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Amazon WorkSpaces vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 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

Amazon WorkSpaces
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
8th
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citri...
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
3rd
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
125
Ranking in other categories
Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 0.7%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 9.5%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Bhaskar Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Management console is very easy to use, readily available infrastructure and easy to scale
It's very stable. There is a big difference between traditional physical servers and cloud servers. With physical servers, we need to plan for purchasing, procurement, capacity, storage, get quotations, and then procure them. That took some time. Maybe it would take more than one month or maybe two months to procure and then install. With AWS, it is readily available. Just pay and immediately create the VPC, network, and everything. It is very easy. Within two or three hours, we can implement any server or launch any application. Within five minutes, we can just spin up and publish our servers on the Internet.
Mohd Abdul Aziz Shah Sulaiman - PeerSpot reviewer
Delivers secure and unified access to apps, desktops, and content for enhanced productivity
Citrix Workforce is good, but it needs improvement in diagnosing network issues. When errors occur, it is difficult to determine if they're due to network issues, Workspace issues, or environment issues. The error messages are too vague, just stating "connection error" without specifying if it's an IP address issue, connectivity problem, or something else related to the network. This lack of detail makes troubleshooting difficult. We often have to reinstall everything in Workspace, without knowing the root cause. Even after engaging with Citrix and sending logs, the feedback is often unsatisfactory, not meeting my expectations. This trial-and-error approach isn't effective problem-solving. While these issues aren't everyday occurrences, when they do happen, they can be catastrophic for our operations team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable feature is the mobility. I can use it anywhere."
"The product is easy to access. You can access the solution from anywhere at any time."
"Amazon WorkSpaces is very fast."
"The best thing about Amazon WorkSpaces is the security it provides."
"It has good speed and connects well with computers."
"The infrastructure is readily available, with minimal latency, which each user can benefit from."
"The tool has low latency and multimedia support. For instance, running Zoom calls on Amazon WorkSpaces seamlessly supports local microphones, speakers, and web cameras. This feature is transparent for applications, allowing me to use the Zoom application without requiring exceptional support for remote web cameras or microphones. Amazon WorkSpaces provides this functionality at the operating system level, enabling effortless video conferencing. To my knowledge, Microsoft Remote Desktop does not offer the same support."
"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a stable solution."
"Citrix Virtual Apps is the most valuable feature. Many customers use this feature to publish only applications, and not the full desktop. They can publish the internal resource or allow the end-user to reach a site or an application without having the full desktop. That's why they love this feature. It helps them save on resources."
"It is stable, easy to scale, and provides secure remote access."
"It is a stable solution."
"It has improved delivering applications to remote locations with its lower bandwidth utilization."
"Citrix DaaS’s most valuable feature is the virtualization of applications and desktops."
"The most valuable feature is the watermark because most of the time our employees connect from a remote location. In case they photograph the DDA or some data, the watermark will show which user did so and from which IP they connected. That makes it more secure."
"Because of the solution's ubiquity, it is easier to find answers to problems than with competitive products."
 

Cons

"An area that could be improved is it could work better on VPN."
"The product needs to improve its pricing. It should also improve corporate identity management and single sign-on."
"If they had a cheaper option for graphics pro, I think that it would be beneficial and I would use it."
"The agent sometimes has connectivity issues, but otherwise, it's good."
"Amazon WorkSpaces needs to improve its pricing."
"The solution lacks a shadow mode option, and it needs to have it."
"The speed and performance are not always the greatest. It can be improved."
"There is always scope of improvement in the stability."
"The product’s customization feature needs improvement."
"It is slow. When everybody is logged in, it does have a tendency to slow down. You can tell the connectivity slows down a little bit, but it's still a good product."
"The dashboard should be more user-friendly as the tabs are not organized clearly."
"It takes time to load."
"Using the app layering feature can be quite difficult and cumbersome."
"The initial setup has room for improvement."
"I have noticed that the current compatibility issue with the latest version of Windows 11 is a concern for me and my client. While the client has support for Windows 11, it appears that the Citrix Workspace is only compatible with Windows 10, which does not support the newest version. This is an area that I believe could be improved upon."
"Direct connection of USB devices on the terminals to be used by streamed applications is very important for printing and the usage of token authentication, but the current version does not support this one hundred percent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is very expensive."
"We need to spend some amount for the support. Without money, they won't respond."
"I think that the price can be lower. We have cases where the customer needs to have lower costs. So since we don't have options, like, shadow mode, they need to decrease pricing or have other models for reduced pricing."
"The tool's pricing depends on company turnover and the organization's relationship with Amazon. I rate it a six out of ten."
"The bundle works out to be approximately $20.00 per month."
"There are several different options available, but it can range anywhere from $85 to $150 a month per machine."
"The solution is not very cheap and it is not too pricey."
"The solution is expensive."
"The solution is affordable."
"The licensing, in general, is expensive. A lot of customers battle to pay the amount. It's very difficult to ensure that your solution provides the business value that the customer is after."
"We are just now approaching the end of our initial purchase, which was an excellent price for us as an academic institution. We got a very good deal to get us on board. That license is up for renewal in about a year, and we are nervously waiting to see what the pricing will be."
"Citrix is a mid-range cost solution compared to some others out there."
"We are seeing a return on investment with Citrix Workspace."
"The cost of the Citrix software reflects what I would expect a product of that nature, in that market, to be. Understanding the licensing is quite a bit more complicated, because one of the things about Citrix is that you can buy licensing at different levels... Yet I still like the idea because it means that if all you need is a basic load balancing solution, then you don't need to buy an advanced or premium license."
"My company opts for the yearly subscription model to pay towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The product, XenServer, is free to use, and XenApp has a one month free license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
5%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon WorkSpaces?
Performance and scalability are valuable features.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon WorkSpaces?
The pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make. The investment is almost the same as having your own on-premises solution, with the added costs of ...
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkSpaces?
There is always scope of improvement in the stability.
What do you like most about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
What needs improvement with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?
I have found that Citrix DaaS is still a complex product, especially on the desktop side, which affects scalability. Although it works well on the apps side, the desktop aspect still has room for i...
 

Also Known As

WorkSpaces
XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
 

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Sample Customers

GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.