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

Horizon Cloud Service vs VMware Workstation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Horizon Cloud Service
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (4th)
VMware Workstation
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2024, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 2.0%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Workstation is 16.7%, up from 13.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

SN
Jan 24, 2023
Overall useful features, secure, and highly scalable
We use VMware Horizon Cloud for virtual machines where everyone can log in and do their work in a safe environment VMware Horizon Cloud has benefited my company because it is centered and secure. The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together. Logging into…
Nick Quirante - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 16, 2023
Provides compatibility with a wide range of applications and ensures seamless testing and deployment
We use VMware Workstation for testing and deploying applications in our production environment. We use Hyper-V and VMware Workstation for our testing environment. We use it to deploy and test developer applications within our company.  We run our internal applications on virtual machines to ensure…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."
"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."
"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 product’s on-premise version has the ability to create an image of any updates or changes in the system."
"The tool remains pretty stable."
"The technical support is good."
"VMware Workstation has tons of third-party support, the largest partner ecosystem. VMware works with a ton of different vendors. They have plugins for almost everything. Other hypervisors lack the flexibility that VMware Workstation offers."
"VMware Workstation allows you to run a virtual machine."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is an easy-to-use product."
"The features are good."
"The most valuable feature of the VMware Workstation is the ease to create a development environment. When you have different ongoing developments, you often need to create a lot of different development environments. With this workstation solution, you can have a development environment for all the things you develop."
"I would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"I have found this product excellent for test/dev environments. This is 90% of what I use this product for."
 

Cons

"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."
"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 product has a lot of bugs."
"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."
"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 application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"The solution should provide a guide on its installation."
"The price should be reduced."
"Lacks the ability to clone onto another system rather than starting from scratch."
"It would be helpful if VMware Workstation included an in-built monitoring tool for monitoring things."
"There could be more integration with different tools."
"Installing VMware Workstation isn't so easy. It's highly complex compared to Windows. I rate it four out of 10 for ease of installation. Setting up a remote desktop only takes a minute or so, but the Workstation itself takes some time."
"The solution freezes sometimes."
"The GUI interface could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."
"VMware Horizon Cloud is an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."
"VMware is expensive. Licensing can be tricky. For example, I recently had a client running VMware vSphere Essentials and wanted to migrate to a more scalable solution. However, they had no choice but to purchase a completely new license and deploy a completely new instance of VMware."
"You need to pay for a license, but I don't think it costs that much. I think it's a one-time payment."
"It has the best licensing modules."
"The solution's pricing is almost the same as what Google Cloud, AWS, or Microsoft would charge you."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I use the free version of VMware Workstation."
"VMware Workstation's costs are lifetime."
"Licensing fees are paid on an annual basis."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions are best for your needs.
801,634 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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

VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Marriott, Sprint
Akademiska Hus
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon Cloud Service vs. VMware Workstation and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
801,634 professionals have used our research since 2012.