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Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs VMware vSphere comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.6
Microsoft Intune offered up to 60% savings through cost reduction, improved efficiency, streamlined processes, and enhanced operational capabilities.
Sentiment score
6.5
Some users saw value in efficient remote work and image deployment, despite high costs and preference for other solutions.
Sentiment score
7.2
VMware vSphere delivers substantial savings, faster deployment, increased efficiency, and high ROI through reduced hardware and operational costs.
Everything we've gained from it makes my job easier day after day, and I see value in it as an engineer.
Importantly, when someone leaves the company, it helps protect document access on their devices.
Applications are deployed through Intune, and we see fewer tickets for common issues because we can resolve them through the solution.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Intune's support receives mixed reviews, with varied responsiveness, expertise levels, and dependence on subscription level impacting experiences.
Sentiment score
6.0
Microsoft's customer service is generally good, with variability in response times and support quality depending on licensing and contracts.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware vSphere's customer service is praised for expertise but criticized for delayed responses and inconsistent lower-tier support quality.
When a support ticket is submitted, it directly reaches someone with Intune support expertise.
When I contacted Microsoft, they had the same expertise, if not more, which is phenomenal because I felt heard and my problem was solved.
Sometimes, the support provided is excellent, and the representative is knowledgeable, while other times, the service needs improvement.
Priority one issues are usually addressed by engineers within one to two hours.
If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable
My team solves most tickets, needing support only about once or twice a year.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Microsoft Intune is scalable, cloud-based, and integrates well, with some macOS challenges, making it ideal for diverse organizations.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is scalable for small to medium organizations, but large users note limitations and suggest improvements.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware vSphere excels in scalability, seamlessly integrating new resources for efficient, robust performance across diverse enterprise environments.
The scalability of Microsoft Intune is ten out of ten.
Ideally, we want to automatically segregate devices based on user properties like primary use, but currently, dynamic groups seem limited to device properties.
It supports organizations with 200 endpoints and those with more than 15,000 endpoints.
My impression is that most of the solutions, especially today, make sense for large corporations with 2000 seats or more.
Scaling is easy, whether it is hyperconverged or a three-tier architecture.
It is a highly scalable solution.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Microsoft Intune's stability has greatly improved with fewer issues, though occasional sync and deployment glitches still occur.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is stable and reliable, with minor issues mostly due to configuration or updates.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware vSphere is praised for stability, with issues usually related to hardware and resolvable through patches and maintenance.
Microsoft Intune has been very stable.
A couple of years ago, the performance was not as good as it is now, but there are noticeable backend improvements.
We've encountered problems with other services like Exchange, Intune has remained unaffected.
It is a very stable hypervisor solution.
I would rate the stability of VMware vSphere as eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek better reporting, mobile remote control, non-Microsoft management, integration, usability, cost reduction, and hybrid domain handling.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services requires improvements in network stability, security, cross-platform support, integration options, and user experience.
VMware vSphere faces criticism for high costs, unresponsive GUI, limited features, poor support, and inadequate security and integration.
Features like unlocking devices sometimes fail, and the support offered for other operating systems is insufficient.
There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now.
Many third-party companies offer single-pane-of-glass reporting that shows you what your update environment looks like, how your patch is doing, application status, etc., but Intune's reporting is not intuitive.
It should be easier to create a template and duplicate users.
The cost changed from perpetual to subscription, and there is a need for alternative solutions.
Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
Sometimes, it is difficult to find documentation for specific tools and solutions.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Intune offers flexible, cost-effective pricing within Microsoft 365, appealing to enterprises with comprehensive integration and reasonable value.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services pricing is competitive, with variable costs and valued inclusion in broader Microsoft agreements.
VMware vSphere offers stability and robust features but is costly, with complex licensing, especially challenging for smaller organizations.
Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs.
The Intune suite and add-ons, such as batch management and remote help, are costly.
We get Intune bundled with our Microsoft agreement.
Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
Costs significantly increased from perpetual to subscription, with prices rising by two to three times over three to five years.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Intune's key features enhance productivity with robust integration, device management, security, and scalability for remote management.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services provides reliable, secure, scalable remote access with centralized management, cost-effectiveness, and compatibility for diverse company needs.
VMware vSphere enhances virtualization with seamless VM movement, high availability, resource optimization, scalability, and efficient centralized management, reducing costs.
Intune excels in configuration and compliance management for Windows 10, ensuring devices receive timely updates and adhere to organizational standards.
Dynamic groups allow us to set conditions for automatic membership, eliminating the need for user intervention or manual review and ensuring a seamless workflow.
Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management.
The vMotion feature is beneficial for online migration of virtual machines from one host to another without downtime.
The high availability feature is significant.
VMware vCenter is extremely useful as we can manage between 100 and 1,000 hosts using just one management tool.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Intune
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
240
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management (2nd), Remote Access (1st), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (1st), Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (1st)
Microsoft Remote Desktop Se...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) (5th)
VMware vSphere
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
453
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Remote Access
Server Virtualization Software
 

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi - PeerSpot reviewer
Everything has worked better since we started using it
Sometimes the syncing is inconsistent. I'm confident that the devices are checking in every eight hours, but sometimes the devices aren't picking up the settings as quickly as I would expect. Some features haven't been updated in a while, and Microsoft doesn't seem interested in developing them. Unless you talk to an engineer, you don't know whether there will be an update. There are communication issues, so you might start working with a feature without knowing if it will be deprecated six months from now. Some reporting areas still need development. For example, I noticed that the reporting for driver updates is still confusing.
Terje Romen - PeerSpot reviewer
Accessing the same desktop experience from anywhere but user template creation needs improvement
Mostly we are quite happy with it. However, some of us want a more powerful desktop. When not present, we use a remote tool called Splashtop, which is a good solution for some users. We have about ten licenses for those who need a powerful workstation at the office. We have not used many different tools. We are never in contact with Microsoft. These are quite basic configurations, to be honest. It's not complicated. AI is coming to or is already in some applications we are using. Not system-wise, however, it might be good. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten. It's quite good, yet certainly not perfect.
Neeraj Mehra - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamlines virtualization and has features like high availability and vMotion
The primary use case is for virtualization, including the implementation of vSphere, vCloud Foundation, vCloud Director, and cloud automation with vSphere My customers, particularly SMBs, mainly utilize High Availability (HA), DRS, and vMotion features. The vMotion feature is beneficial for…
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Comparison Review

it_user234735 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 10, 2015
Hyper-V 2012 R2 vs. VMware vSphere 5.5
I was won with Hyper-V 2012R2 recently and the table below based on customer RFP (edited). This articles all about technical, there is not related with TCO/ROI, licensing cost, “political”, etc. Another to noted is the Windows Server 2012 licenses is based on 2 socket CPU, meanwhile…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Microsoft Intune compare with VMware Workspace One?
Microsoft Intune is a great tool for managing a mobile device fleet while keeping access control. The solution makes ...
What are the pros and cons of Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune is a great configuration management tool and has a lot of good things going for it. Here are some of...
How does Google Cloud Identity compare with Microsoft Intune?
Microsoft Intune offers not only an easy-to-deploy data protection and productivity management solution, but also ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
I've never had an issue with it. I've always thought the pricing for RDS was reasonable.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services?
We would like configuration to be automatic and the price to be close to zero, however, that's not realistic. Everyon...
What is IOMMU?
DEEPEN DHULLA did explain well IOMMU. IOMMU has to be activated at the bios level. It exists on Intel and AMD platfor...
Why KVM??? Help please!
We use VMware and KVM. We find that KVM is a lot simpler to use and it provides the virtualization we need for Linux...
What is the biggest difference between Nutanix Acropolis and VMware vSphere?
We found the reduced power consumption with Nutanix Acropolis AOS a very attractive feature. We also like the interfa...
 

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Remote Desktop Services
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway
Bank Alfalah Ltd.
Abu Dhabi Ports Company, ACS, AIA New Zealand, Consona, Corporate Express, CS Energy, and Digiweb.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Omnissa, TeamViewer and others in Remote Access. Updated: February 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.