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Horizon 8 vs Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops 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)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
Red Hat Enterprise Virtuali...
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
14th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 6.6%, down from 8.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Horizon 86.6%
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops0.9%
Other92.5%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

MB
Owner at CoBSS
Experience with remote access facilitates seamless user management, though improvements in integration and analytics are desired
From the analytical aspects, we used Horizon 8 Advanced Analytics and most companies switched to another product to gain insights because the insight is not as helpful as other products that are built for it. What was missing in Horizon 8 to make it a better tool was in analytics, specifically getting the right information and the drill-down process to find out where the problem is. If a user has an issue, it is crucial to determine what the issue is that the user is having and since when they have the issue. For example, if a user reports back that they had an issue yesterday evening, getting that information and ensuring that you have it was hard to find, especially to pinpoint if the issue lies with the network or the Horizon 8 platform. We utilized the multi-factor authentication, conditional access in Horizon 8, but we are not satisfied with that. It lacks some integration options that make it easy to run with Microsoft Entra, for example, and authenticate using your regular authenticator besides just getting a pop-up that says, 'I'm the one that's trying to log on.' Nowadays, there are many more complex authentication methods, but even a basic confirmation with a number to verify that you are the person connecting is not supported. I would like to see improvements in Horizon 8, specifically integration with NVIDIA for graphical performance upgrades because it creates many issues such as crashing and black screen systems, causing users to lose access to their current desktop and work. This is a real issue at the moment for many customers worldwide.
RobertThompson 1 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

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 of VMware Horizon 7 is that it can be accessed anywhere in my internal network, and it has a lot of flexibility."
"The most valuable features of VMware Horizon in our education organization are its Graphics Virtualization Unit (GVU) integration."
"It is stable and easily scalable."
"The solution is stable and highly reliable, we haven't had any issues with bugs, users are able to plug in properly, and the VMs are working fine."
"The solution has a lot of Visual Desktop's persistent and non-persistent desktops which publish the applications."
"The initial setup is very simple."
"The support from VMware is very good and they have amazing experts."
"I think this is the best solution for VDI in VM for VM users and developers."
"The improvement to our organization is managing all our KVM-based virtual machines in a management environment."
"The most valuable features are automated deployment and transparent movement for virtual machines over all our locations."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in security features."
"I would like to see more useful monitoring within users and a more useful help desk."
"The support team's technicalities and the pricing of the solution need improvement."
"The remote connection, bandwidth usage, and error connection can be improved. Working with the load balancer sites should also be improved."
"My deployment is complex and I hope it will only take a month."
"I would highlight the challenges related to integrating with Microsoft Azure services. Specifically, there are issues with MDM-managed devices and the necessity for MDM-managed compliant devices. In the non-persistent horizon model, there's a delay before each new desktop becomes compliant. Users can access these desktops before fully onboard into the MDM solution."
"VMware Horizon 7 could improve by supporting the active-active data center."
"My deployment is complex and I hope it will only take a month."
"The best improvement for oVirt 4.2 is to enable backup features for major backup products of virtual machines."
"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

"I rate the product cost a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."
"VMware Horizon View's licensing cost is not expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten."
"The solution can be costly for customers who do not run mission-critical applications or who have less than 50 users."
"There is a monthly subscription for the use of this solution and it is expensive."
"VMware Horizon can be considered to be slightly expensive"
"VMware Horizon only has one license, which is a license to run desktops."
"The license could be cheaper."
"I use the free developer stuff right now."
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885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business61
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise44
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?
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 ...
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.
 

Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Casio, Telef‹nica, British Airways
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.