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Amazon WorkSpaces vs Microsoft Remote Desktop Services 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.1
Users find Amazon WorkSpaces boosts ROI with easy setup, quick deployment, and enhanced productivity over on-premises solutions.
Sentiment score
6.5
Users appreciate Microsoft Remote Desktop Services for efficiency and remote work but have concerns about its ROI and cost.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Amazon WorkSpaces customer service is praised for support quality but has occasional long response times, with faster help costing extra.
Sentiment score
5.1
Users have mixed experiences with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services support, with premier support offering better assistance and response time improvement needed.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon WorkSpaces' scalability and pay-as-you-go model benefit diverse businesses, providing flexible user capacity and resource management.
Sentiment score
7.1
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is scalable and reliable, with positive feedback on auto-scaling, despite hardware and network concerns.
My impression is that most of the solutions, especially today, make sense for large corporations with 2000 seats or more.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Amazon WorkSpaces is stable and reliable, but performance depends on good internet connections and can be affected by latency.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is stable and reliable, performing well with proper setup and hardware, earning high user ratings.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon WorkSpaces requires performance improvements, enhanced conferencing capabilities, simpler configurations, faster updates, better pricing, and user management features.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services struggles with setup, integration, security, pricing, and usability across networks and devices.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon WorkSpaces pricing ranges from $85-$150 monthly, with additional costs for storage and services impacting overall expense.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers flexible, competitive pricing bundled with broader licenses, enhancing value but posing complexity for some users.
These licenses are not cheap, as they add up in cost.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon WorkSpaces provides secure, scalable remote access with easy provisioning, supporting video conferencing and multimedia with low latency.
Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers secure, scalable remote access, supporting centralized management, file transfers, and multi-screen capabilities for enhanced productivity.
A valuable feature of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is its native integration with Microsoft platforms.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon WorkSpaces
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (2nd)
Microsoft Remote Desktop Se...
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Remote Access (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 Microsoft Remote Desktop Services is 6.1%, down from 14.4% 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.
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.
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851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 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. Everyone wants to join some kind of cloud service today. We have decided to keep our ER...
 

Also Known As

WorkSpaces
Remote Desktop Services
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Bank Alfalah Ltd.
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Microsoft Remote Desktop Services and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.