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

127

Ranking in other categories

Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (4th)

Horizon Cloud Service

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

10th

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 August 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 12.8%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Horizon Cloud Service is 1.5%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Featured Reviews

Grant Waddell

Head of IT Architecture & Operations Support at Lyntia

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.

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 offers a range of products that can be used straight out of the box."

"With this product, everyone can have a similar kind of desktop environment."

"Citrix Workspace's standout feature is its flexibility."

"It has the best remote working features."

"The product is stable."

"We've been able to scale the environment quite nicely by using the Citrix Remote PC. I can't say enough about that. And because that relies on utilizing your existing hardware resources, and making those available as a part of your Citrix farm — with a second level of authentication and security pieces around it — we added some 4,000 workstations without an additional overhead or cost."

"The most valuable feature of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is the security and it is easy to work with."

"This is a very stable solution which you can feel confident using."

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

"The tool remains pretty stable."

"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."

"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 product allows a VPN connection, adding extra value to its features."

"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."

"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

"Citrix has to support all of the hypervisors including KVM and OpenStack KVM."

"Their customer support can be improved a lot as it lacks a lot of knowledgeable help."

"Templating the deployment process could use improvement. When you start, there are a large number of details that are quite client-specific, although they do share common themes. To get somebody up and running in a day is very difficult to do. They should streamline by use case."

"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"

"I have to re-enter my user password when I am not using the tool for some time around ten minutes. I want to also improve the need to download other Citrix apps."

"There is room for improvement on the hypervisor side, providing better integration between the hypervisor and the product line. I suspect that they haven't put the work into that because of the move to the cloud. They want everything to be cloud-hosted. But for folks like us, who will always be a hybrid model, that's of some concern."

"The video conferencing feature needs to be improved."

"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."

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

"The licensing model needs to be adjusted, as a cloud license is currently required even for on-premises devices."

"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."

"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 product has a lot of bugs."

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

"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."

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

"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

"Citrix licensing is expensive."

"I think it is a little high priced."

"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."

"In the past, the prices of the product were great. With the acquisition of Citrix by your company, the prices have drastically increased. For my company, it has become a bit of a problem to sell products from Citrix."

"As for the cost, it is neither cheap nor expensive. Personally, I find it quite expensive, especially if you want to add more features. The security features we use include App Protect and Endpoint Protection."

"Citrix is a mid-range cost solution compared to some others out there."

"It is an expensive solution. I rate its pricing a nine 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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Media Company

University

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...

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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