure area. You can copy to an external device, and you can lose the data. A lot of companies may not focus on this feature, but if you are providing it, you should make it work."
"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"In the design phase, sometimes the tools for designing Horizon solutions have issues when they're calculating the number of nodes and platforms needed to support the VDI systems."
"There should be more emphasis on the Workspace One access part of the solution. This is essentially identity management provided with Horizon. There needs to be some kind of integration because you are able to have all of these desktops on any device, but you have to have this other component to make it easier from a single sign-on perspective. That's why there should be an emphasis on Workspace One access. It actually comes free with the product, but people don't really know how powerful it can be."
"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The VMware Horizon 7 license is for three months. We are in the testing stage, we are still evaluating the product. We are sure now that we need to buy a license for the production environment."
"The solution is expensive."
"VMware Horizon View pricing is high compared to other solutions. I rate it two out of ten. Its licensing costs are monthly."
"The license for this product is paid on a monthly basis."
"The license is very costly, as well as the renewal cost."
"The price of VMware Horizon 7 is more than some other solutions."
"I cannot provide a detailed comment on the pricing; however, I can say that it is quite expensive."
"The solution can be costly for customers who do not run mission-critical applications or who have less than 50 users."
"For what you get, it is very compelling. You've got to look at the total cost of ownership of this type of piece of software in terms of being able to utilize it as a cloud service. I don't have to run everything on-premises. When you look at the total cost of just being able to use it and then being able to point it to any public or private cloud, it is very compelling. You have one less thing to manage."
"It is too expensive as compared to other solutions because of which we don't use it that much. We tend to go more for Hyper-V or Azure just because VMware licensing is quite up there. We sway people away from VMware Horizon Cloud. We have some clients who already have it. They stay on it for a little while, and then most of them end up moving off when we provide them a better solution that isn't as license heavy cost-wise."
"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."
"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is a low-cost solution. The model that they have is consumption-based. However, some features are expensive."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."
"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does VMware Workspace One compare with VMware Horizon 7?
VMware Workspace One has a powerful set of helpful features. The solution offers very good documentation, the initial setup is easy, and the product is very stable and reliable. I think the fact th...
What do you like most about VMware Horizon 7?
VMware offers a friendly environment, and it's easy to provide the user with the package. It is a bundled solution that is readily deployable. The advantage lies in its simplicity, it requires mini...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon 7?
We paid a lot of money for software that is not really fully operational out of the box. We had to have patches from VMware to get it into production. Hence, we lost a lot of time implementing the ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon Cloud?
Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out. Though I find Citrix to be an expensive product compared to VMware Horizon Cloud because of all the feat...
What needs improvement with VMware Horizon Cloud?
VMware Horizon Cloud's VDI stacks are being sold off. Considering VMware Horizon Cloud's VDI stacks complexity, even before its sell out, I feel Citrix can do a couple of pieces of infrastructure t...
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Marriott, Sprint
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. Horizon Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.