Horizon Cloud Service vs Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) comparison

Omnissa and Parallels are both solutions in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category. Omnissa is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0, while Parallels is ranked #13. Omnissa holds a 3.1% mindshare in VD, compared to Parallels’s 3.1% mindshare. Additionally, 91% of Omnissa users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Parallels users who would recommend it.

Horizon Cloud Service

Read 11 Horizon Cloud Service reviews

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1,299 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Parallels Remote Applicatio...

Read 25 Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) reviews

1,910 Views
1,795 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Horizon Cloud Service

Parallels Remote Applicatio...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

Parallels RAS and Horizon Cloud Service compete in the realm of remote application delivery and cloud services. Parallels RAS holds the upper hand for smaller budgets due to its affordability and simplicity.

Features: Parallels RAS offers easy setup, high compatibility across diverse environments, and strong security features. Horizon Cloud Service provides dynamic scalability, seamless integration with VMware's ecosystem, and superior graphics support.

Room for Improvement: Parallels RAS could enhance scalability, improve graphic capabilities, and expand advanced integration options. Horizon Cloud Service may benefit from streamlining deployment complexity, lowering upfront costs, and simplifying compatibility with non-VMware environments.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Parallels RAS supports straightforward deployment and provides responsive customer support, making it quick to implement. Horizon Cloud Service features complex deployment but benefits from deep VMware platform integration and extensive training resources.

Pricing and ROI: Parallels RAS is more cost-effective with lower initial setup fees and quicker ROI, fitting cost-sensitive plans. Horizon Cloud Service's higher initial investment is offset by its potential for substantial long-term returns, thanks to its rich features and performance advantages.

To learn more, read our detailed Horizon Cloud Service vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Horizon Cloud Service vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

March 2026

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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

Horizon Cloud Service

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

11th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (4th)

Parallels Remote Applicatio...

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

13th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Virtualization (4th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 3.1%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is 3.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Horizon Cloud Service	3.1%
Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)	3.1%
Other	93.8%

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1970973

Virtual Desktop and Applications Offerings Global Offering Manager at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Cloud-based platform offers flexibility with robust protocol and exceptional user management

The main benefit of Horizon Cloud Service is that it is cloud-based, allowing our organization to leverage the service without having to manage all infrastructure directly. This offers significant flexibility and efficiency. Additionally, Horizon Cloud Service has a robust protocol, making app management straightforward. The scalability of Horizon Cloud Service is also excellent, and its stability is strong for our use cases.

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JohanSkibdahl

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Secure access across devices with cost-effective seamless integration

One valuable feature is the ability to securely use a wide range of devices to access the company's infrastructure. The inclusion of all necessary components, such as load balancer and gateways, in a monthly fee is also beneficial. In terms of Parallels Desktop, the coherence mode that allows Mac and Windows applications to run seamlessly side by side is highly regarded.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."

"Horizon Cloud Service provides deployment flexibility across multiple clouds with a scalable architecture that easily scales virtual desktops and applications up or down based on demand."

"The main benefit of Horizon Cloud Service is that it is cloud-based, allowing our organization to leverage the service without having to manage all infrastructure directly."

"The product’s on-premise version has the ability to create an image of any updates or changes in the system."

"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Horizon Cloud Service pros

"Ease of use in publishing apps and installing the agent. The Interface is fairly intuitive after some tinkering. Although I inherited the app only two-thirds deployed, I was able to complete the deployment and service it over the last year without referring to any documentation."

"Allows us to publish applications accessible by current-generation HTML5 browser or OS-specific client (Windows, Android, iOS), and it supports popular single sign-on and multi-factor authentication protocols."

"Simplicity of the interface is a valuable feature."

"Its price and ease of use are the most valuable. It is simple and has good performance."

"One valuable feature is the ability to securely use a wide range of devices to access the company's infrastructure."

"It provides flexible access to Windows applications from many types of devices."

"We can publish apps and desktops on Terminal Servers and seamlessly share printers. We also combine Parallels with Deepnet Security to get two-factor authentication."

"The stability is ok - once I finished the setup, the system was quite stable."

More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) pros

Cons

"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."

"The cost of Horizon Cloud Service is high, however, it could be optimized. The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."

"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."

"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."

"The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."

"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."

"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."

More Horizon Cloud Service cons

"Opening a ticket should be available from the actual RAS console. It is cumbersome to go to a portal, hunt around for five minutes for a link to open a ticket, answer questions meant to direct you towards FAQs instead of live support, then fill out information (license #, version #, etc.) which could more easily be supplied by sending a ticket straight from the console with all of that information automatically specified."

"The product does not utilize SQL for reporting purposes. Also, it does not support some hypervisors similar to Citrix. These particular areas need improvement."

"It needs Windows scaling on Android/iOS devices. At present, the concept of delivering apps to Android and iOS devices is appealing, but the reality is the screen size on these devices is so small that, unless there is some scaling option, it is not really usable."

"The customization of the web interface could possibly use some improvement. Little things, like being able to place a background image instead of just choosing from a palette of colors, would be nice."

"We use several gateways because access to our secret zone requires two-factor user authentication. It is a lot of hassle differentiating among users with or without two-factor. Of course, we could use two farms, but that would mean more management too."

"We would like the ability to provide a popup message, such as a maintenance notification. That same notification on the Parallels client would be awesome."

"The main issue we have with all of our users is printing. Randomly, a printer will disconnect or someone won't connect to it and I will have to reset the print service and then nobody can print. That's the big headache we've had over the course of the five years."

"A web-based management interface for administration and reporting would be nice, instead of needing to log into a remote server."

More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."

"VMware Horizon Cloud is a low-cost solution. The model that they have is consumption-based. However, some features are expensive."

"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."

"VMware Horizon Cloud is an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."

"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."

"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."

"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."

"I recommend testing Parallels and comparing it to your needs. Compare the prices against what you are able to do with the product and its alternatives. Parallels is not a cheap product."

"I think the new pricing is a little bit high. If the price was lower, we could use it for many more customers. If there was one improvement to be made to this product, it would be a small-business version, at a much lower price point."

"We currently use Parallels side-by-side with an Azure cloud-hosted solution. This may be from a lack of product knowledge on my part, but we still need to work out the most effective way to shut down servers outside of hours, thereby reduce hosting costs. I am not entirely convinced Parallels does this well yet."

"The product is not expensive. I rate its pricing a three or four out of ten."

"Pricing is a little steep."

"It justifies the price. In terms of licensing, initially when we got the product it was an unlimited licensing strategy. We knew would grow in the coming years. So initially, we took a plan which had no limit. After a year or so the strategy changed and we were being limited to 105 licenses, that was the minimum... If there was flexibility for increasing the number of licenses that would be great because you never know how much you are going to grow in the next year."

"Comparable performance to Citrix for our use case at a significantly lower cost. Pricing is clear and there are relatively few options or other pricing considerations when compared to similar products. Just be sure not to forget the Microsoft licensing that goes along with a Parallels deployment."

"I don't like the subscription model because it feels like I have to pay every month. If Parallels could go back to the professional license, it would be much better."

More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Media Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	10

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Horizon Cloud?

The cost is considered normal, not remarkable but not outrageous. In terms of expense, compared to other virtualization products, I would rate it as a six.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Horizon Cloud?

The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices. Horizon Cloud Service should continue improving their protocol and work with other h...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Horizon Cloud?

Our primary use case focuses on virtual desktop and application hosting. This is spread across different industries. We have a large number of employees, and we are one of the largest GSIs globally...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)?

The pricing for Parallels RAS is straightforward with a monthly fee for a minimum of 15 licenses. For Parallels Desktop, it is a yearly cost of a couple of hundred euros. No additional fees for mai...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)?

A potential improvement could be reducing the dependency on Microsoft solutions for Parallels RAS. As for Parallels Desktop, there is nothing specific that needs improvement.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)?

The primary use case of Parallels is to offer it to customers as a hosted service. I help them to migrate from other solutions like VMware to Parallels RAS. I recommend it to companies that prefer ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Virtual Desktop vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 11% of the time

Nerdio vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 10% of the time

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 10% of the time

Horizon 8 vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 7% of the time

More Horizon Cloud Service Competitors

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

Compared 15% of the time

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

Compared 15% of the time

Parallels Desktop vs Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon WorkSpaces vs Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

Compared 8% of the time

NComputing vSpace vs Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

Compared 3% of the time

More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Horizon Cloud Service

March 2026

Download Horizon Cloud Service product report

Buyer's Guide

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

February 2026

Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) report

Download Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) product report

Also Known As

VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS

Parallels RAS

Overview

The VMware Horizon Cloud Service delivers feature-rich virtual desktops and applications using a purpose-built cloud platform that is scalable across multiple deployment options, including fully managed infrastructure from VMware, public cloud infrastructure from Microsoft Azure, or on-premises hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). The service supports a cloud-scale architecture that makes it easy to deliver virtualized Windows desktops and applications to any device, anytime. And, with a flexible subscription model and turnkey solutions, organizations can easily get up and running and scale quickly.

Omnissa

ApplicationServer delivers applications, data and virtual desktops from a central location, providing continuous availability, resource-based load-balancing and complete network transparency.

Parallels

Sample Customers

Marriott, Sprint

Arsari Group _ PT Netmarks Indonesia, Izhevsk Elektromekhanicheskiy Zavod (IEMZ) _ Kupol, Abilene Diagnostic Clinic, Fylde Borough Council, YARSTROYREZE LLC, VSK Insurance House, Melenkovsky District of Vladimirskaya Oblast, Sofrigam SA, Antenna International, KingsGate Community Church, Norwegian American Hospital, Island Hotels Group, Medway Council, Medway Council, Voices of September 11th, MacDonald Training Center, Kansas Childrenês Service League, Scope,Next Generation Clubs, WTC Communications, Opera Australia, HSE Integrated, Danier, Bridgwater College, Kern County Mental Health, Tony Tiendas, Spears Manufacturing, Managed Insurance Services Inc., Intuitive Medical Software, M.J. Soffe, Mazda Motors, Israel Military Industries (IMI), Telfair, Upic Solutions, Teleflora, Fisher & Company

Buyer's Guide

Horizon Cloud Service vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

March 2026

Free Report: Horizon Cloud Service vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS)

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