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Horizon 8 vs Parallels Desktop comparison

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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

Horizon 8
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
User Virtualization (1st)
Parallels Desktop
Ranking in Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) category, the mindshare of Horizon 8 is 6.8%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Parallels Desktop is 3.6%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Horizon 86.8%
Parallels Desktop3.6%
Other89.6%
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)
 

Featured Reviews

SF
Architect at Softcat plc
Architects have improved desktop environments and now optimize operations for diverse clients
From my perspective, there is significant room for improvement in Horizon 8. Many customers are actively seeking alternatives to VMware due to recent licensing changes after Broadcom's acquisition, necessitating upgrades or bundles that they often do not require. Given that Omniser builds on VMware technologies, this creates a negative perception, pushing customers to consider different brands or solutions.
MH
Payments Architect at Self Employed
A great platform to develop interoperable code on
The decision to transition away from Intel chips to their silicon. They are processing, and there are many examples. Instead of not having a product to use for a while, they have just released it now. However, if you're seeking a product that is industry-ready regularly or has plans to make it so, considering the upcoming changes, I recommend trying out Parallels Desktop in beta. When you're only dealing with Windows, we do much in the Windows version, but it is not improving the Windows operating system. If you're hosting a Windows platform or another version of the machine, the code will have limitations. Windows is not a walled garden, with no significant volatility or instability. Windows is quite versatile. I never encountered intrusive ads or unused features, which is quite good. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of this solution has been security."
"It stands as a robust setup with considerable capabilities."
"The solution has data leak prevention features that ensure data is not copied from the base machine to VDI, and API copyright capabilities."
"The solution has enabled us to offer a secure desktop experience to our remote users. This ensures that our personally identifiable information and HIPAA data remain protected, eliminating the risk of being copied to a local, potentially mobile, device. Everything is contained within a centralized structure."
"The solution simplifies our work."
"The best thing about this product was the ease of customizing the terminal, including the ability to add or decrease memory."
"The benefits of this solution are that it is modern and it works perfectly well with the rest of the VMware environments we have. Having this vertical integration is what matters to us as an organization and this solution excels in this area. You deploy it and it works without much hassle."
"VMware's technical support gives wonderful support."
"Parallels Desktop integrates seamlessly with macOS. It works better than VMware on Apple operating systems."
"I like how, with Parallels, you can either boot into Mac or Windows to get better control over the resources of the laptops since you're sharing the resources in dual mode."
 

Cons

"VMware Horizon View can improve by making it easier to use for first-time users. You should learn the whole concept of VMware to be able to use it."
"The most important feature that is missing is the ability to do some remote support on the client itself."
"VMware Horizon 7 could improve by supporting the active-active data center. At this time we are only deploying it in the production environment. Our customer is considered to deploy the VMware Horizon 7 to a secondary data center, but we found out that it cannot fully support the user in the deployment in the active-active data center. Any improvement on this would be beneficial."
"I would like to see simple load-balancing for smaller environments that lack large solutions like F5, or NSX; it should be redundant or unavailable but in a simple way. Perhaps limited to only two components; if more are required, a paid load balancing solution can be used. Load balancing for simple environments, or simple redundancy, is sorely lacking."
"There are some licensing issues in VMware Horizon"
"The pools and virtual machine management console should be improved, as there is no way to group PCs in different pools, etc."
"In the next release, the performance, the speed, and the price need to be improved."
"It is a little bit complex. You need a little bit of experience with ESXi installation and VMware before using this solution. You cannot directly jump to this solution. It also requires training. After you get trained, you can do anything with Horizon 7. In terms of features, it has been sufficient for my needs, but it can always have more features. They can maybe merge the servers. They can give the Horizon 7 server in one package with ESXi."
"The biggest challenge is compatibility between VMware and Parallels because the two systems are incompatible. It can be challenging if you are switching between Windows and Mac. I recommend sticking with one product because there isn't good compatibility between the different products."
"There may have been some issues with device drivers on my Mac. Similarly, there are some issues with transferring data from Parallels to the Mac."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"VMware Horizon's costs are high."
"I don't know about the price. I know there are different tiers with the license, but I'm not sure exactly what it costs anymore."
"For long-term use, perpetual licenses are more cost-effective, and for short-term use, subscription-based would be more cost-effective."
"It is an expensive product. We purchase its yearly license."
"The license for this product is paid on a monthly basis."
"I cannot provide a detailed comment on the pricing; however, I can say that it is quite expensive."
"We pay a monthly licensing fee for VMware Horizon."
"VMware Horizon is priced high."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
14%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business63
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise45
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does VMware Workspace One compare with VMware Horizon 7?
VMware Workspace One has a powerful set of helpful features. The solution offers very good documentation, the initial setup is easy, and the product is very stable and reliable. I think the fact th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware User Environment Manager?
Regarding the pricing aspect of Horizon 8, I find it currently quite acceptable. After VMware was bought by Broadcom, the pricing was ridiculous, but now that Onmises has VMware Horizon 8, the pric...
What is your primary use case for VMware User Environment Manager?
I have experience with products from Horizon 8, and I am currently working with Omniser version. I have been working with Horizon 8 from Omniser for nearly two years now. I am currently working in ...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

VMware Horizon, VMware Horizon View, Mware Dynamic Environment Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LCMC Health
Lytro, University of Washington, Slalom, Veeva Systems, Oklahoma Christian University
Find out what your peers are saying about Horizon 8 vs. Parallels Desktop and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.