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Amazon WorkSpaces vs Parallels Desktop 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
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (2nd)
Parallels Desktop
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Amazon WorkSpaces is 2.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Parallels Desktop is 4.5%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Parallels Desktop4.5%
Amazon WorkSpaces2.6%
Other92.9%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Sachin Narvekar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Lead, AWS at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
MH
Payments Architect at Self Employed
A great platform to develop interoperable code on
The decision to transition away from Intel chips to their silicon. They are processing, and there are many examples. Instead of not having a product to use for a while, they have just released it now. However, if you're seeking a product that is industry-ready regularly or has plans to make it so, considering the upcoming changes, I recommend trying out Parallels Desktop in beta. When you're only dealing with Windows, we do much in the Windows version, but it is not improving the Windows operating system. If you're hosting a Windows platform or another version of the machine, the code will have limitations. Windows is not a walled garden, with no significant volatility or instability. Windows is quite versatile. I never encountered intrusive ads or unused features, which is quite good. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Amazon WorkSpaces is very fast."
"The best feature is that it operates very quickly. It depends on the regional location. If we choose a nearby location, nearby servers, it will be best for users to use."
"For anyone looking at the solution, I can say that it is a good solution and within well-defined price ranges, and a very scalable one."
"I recommend it, definitely, as it is a very flexible solution, scalable, and easy to use, and you can use it from any device, whether you have an iPad, a laptop, a Mac, or Windows, on every platform that supports Google Chrome."
"It has good speed and connects well with computers."
"Security, streaming, faster performance, scalability, and the fact that it is very much cost-effective, are some of the solution's valuable features."
"Amazon WorkSpaces Pools is a new solution that allows a group of users to use shared workspaces."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS. It works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"I like how, with Parallels, you can either boot into Mac or Windows to get better control over the resources of the laptops since you're sharing the resources in dual mode."
 

Cons

"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."
"The product needs to improve its pricing. It should also improve corporate identity management and single sign-on."
"The agent sometimes has connectivity issues, but otherwise, it's good."
"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."
"Amazon WorkSpaces can sometimes function as a black box, making it difficult to diagnose why a workspace is slow on any given day due to limited visibility into network latency from the client, real-time CPU and GPU utilization, and storage bottlenecks."
"Its features for the hardware version could work faster."
"I would say that it is a little complex to configure."
"The speed and performance are not always the greatest. It can be improved."
"There may have been some issues with device drivers on my Mac. Similarly, there are some issues with transferring data from Parallels to the Mac."
"The biggest challenge is compatibility between VMware and Parallels because the two systems are incompatible. It can be challenging if you are switching between Windows and Mac. I recommend sticking with one product because there isn't good compatibility between the different products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The bundle works out to be approximately $20.00 per month."
"The tool's pricing depends on company turnover and the organization's relationship with Amazon. I rate it a six out of ten."
"It is very expensive."
"The solution is not very cheap and it is not too pricey."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is low and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing a two."
"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 pricing is based on consumption. You pay for each process based on the transactions you make."
"The solution is expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise10
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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?
Desired improvements for Amazon WorkSpaces include faster and more flexible image updates, incremental image updates, patch-only updates, and a much faster push of software configuration changes to...
What is your primary use case for Amazon WorkSpaces?
Amazon WorkSpaces is used to provide a consistent environment for remote workers for testing purposes. Software testing is typically run on those desktops.
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Also Known As

WorkSpaces
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GrubHub, Endemol Shine Nederland, CMC Property Services
Lytro, University of Washington, Slalom, Veeva Systems, Oklahoma Christian University
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Parallels Desktop and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.