Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Horizon Cloud Service comparison

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Horizon Cloud Service

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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

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

126

Ranking in other categories

Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (5th)

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 10.0%, down from 14.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 1.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

SivaKuppala

Enterprise Architect at Wipro Limited

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a stable solution."

"The most valuable feature is how secure the solution is."

"It is a good product. I don't have any complaints."

"The most valuable feature is the desktop experience so that users don't see much difference between the remote desktop and the local desktop... It also provides virtualization for high-end graphics so that they can be displayed. AutoCAD can be done on Citrix. The graphics are very good."

"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."

"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."

"The product is simple to set up, and its deep integration with Microsoft is also a valuable feature."

"One of the best features of Citrix Workspace is that we can access it from any device anywhere."

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

"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 most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is all of its capabilities together."

"The product’s on-premise version has the ability to create an image of any updates or changes in the system."

"The interface is much easier to use compared to Microsoft and other VDI vendors that are well known on the market. I like VMware so much more than the others. With Horizon Cloud, you don't need to spend a lot of money upfront to buy the infrastructure. You can use it the on the cloud, so it lowers the barriers to entry. It's easier to test it and get started. Some clients stay in the cloud, but others prefer to go on-premise. It depends on the nature of the client."

"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."

"I honestly liked the application itself because it was just like using a desktop. You could copy and paste, inside and outside, and you could use multiple monitors. You could access it anytime, anywhere, no matter whether you were in the office or out of the office. I could leave the office, go somewhere, go back in, and everything would be there. I could just leave it up and running. I absolutely love this feature in VMware Horizon Cloud."

"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."

"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."

More Horizon Cloud Service pros

Cons

"The product is currently not working well in hosting conferencing software like Zoom, Team, and Salon."

"I would like to see simplification in the management of the on-prem infrastructure component of Citrix DaaS, particularly in the studio tool used to manage the DaaS infrastructure."

"For us, pricing is the most important feature to improve."

"I've recently tried to use Citrix on Ubuntu, and I don't know if this is an Ubuntu issue or a vendor issue, but you can't use Citrix right now on Ubuntu 20.04."

"We had an issue when we were using the Citrix server. We needed to install the Citrix Runtime in the server where the application was hosted."

"There is room for slight improvement in performance optimization and interface refinement."

"Our experience of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is good, but the environment can become complex and difficult to manage at times."

"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."

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

"Logging into VMware Horizon Cloud could be made easier. Additionally, the VMs could be better in their performance."

"The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."

"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."

"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."

"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."

"The product has a lot of bugs."

"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."

"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."

More Horizon Cloud Service cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is quite expensive, but so are the competitors on the market."

"I think it is a little high priced."

"The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value."

"We recouped 60 to 70 percent of the hardware costs."

"The solution is affordable."

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

"The licensing is $125 USD per user."

"The Citrix licensing scheme is really straightforward and simple. It doesn't have hidden costs. You get what you pay for. It is easy to understand what is on the product, so it's simple to get a clear idea of how much it costs. Licensing is not an issue."

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

"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."

"There is a license required for the use of this solution and there are different tier levels available."

"VMware Horizon Cloud is an expensive solution. This solution is approximately 30 percent more than Microsoft Azure Cloud. There can be extra costs."

"Initially, the product is cheap, but it starts to get expensive when users try to scale out."

"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."

"I rate VMware Horizon Cloud pricing a ten out of ten."

"VMware Horizon Cloud is a low-cost solution. The model that they have is consumption-based. However, some features are expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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...

What do you like most about VMware Horizon Cloud?

The tool remains pretty stable.

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...

Azure Virtual Desktop vs Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

Comparisons

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Horizon 8 vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 36% of the time

Microsoft Remote Desktop Services vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon Appstream vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 14% of the time

Workspace ONE UEM vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon WorkSpaces vs Horizon Cloud Service

Compared 8% of the time

More Horizon Cloud Service Competitors

Product Reports

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)

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

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

Horizon Cloud Service

Download Horizon Cloud Service product report

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS

Interactive Demo

Citrix

Demo not available

Omnissa

Overview

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

The VMware Horizon Cloud Service delivers feature-rich virtual desktops and applications using a purpose-built cloud platform that is scalable across multiple deployment options, including fully managed infrastructure from VMware, public cloud infrastructure from Microsoft Azure, or on-premises hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). The service supports a cloud-scale architecture that makes it easy to deliver virtualized Windows desktops and applications to any device, anytime. And, with a flexible subscription model and turnkey solutions, organizations can easily get up and running and scale quickly.

Omnissa

Sample Customers

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

Marriott, Sprint

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Horizon Cloud Service