Amazon WorkSpaces vs. Citrix DaaS

For our use case, we found Amazon WorkSpaces well suited to remote work and other "work from home" and "work on the road" situations where the end user did not need to consume HD media (notably 4K) and did not need to produce any multimedia (audio, video, etc), but rather needed to perform more typical tasks such as web-browsing our corporate intranet and internal online apps, accessing files and using them through office productivity suites (Office - both online and desktop, and LibreOffice are under testing), etc.

Incentivized

DaaS is ideal in large-scale environments that require centralized, secure management. Remote workforces at large organizations. Highly regulated industries like finance. It allows for easy security and monitoring over one aspect instead of multiple remote machines. DaaS is not ideal for organizations with small budgets due to the pricing and organizations with lousy network connectivity. This would make the end-user experience terrible.

Incentivized

• It gives us a virtual desktop machine which is completely configurable.
• We can launch and terminate those machines as per our requirements
• It eliminates software conflicts as we get clean system every time on launch

Incentivized

• All Management resources can now be installed on a single server. Reducing the overhead required to maintain a citrix environment.
• Granularity of the Delivery groups allow you to define allowing a remote user to connect to a random XenDesktop VM or individually assigning VMs to users.
• HDX RealTime Optimization Pack has stabilized some of the issues of utilizing all of the features of Skype for Business in a ZenDesktop VM.

Incentivized

• Restarting workspaces takes lot of time
• MFA can be done only via email. Text or dedicated app would be a great choice.

Incentivized

• A single console to manage the environment.
• The configuration is a bit complicated and we have hired Citrix administrators. But it's a good solution.
• User profiles need improvement. They could use more stability and more functionality as well as user profile redirection.

Incentivized

I would of given it a 10 but Citrix tech support is lacking.

Incentivized

For its Primary purpose in our organization, providing developers and testers a clean, isolated and configurable environments which saves hours. The usability is nearly perfect. Usability is only suffering when user is into more intensive task like any kind of graphic works. At that time user is not experiencing the smoothness like a local machine

Incentivized

From an end-user perspective, Citrix DaaS is ideal. No matter the device that the user connects with, the end user's experience is always the same. Desktop icons are there, along with the files. As a big name, Citrix allows for SAML authentication or a local account. End users do not need a beefy laptop to have a good experience in DaaS.

Incentivized

Next to zero downtime

Incentivized

The performance of XenDesktop is the best in the industry because of the fine-tuned protocol and years of updating. Overall, I don't think there is a better performer on the market. The question is if the added complexity of running XenDesktop is really worth the performance gain. While the latest version of XenDesktop is the easiest to deploy so far, it is still more challenging than the competitors.

Incentivized

AWS support in general is pretty good, and WorkSpaces is no exception. We haven't had too much need for support but on the occasion we have, they've been quick to respond and helpful. Our issues have been resolved rapidly.

Incentivized

The support is great when you get an engineer that knows what they are doing but getting that individual sometimes takes a while. Overall, they are professional and polite and competent in their knowledge. Sometimes the cases are open for an extended period of time which becomes very frustrating when dealing with critical issues.

Incentivized

I was self trained

Incentivized

Online training isn't bad just an over view more then anything else.

Incentivized

Take it slow and read the directions each step of the way. If you are not familiar with Citrix products, use a reseller or other experienced engineer to assist you in the setup of your environment

Incentivized

WorkSpaces (VDI) is a much more robust solution that competitor offerings when considering scalability and security. Amazon WorkSpaces has a substantial free tier to explore if this is the right solution for your project without purchasing other solutions. Considering this, AWS is a great solution to explore Virtual Desktop experiences and workstations for any growing remote business.

Incentivized

Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops is platform agnostic (we can use any underlying hypervisor technology) and really flexible for any use case. Using a golden image and provisioning it (with Machine Creation Services or Provisioning Services) is powerful and really straightforward, compared to the complexity in Microsoft RDS of maintaining a coherent farm, or the limitation of VMware Horizon to run on VMware Products.

Incentivized

Easily scalable

Incentivized

• Having a linux VM seems positive due to the security of the OS
• The Linux OS version sometimes is basic and requires extra apps to be installed

Incentivized

• Being able to easily add new use cases with minimal "re-work" to existing workspace delivered by the solution has been a great ROI value.
• The Security features that are built-in have made the solution a go-to for any remote access or vendor access requests the business has needed to continue projects and expedite digital initiatives.
• While the overall environment stability is excellent there is an increase in support team and end user training required which can "steal" time from admin and engineers.

Incentivized