Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops comparison

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

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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

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

127

Ranking in other categories

Application Virtualization (1st), Remote Access (4th), Desktop as a Service (DaaS) (1st)

Red Hat Enterprise Virtuali...

Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

14th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

2.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is 13.7%, up from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service)	13.7%
Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops	0.8%
Other	85.5%

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.

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RobertThompson 1

Information Security Manager at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees

Free version available but hard to understand

Personally, I don't think it has any commendable features. The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra work involved with the Red Hat virtualization. It doesn't just work out of the box. You have to read through about six different documents, and everybody's experience is different. So it's kind of annoying. That would be the main thing. If you're not a Linux geek, it's very hard to understand. And it's probably because I came out of the Windows world. I learned this as part of my cross-training, but I just found the way that it happens with VMware and all that stuff to be easier to use.

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

"It allows us to mute users who adhere to a policy of not allowing direct VPN access for security reasons. It is easy to use."

"Security is a shining point of the Citrix Workspace. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a very robust solution when security is a concern. Furthermore, the content collaboration data-hosting that Citrix integrates with Virtual Apps and Desktops is among the best there is."

"The most valuable feature has to be the non-persistent desktop. If one of my users messes something up and blows away their desktop, it goes back to what it was originally, before they had an issue."

"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 app protection feature is one of the most valuable because it provides good security, as nobody is going to be able to look into your screen while you are sharing the screen. And if someone has installed a keylogger in your system, your keystrokes will be jumbled up and they would not make any sense to the keylogger. App protection is one of the coolest security features that I have encountered on any platform."

"The ROI for us has been that when we had Hurricane Harvey last year, Xendesktop came in very handy for us. Even though people had electricity in Texas, many networks were down. Our offices could still get into our network and do work that was needed. It is an excellent virtual office that works anywhere, anytime and anyplace. It is worth our investment."

"Instead of pointing to any single feature, I would say the most valuable aspect of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is the overall product itself. Virtualized apps and desktops, in theory and in practice, are very helpful to users."

"Citrix is one of the companies that is delivering virtual apps and desktops in a big way. They are mature enough to understand the level of stability required and deliver it."

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

"The most valuable features are automated deployment and transparent movement for virtual machines over all our locations."

"There's lots of good support out there in the community."

"The improvement to our organization is managing all our KVM-based virtual machines in a management environment."

Cons

"The only thing we have found to be detrimental is when we have tried to find training. I realize that we're looking at it at the worst time possible, with a pandemic going on, but it seems that most of the training offered is learn-by-yourself online."

"The solution's cost has almost doubled this year, and it could be made cheaper."

"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."

"I think Citrix's support is good, but sometimes it is a little slow."

"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."

"They can simplify the process of printers. Printers were quite a difficult issue. It took us a long time to iron this issue out. We have the most simple use case where people connect from home to either a virtual machine or their physical desktop. We tried more complex solutions like Machine Creation Services, and they were more overhead than they were worth for us. I found them difficult to work with and confusing, and they were not worth the work for us."

"Citrix duplicates multiple processes."

"The sales team does not focus on client needs but instead focuses on selling higher-priced items."

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

"The best improvement for oVirt 4.2 is to enable backup features for major backup products of virtual machines."

"The biggest thing about it is that, compared to what you can do with VMware and Horizon, it just seems like there's an awful lot of extra work involved with Red Hat virtualization."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's costly in the market. But it is not expensive for the company. For the company, it's relatively inexpensive because the core of the work is compensated with the price."

"We spent nearly 1,50,000 Euros for 250 licenses."

"Implementing Citrix DaaS with thin clients, rather than physical laptops, has resulted in savings of 27% to 29%. Additionally, moving 1,000 users from physical laptops to thin clients and VDI solutions can save around 40,000 kilograms of carbon emissions, benefiting both the environment and the company's economy, provided thin clients are used."

"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."

"It's my understanding that the solution license fee for each user is around $300 US. If we buy a personal laptop for each employee every five years, then the total cost is five times $300 US, or $1,500 USD. So we could buy 100 personal laptops instead of the Citrix solution."

"The price of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is approximately $300 for the new version called Dash and the license is approximately $900 annually."

"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."

"Citrix licensing is expensive."

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

"I use the free developer stuff right now."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Government

University

22%

Manufacturing Company

18%

Government

12%

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	43
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	68

No data available

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 Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?

I use the free developer stuff right now.

What needs improvement with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?

What is your primary use case for Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops?

I've used it more as a user than as an administrator setting it up. Just mainly getting access to legacy systems and programming that's not Windows 11 compatible.

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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

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Download Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops product report

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops report

Also Known As

XenDesktop, XenApp (Citrix Virtual Apps), Citrix Workspace

Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops

Interactive Demo

Citrix

Demo not available

Red Hat

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

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops complete desktop environments are hosted virtually. Users connect to these virtual desktops using either inexpensive thin clients or re-purposed PCs. No data is actually stored on the thin client - it's stored in a secure centralized location and can be accessed from anywhere. Red Hat Virtualization is an open, software-defined platform that virtualizes Linux and Microsoft Windows workloads. Built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), it features management tools that virtualize resources, processes, and applications providing a foundation for a cloud-native and containerized future.

Red Hat

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

Casio, Telef‹nica, British Airways

Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Desktops