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Amazon WorkSpaces vs Horizon Cloud 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)
9th
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Horizon Cloud Service
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
11th
Ranking in Desktop as a Service (DaaS)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 2.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon WorkSpaces1.6%
Horizon Cloud Service2.0%
Other96.4%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Sachin Narvekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Migration to cloud for secure and shared workspaces enhances productivity
There could be an end-to-end tool similar to AWS Transform that helps from assessment to migration. A single orchestrator tool could assist with discovery, implementation, and image building for Amazon WorkSpaces. O365 and other Microsoft products can become problematic at times, and there are some network health-related issues that appear occasionally regarding functionality inside Amazon WorkSpaces.
SivaKuppala - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized management enhances multi-cloud flexibility with cost efficiency improvements
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. Improvements in application performance, especially for resource-heavy applications like intensive 3D workloads, are needed. More built-in automation for routine tasks like patching and upgrading could reduce administrative effort.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is easy to access. You can access the solution from anywhere at any time."
"The infrastructure is readily available, with minimal latency, which each user can benefit from."
"Amazon WorkSpaces Pools is a new solution that allows a group of users to use shared workspaces."
"The most valuable feature is the mobility. I can use it anywhere."
"They maintain it and manage it very well."
"Amazon WorkSpaces is very fast."
"Security, streaming, faster performance, scalability, and the fact that it is very much cost-effective, are some of the solution's valuable features."
"The initial setup is simple."
"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."
"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 tool remains pretty stable."
"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."
"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 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."
 

Cons

"The speed and performance are not always the greatest. It can be improved."
"An area that could be improved is it could work better on VPN."
"Configuration was a bit complicated at first but manageable."
"Amazon WorkSpaces needs to improve on releasing the most number of patches immediately as quickly as possible. And they need to enable more USB options to connect a mobile phone to that particular workspace."
"You cannot install external applications without doing some additional configurations inside the solution as opposed to your normal desktop or laptop."
"Making it more self-service friendly would be the implement I'd be looking for. When we have to add new applications, we have to go through the IT to do that, and they need to do some configuration changes. I believe they have to reevaluate the computation and storage and the memory. So this is this is something that as an unrequired and should be changed. Also, the initial start time takes couple of minutes and it is easy for get distracted during the time. So if it can reduce the start time to a reasonable start of time to a reasonable time of five to ten seconds. That will be great."
"Amazon WorkSpaces needs to improve its pricing."
"O365 and other Microsoft products can become problematic at times, and there are some network health-related issues that appear occasionally regarding functionality inside Amazon WorkSpaces."
"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."
"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."
"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."
"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."
"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We need to spend some amount for the support. Without money, they won't respond."
"It is very expensive."
"The pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make."
"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 expensive."
"They have hourly and monthly pricing, and because our use case is, more of a sporadic use, so I go for hourly pricing. Again, the details of the pricing is handled by the procurement. From an end user perspective, pay as you use hourly is suitable"
"The tool's pricing depends on company turnover and the organization's relationship with Amazon. I rate it a six out of ten."
"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."
"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."
"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Media Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

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?
For Amazon WorkSpaces pricing, I think it is affordable; it is a final decision made through the management part. I am not satisfied with the billing part because sometimes it bills for huge usage ...
What needs improvement with Amazon WorkSpaces?
There could be an end-to-end tool similar to AWS Transform that helps from assessment to migration. A single orchestrator tool could assist with discovery, implementation, and image building for Am...
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

WorkSpaces
VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Marriott, Sprint
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Horizon Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.