Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs ConnectWise ScreenConnect comparison

Citrix and ConnectWise are both solutions in the Remote Access category. Citrix is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.2, while ConnectWise is ranked #17 with an average rating of 9.3. Citrix holds a 4.3% mindshare in VUS, compared to ConnectWise’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Citrix users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of ConnectWise users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

Citrix DaaS and ConnectWise ScreenConnect both compete in the remote desktop solutions category. Citrix DaaS seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive features, especially for enterprise needs.

Features: Citrix DaaS offers advanced capabilities such as multi-session management, seamless integration with various apps, and enhanced security features. ConnectWise ScreenConnect provides a straightforward remote access experience with features like remote printing and file sharing, which users find practical.

Room for Improvement: Citrix DaaS could improve in login times, interface complexity, and provide a more streamlined experience. ConnectWise ScreenConnect could benefit from enhanced multi-platform support, additional customization options, and more enterprise-level features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Citrix DaaS is more complex to deploy due to various integrations but offers robust customer support. ConnectWise ScreenConnect is easier to deploy with a straightforward setup, though it sometimes faces slow support response times.

Pricing and ROI: Citrix DaaS generally involves higher setup costs but offers a significant ROI through its extensive feature set and strong support. ConnectWise ScreenConnect is more affordable with lower initial costs, providing quick ROI, ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.

To learn more, read our detailed Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ConnectWise ScreenConnect Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ConnectWise ScreenConnect

April 2025

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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

Microsoft Intune

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Remote Access category, the mindshare of Microsoft Intune is 9.4%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 4.3%, down from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ConnectWise ScreenConnect is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Remote Access

Featured Reviews

Joseph Merusi

Collaborations engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Mohd Abdul Aziz Shah Sulaiman

Assistant General Manager Endpoint Application at Telekom Malaysia

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.

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Todd Blake

Senior IT Specialist at COMMUNITY HEALTH CONNECTIONS INC

Simple to set up, reasonable pricing, and useful remote control capabilities

I'm on the latest version of the solution. I just updated it yesterday. While we have the solution on-premises at this time, we'll likely move to the cloud later this year. They have a trial version that you can try. They have a free version that you can try as well. I use it myself to support my family. I would try the free version or the trial version depending on your business. They can set you up and you can get to see all the features. I would also advocate going to the cloud version. Don't bother with the on-prem. It's just easier to jump to the cloud. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a cloud solution, and you can easily scale as your needs grow."

"There has been a noticeable increase in productivity for both my organization and clients."

"Windows Autopatch is the most valuable because it removes the burden of patch management."

"Microsoft Intune is far more efficient and faster than MECM."

"The most important thing for me is the autopilot feature."

"The ability to manage devices over the cloud is a big benefit, as devices now receive updates regardless of location."

"It is more efficient to have one solution rather than having security parts spread across three, four, or five solutions."

"The biggest thing for us is enforcing logins only from devices that are managed by Intune."

More Microsoft Intune pros

"The most valuable feature of Citrix Workspace is its security."

"The most valuable feature is the gateway to a remote connection, to a physical or a virtual PC. Compared to a normal VPN client and connection, the connection via Citrix is more stable and does not consume as much network bandwidth."

"The scalability is fine. We have about 400 users, who are supported by six staff members. We use the product company-wide throughout 40 different locations, and we currently do not have plans to increase the scale of use."

"I found the ease of deployment, scalability, and security to be to our benefit when supplying virtual applications to our clients."

"It is a lightweight application that incorporates multi-factor authentication."

"Centralization and security are the most valuable features of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops."

"There are many features that I like, but the stability over the Internet is exceptional. Even if there's bandwidth fluctuation or network jitter, it performs well, offering a seamless experience to end-users without noticeable disruptions."

"Its user-friendliness is most valuable. It was easy to log in and navigate. Some of such solutions are not very user-friendly, but this one was."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) pros

"Better than TeamViewer and useful for fixing problems remotely."

"Offers more security than TeamViewer, Google Remote Desktop, and Zoom. It's a stable, feature-rich solution that's easy to set up and easy to scale."

"It's very easy to use, very easy to understand. It gives us remote access to the PC without any issues."

"We like the fact that on our website we can have the ConnectWise bit embedded, and it has instructions for the end-user about what they need to do. Previously, on LogMeIn, we used to have to almost talk them through everything... ConnectWise has step-by-step instructions, depending on the browser."

"Setup was very straightforward. All I had to do was write a GPO on my domain controller and it automatically installed the agent that I downloaded from the software. I literally had to do nothing."

"ConnectWise Connect is very convenient as we can remote to a PC even when it is not within our LAN."

"Unattended access is the most important feature."

"I do love the monitoring page. If you are using ConnectWise Control, which is the on-prem version, when you are logged into the admin panel, there is a status page that checks network connectivity, the status of the license, and so on."

More ConnectWise ScreenConnect pros

Cons

"Due to the abundance of features, there's a lot to organize, which makes managing and setting up the solution challenging. The setup is immense, and it would be good to see improvement in this area."

"There is room for improvement in integration and security as well."

"In the next release, I would like a feature to be able to properly lock down the device. For example, if an attacker or somebody steals the phone, you can be sure that the pin cannot be broken."

"Customer service used to be better. In the last couple of years, support has not been very good, even with Premier and Premium support. It's been very hit-or-miss."

"Intune should improve the management of non-Microsoft devices. It would be better to manage Mac, Android, and other non-Microsoft operating system devices within the same Intune interface."

"Intune could be enhanced by automating application upgrades, similar to how it automates operating system upgrades."

"The reporting part needs improvement, and it would be beneficial if it could integrate with third-party tools instead of just Power BI."

"It's the granularity: 'Is your firewall on? Is BitLocker on?' It's not amazing granularity. But I've looked into other products, like Duo, and they're all similar."

More Microsoft Intune cons

"It would help if it were a little simpler. It's a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution."

"In the bank, a major part of all our applications is Microsoft App-V. If App-V is at end of life, then we need a new technology to replace it. As of today, I haven't seen in Citrix Studio that there is a new technology embedded directly in it to replace App-V."

"Citrix Workspace can improve by being more secure, but this would apply to any solution not only Citrix Workspace."

"It would be great if they included VPN features and improved connectivity."

"Scalability depends on the server and the number of users in the organization."

"There are many latency and slowness issues, which are things looked after by Citrix."

"The product's technical support services need improvement."

"I think improvement around the Analytics piece is super important. There has been a lot of maturity over the last year in that area, though a lot more needs to be done. Also, a lot more of the value of those Analytics needs to be sold to end users. Citrix is working on a lot of things that are ahead of the curve and a lot of organizations aren't quite there yet with implementing those technologies and capabilities."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) cons

"For my company, just installing the software and using it is very easy. But if I need to give one of my customers access to their machines, the process that you have to go through is some 15 to 20 steps. You have to create a group, and then you have to assign a policy. It takes 15 to 20 minutes to set up someone for remote access to their own machine."

"I was not thrilled with their support. I do not have a lot of time to deal with the attention which is needed to fix issues."

"The solution should add the ability to video chat with the user on the other end."

"Support for PAC files on the guest's side and support for proxy on the host's side. Currently, there is no support for guest-side PAC files or for the host-side proxy (which uses authentication)."

"If it had Chrome capability, that would be great; being able to use it on a Chrome device. Right now, I can't use it on my Chrome device."

"The recent redesign has made it slower and basically worthless."

"We have had issues. We have had circumstances, for reasons we don't know, where the service will stop running, and when the service stops running that computer no longer becomes reachable. We haven't really seen that so much on desktops, but we have seen that happen quite frequently on server operating systems, Server 2008, Server 2012. You can install the product and then a week down the road it will just stop."

"There is one back-end issue that I am running into at some of locations where I login to provide support, and sometimes port 443 is blocked. That is what it uses to connect. So, I am having to do workarounds to get a session started."

More ConnectWise ScreenConnect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The clients pay for a license and each can have a different type of license, such as an E3 or E5."

"Its price is fair. It's a normal price. It isn't too expensive or too cheap."

"Microsoft Intune is expensive."

"With our standard E5 agreement with Microsoft, there have been no pricing concerns. Introductory professional services, like a fast-track service, were included with our E5 membership, and there have been no additional costs."

"Intune is included with our F3 and E5 licenses."

"Microsoft Intune is available for individual purchase at a low per-device cost."

"It's a bit expensive from a licensing perspective, especially as we look to have organizations with tenants across the globe."

"Every customer used to purchase licenses based on their needs."

More Microsoft Intune pricing and cost advice

"The licensing of Citrix Workspace is worth it. However, it is expensive. Citrix is probably more competitive now than VMware, but it is still a costly solution."

"If you look at cost, then you must look at the number of users that you are covering. If you are only using it for some users, then it is very expensive. However, if you have a massive amount of users, then it begins to be interesting to use Citrix. Because once you are managing thousands of servers with one guy, your maintenance costs decrease per user."

"Based not only on the cost of Citrix, but additional costs like firewalls, IPS, and other solutions, the total cost of switching users from using normal laptops with VPNs to connection via Citrix were so huge that the CEO of our company decided to postpone the deployment process."

"Their licensing model used to be on a per-year basis, where you would negotiate the cost per user for a year. For instance, if you had 25,000 users, you could negotiate the cost accordingly. However, they are transitioning to a subscription-based model where the cost is incurred monthly."

"The Citrix license model has changed. It costs around $240 per user for a single username, but a concurrent license costs double."

"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."

"The solution is expensive and I give the cost a four out of ten."

"If one is a high price and ten is a low price, I rate the tool's price a three."

More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) pricing and cost advice

"It is priced well and it is still a great value. Although I have been reading a lot about Splashtop. They are getting pretty competitive on their pricing, including a fairly easy to use remote support for mobile applications, like iOS and Android."

"It is priced fairly."

"Good price and works well."

"We pay an annual licensing fee."

"For the price we pay, we definitely feel it's worth it, but there are some contenders in the market that are coming out now, whose products are as good; they are offering more features and the price is actually less than ConnectWise. All things considered, the biggest thing is the lack of patching in ConnectWise. If they could integrate that into the product, that would be a game changer, if offered at the same price point."

"I download the product for free with ConnectWise RMM's license."

"ConnectWise Control is not an overly expensive tool. Its pricing is reasonable."

"Their licensing model is good, their pricing model is good, their service is good; bandwidth is excellent. They're consistent."

More ConnectWise ScreenConnect pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

18%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

21%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

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 ...

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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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops?

My focus has primarily been on publishing virtual applications.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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. ...

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What do you like most about ConnectWise Control?

The product is really easy to deploy.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ConnectWise Control?

I download the product for free with ConnectWise RMM's license.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ConnectWise Control?

All the features provided by the product in terms of screen connectors have been good. There can be some complexities...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Intune

May 2025

Download Microsoft Intune product report

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

May 2025

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) report

Download Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) product report

Buyer's Guide

ConnectWise ScreenConnect

May 2025

Download ConnectWise ScreenConnect product report

Also Known As

Intune, MS Intune, Microsoft Endpoint Manager

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

ConnectWise Control, ScreenConnect

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Microsoft

Citrix

Demo not available

ConnectWise

Overview

Microsoft Intune provides centralized management of mobile devices and applications, ensuring security, compliance, and productivity through integration with Microsoft services like Microsoft 365 and Azure Active Directory.

Organizations use Intune for managing mobile devices and applications, enhancing security and compliance across platforms. With features like single sign-on, conditional access, and zero-touch deployment via Autopilot, it facilitates efficient operations. Intune's scalability, easy enrollment, and capabilities such as remote wipe support diverse device management, offering robust data protection and efficient operation. Despite its features, improvement areas include reporting, compatibility with non-Microsoft devices, and better support for macOS and Linux devices.

What are the key features of Microsoft Intune?

Seamless Integration: Works with Microsoft 365, Azure Active Directory, and System Center for streamlined management.
Conditional Access: Enhances security with policies that restrict access based on conditions.
Autopilot: Provides zero-touch deployment for setting up new devices efficiently.
Mobile Device Management: Enables control over both personal and corporate devices.
Application Deployment: Facilitates app delivery across a range of devices.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Centralized Management: Reduces complexity by managing devices and applications in one place.
Security Enhancement: Protects data with features like remote wipe and compliance monitoring.
Improved Productivity: Enhances efficiency with seamless integration and automation features.
Device Scalability: Supports diverse device management for growing business needs.

In industries such as finance, healthcare, and education, Microsoft Intune is implemented to ensure secure and compliant device management. Companies leverage its capabilities to deploy security policies and manage both corporate-owned and BYOD environments, facilitating a unified approach to data protection and compliance.

Microsoft

Enable secure, flexible work with the leader in virtual apps and desktops

Deliver desktop as a service (DaaS) from any cloud or datacenter

Get started with Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) in minutes to provide a familiar, high-performance digital workspace experience to your users. We’ll manage the infrastructure and security. You focus on your business.

Citrix

With ConnectWise ScreenConnect, you can seamlessly connect to desktops, mobile devices, and more, ensuring that customer downtime is a thing of the past. With world-class security features, including AES-256 encryption and two-factor authentication, ConnectWise ScreenConnect is ready to safeguard your interactions right out of the box. What sets ConnectWise ScreenConnect apart is the power of customization – white-label your software with hundreds of appearance options to showcase your unique brand in every support interaction. In the ScreenConnect Support Premium edition, experience ConnectWise View, enabling live stream sessions for real-time hardware troubleshooting via the user's mobile device camera. Plus, with our robust configurability and granular permissions, you can tailor the experience to your exact needs, equipping your team with the precise access they require.

ConnectWise

Sample Customers

Mitchells and Buzzers, Callaway

Exelon, Aeronamic, AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Alameda County Medical Center, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Aloysius Stichting, Amarchand Mangaldas, AmBev, Amnet Technology Solutions, Arval

Jon Rosen Systems

Buyer's Guide

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ConnectWise ScreenConnect

April 2025

Free Report: Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ConnectWise ScreenConnect

Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. ConnectWise ScreenConnect and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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