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Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) 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

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 (2nd), Remote Access (4th)
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 July 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 12.1%, up from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 1.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

Grant Waddell - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly and easily accessible, but cost could be made cheaper
We use Citrix Workspace on Citrix Cloud. We have all of our servers on the AWS public cloud. There are a number of tools that we can implement that would save us costs. However, we've stuck to Citrix for convenience. If the prices keep increasing, we will have to consider other solutions. Users need to understand the tool's limitations correctly and what they require from a usability perspective. They should also understand the configuration of security policies. In some cases, people are unable to download or upload files onto their PCs, which is necessary for them to do their work. Users should understand the limitations of the product or the configuration options. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
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

"I use Citrix DaaS to connect to devices."
"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 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."
"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."
"The Provisioning Services are the most valuable feature. We have Premium licensing, so Provisioning Services is huge for us, along with the Virtual Apps and Desktops part. It allows us to have a vDisk for every region, one that can easily be copied between them if we need to, to limit the amount of updates we have to do."
"Citrix is used by many organizations to make it possible to streamline the way different developers work together from different locations."
"Citrix Virtual Apps is the most valuable feature. Many customers use this feature to publish only applications, and not the full desktop. They can publish the internal resource or allow the end-user to reach a site or an application without having the full desktop. That's why they love this feature. It helps them save on resources."
"Relative to other solutions, Citrix has fewer conditions and fewer parameters. Citrix also provides some flexibility because it can be used on any device."
"The product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."
"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 tool remains pretty stable."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Horizon Cloud is the ability to manage a great number of desktops at once and the remote access for users that are working from outside of the office or from different offices in the country."
 

Cons

"The product’s customization feature needs improvement."
"The cost of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is high and has room for improvement."
"The speed and connectivity of Citrix DaaS could be improved."
"The lag when using Skype or Screen Sharing with multiple users needs to improve, as it makes it difficult for us to continue when we have to restart the system."
"Where improvement could be driven is in terms of clarity as to the functionality of some of the solutions. If you go back to the older Citrix Xen products that we had, we understood those really well. As we've come into the new workstation premium suite, there is a lot of additional functionality that we perhaps have not yet fully exploited. It is not because we can't, but simply because we don't yet understand the depth of functionality that's offered."
"Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops are not easy to set up. However, I have the experience and I can do it easily. It could be easier to set up."
"Our experience of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is good, but the environment can become complex and difficult to manage at times."
"Licensing service installation and configuration was the biggest challenge for all Citrix solutions, but now they have fixed a lot of issues."
"The product has a lot of bugs."
"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."
"The licensing model is complex, particularly for hybrid deployments, and simplifying it could help."
"The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices."
"It can be very expensive to scale up because each part of scaling up requires you to have new components of the infrastructure."
"The application remoting features have some room for improvement."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think it is a little high priced."
"It is an expensive solution. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"Citrix is a mid-range cost solution compared to some others out there."
"The Citrix license model has changed. It costs around $240 per user for a single username, but a concurrent license costs double."
"We're paying for a standard license and, in my view, the price is too high. I would be satisfied with it if it were reduced by about 20-30%. Right now, I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I don't quite remember the specifics of what we had. I believe we had a 25-user license, and I don't recall it being overly expensive."
"The licenses are affordable, but the support is a bit expensive, though worth the value.​"
"Citrix licensing is 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."
"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."
"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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

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 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

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace
VMware Horizon Cloud, VMware Horizon DaaS
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Horizon Cloud Service and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.