Citrix DaaS vs. Omnissa Horizon

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Citrix DaaS
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, or XenDesktop) is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and application virtualization solution from Citrix.
$375
Omnissa Horizon
Score 5.5 out of 10
N/A
A VDI solution used for the secure delivery of virtual desktops and apps from on-premises to the cloud. It is used to deploy, manage, monitor and scale desktops and apps across private, hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructure using a cloud-based console and SaaS management services.
$4.67
per month per user
Pricing
Citrix DaaSOmnissa Horizon
Editions & Modules
Virtual Apps
$375
Horizon Apps Standard
$4.67
per month per user
Horizon Standard Plus
$5.79
per month per user
Horizon Apps Universal
$6.00
per month per user
Horizon Enterprise Plus
$10.71
per month per user
Horizon Universal
$12.50
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Citrix DaaSOmnissa Horizon
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Citrix DaaSOmnissa Horizon
Considered Both Products
Citrix DaaS
Chose Citrix DaaS
TSPLUS can be used only from professional user with IT background because is not secure and inefficient to give access to all the employees of a specific server and, if company programs are installed in many Vm, the access via TSPLUS is impossible because the person will lost …
Chose Citrix DaaS
a similar product feels quite similar, personally, I am only a user and wasn't involved in the software purchase decisions. Citrix is leading by its functionality and ease to use.
Chose Citrix DaaS
AnyDesk is a similar software I have used however AnyDesk is more of a remote Desktop software to gain access to other computers in any network. They use a token system to authenticate. AnyDesk is very different in terms of what it offers. It does not offer Application access …
Chose Citrix DaaS
I never had the chance to test other products like these since whenever I read and searched online during the first phase it was only popping up Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.... so we got in touch with the sales department and the rest is history. After the technical …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops was our pick because of the low infrastructure requirements. With Vmware, you need compatible hardware to run ESXi and then a machine to run the vCenter server and free other machines to run horizon view, app, policies, etc which can get …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Both Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and GoToMyPC solve the business needs of accessing your work remotely as long as you have access to the internet. They are easy to log into and support worker flexibility. The cost to maintain this software can be expensive, especially if …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops support offline and have a wide variety of applications that can be run compared to other vendors. Improvements to the HDX protocol also allow apps to be run in higher-latency environments. Mobility Pack added support for mobile devices and …
Chose Citrix DaaS
according to me, Citrix Virtual App ruled over the windows because it is compatible with different operating systems (not only with windows or another specific one). It is user-friendly and widely accepted by various companies. It has a much better working environment for …
Chose Citrix DaaS
We use Palo Alto Global Protect, and Pulse Secure VPN. While both are secure they don't compare with providing the type of access Citrix Virtual Apps delivers. The VPN solutions are perfect for Operations and technical teams for Remote Desktop Access, however, Citrix Virtual …
Chose Citrix DaaS
We opted to use the Cisco VPN as we already owned the firewall to accommodate those users that wanted everything available all of the time. They were given laptops with full software loads and VPN access for network resources. If they have a bad or unsecure connection Citrix …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops by far has been the best remote desktop app that I've used. I had dabbled with other alternative platforms and they all fell short of what I needed. Citrix also has very high levels of data security and cybersecurity features making it a very …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (CVAD) allows for the use of any hypervisor or cloud platform which ensures flexibility in decisions that are made across a IT organization while others are typically tied to a single or highly controlled cloud selection. Additionally the …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Our company is focused and trained for the use of Citrix. We're still in the process of exploring the other options.
Chose Citrix DaaS
We have tried two alternates, one of which is not listed in this web sites database. Normal MS Remote Desktop Services/Terminal Services and 2X Applications Services. Both had similar offerings to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenDesktop), but both had the same …
Chose Citrix DaaS
I'm not sure there is a real alternative to Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. Maybe Microsoft Remote Desktop or Terminal server? Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is much more configurable and robust than either of these options for anything more than maybe ten users. Citrix …
Chose Citrix DaaS
Other products were more cost efficient, offered a better support contract, were much simpler to configure, and had better documentation.

We chose Citrix over the alternatives, because one of our customers required the use of Citrix for the connection of third-party vendors.
Chose Citrix DaaS
We needed our application vendor to support our solution and Citrix was their main choice. The other choice was Microsoft RDS/RDP but we wanted the higher management functionality that Citrix brought.
Chose Citrix DaaS
Citrix has come a long way in this type of service, compared to its competitors. We also select Citrix because we have the complete suite from this manufacturer (Netscaler, XenServer).
Chose Citrix DaaS
Xenapp is a more mature product than VMware Horizon View with wider application and OS support. Citrix proprietary HDX and ICA protocols are more efficient than VMware PCoIP protocol for remote users with low bandwidth and high latency access. Both products still rely on …
Chose Citrix DaaS
XenDesktop is the best because Citrix says so! But really it depends on a lot of factors that vary from one organization to the next that require detailed analysis with a trusted consulting partner or an in-house EUC architect.
Omnissa Horizon
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Citrix DaaS and Azure Virtual Desktop
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Omnissa Horizon was more cost effective and a better overall solution.
Chose Omnissa Horizon
We used XenServer initially for a few years, but (at the time) licensing for Omnissa Horizon was easier and the product was more reliable.
We only used Hyper-V in a very limited test environment, so it's difficult to compare w/ Omnissa Horizon.
Chose Omnissa Horizon
VMWare Horizon has several advanced features vs other competitors, choosing one option or another depends on the scope of the company's need and the cost of investment. In general, all the solutions of VDI are good and offer a good experience.
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Far more cost effective.
Chose Omnissa Horizon
At least in our company, Citrix only worked allied with a physical authentication token, which was a Smart Card written and provided by the company. The software randomly froze and came back as nothing ever happened and the Citrix support couldn't care less about this. We grew …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
We evaluated various other products, but as we are already on a VMWare based infrastructure, View just made the most sense for us. It's also feature-rich, and some other alternatives that we considered couldn't deliver certain critical features (such as managing access to …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Citrix vid setup was very difficult and initially hard to set up. I believe this has changed somewhat now, but there are still multiple servers that need to be set up before it can be used. Vmware VDI was fairly easy to set up and was immediately working and up and running, …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Some of the platforms are designed for smaller or standalone environments and do not allow for large-scale centrally controlled deployments. in the case of Citrix, there was better Chrome OS support but the lack of PCoIP UDP optimizations made is slower and less desirable by …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
I have not used any other products similar to View but I have used Citrix for RDS so that users could have a remote profile. This was clunky and became fairly troublesome as the users shared the same server and when one had issues sometimes the whole server had to be rebooted. …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
I suppose I'm prejudiced but I don't think either of those products is in the same league. I know XenDesktop has made some strides I just think VMware has the superior product.
Chose Omnissa Horizon
VMware Horizon seems to be more powerful and adaptable to multiple operating systems than the Citrix products I have used. VMware has been simpler to use and has a lot more customization than other of the other similar products I have used. It has solved a lot of the issues I …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
When we were considering a VDI solution, I reviewed Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop as alternative solutions to Horizon View. It seemed like Horizon View was a more mature solution and had the best integration to our existing Vmware vSphere environment. The systems …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
There are few competitors, main are:

Citrix Xen Apps and Dekstops
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Although I really prefer Microsoft Remote Desktop for accessing Windows servers (from Windows machines especially), and this can be done from off-site with a VPN, this entails much more effort, namely getting everyone's Active Directory in the correct group to have access. …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Citrix did not have the level of Instaclone type feature that VMWare had in its offering. The application layering also was better in our opinion as well as overall support from our vendor. Security was a close call but we found VMWare to be a better fit for our company and its …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Horizon View is probably my favorite to use. It isn't saying much as all of them have their ups and downs. VMware has fewer downs out of the bunch.
Chose Omnissa Horizon
VMware View provides a full suite of products which provide the functionality that many of the competing vendors have gaps in the you have to then use another third party application to get a working solution. With VMware View you have all the tools at your fingertips to be …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Citrix XenDesktop is another big player in the VDI market, but the product simply isn't as mature or powerful as Horizon. Xen still struggles with Windows 10, whereas Horizon has accomodated every OS we throw at it with ease. XenDesktop is a great product overall, performance …
Chose Omnissa Horizon

Did not do a full evaluation on Citrix XenDesktop as VMware Horizon View integrates nicely with the VMware vSphere environment that we had currently set up.

We were using PanoLogic for about 6 months before we scrapped it and moved onto VMware Horizon View. Horizon View gave us …

Chose Omnissa Horizon
I think the reason VMware Horizon View has done so well is the lack of competition in this area. We have considered the Microsoft equivalent, but are concerned that their support will be worse than VMware (which can be pretty frustrating, to be honest).
Chose Omnissa Horizon
Each has its pros and cons however when properly configured and with a server infustructer to support it correctly vmware horizon view can be a highly scalable , powerful tool in your IT bag of tricks that can offer massive ROI and user satisfaction being able to deploy it …
Chose Omnissa Horizon
We did not deploy in-house testing, though we did review another company's deployment. At the time we liked what we saw in Horizon, though I have no doubts that XenDesktop could deliver just as well and still does for the other company that presented it to us. What tipped the …
Best Alternatives
Citrix DaaSOmnissa Horizon
Small Businesses
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Citrix DaaSOmnissa Horizon
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
5.1
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.4
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.4
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.9
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
2.4
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.2
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
5.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Citrix DaaSOmnissa Horizon
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
Horizon View is well suited in larger organizations where there are needs to securely access applications and data from outside the internal network. It allows users a complete desktop experience remotely with access to all resources that are available on the local internal private network. It is fast and robust as data does not need to traverse the connection like a VPN connection and stays within the local internal network increasing data security. Cost for hardware and software is a high initial investment so smaller organizations will find it hard to justify the financial costs. In a diverse user environment, there are many uses for Horizon View. When faced with a need for a solution for users to access information or applications outside the internal network, having Horizon View is one of the best go to's to have available. Use your imagination and creativity to solve many business needs
Read full review
Pros
  • 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.
Read full review
  • Ability to set up new desktops quickly.
  • Faster boot times for PCs.
  • Virtual machines can grow in space and other resources as long as the ESXi Hosts have the resources.
  • Ability to create different types of desktop groups called pools and organize the different departments.
Read full review
Cons
  • 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.
Read full review
  • VSAN -- This experience is from a pre-Horizon 7 deployment. While we have had redundancy issues in our deployment, the concerns we experience are said to be resolved in the latest VSAN release.
  • Persona Management can be troublesome, leading to mismatches in user data against the server. This requires manual interaction to resolve if a network or user error led to the two falling out of sync. The risk in this is user data loss. Again, new developments in user management is said to resolve these concerns in Horizon 7.
  • Security Servers and off-site access to VMware Horizon View has been difficult due to the problematic deployment scenario (a server inside the network with several external hooks). This is said to be resolved with the advent of EUC in Horizon 7. I'm excited to begin testing on this solution as feedback elsewhere has been positive.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
I would of given it a 10 but Citrix tech support is lacking.
Read full review
We are committed to VMware Horizon and we plan to stick with it for the future unless something drastically changes.
Read full review
Usability
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.
Read full review
Because it delivers what it promises, I am giving this rating. While there is scope for improvement, it does the job and meets our requirements reasonab;y well. It helps our remote resources connect to our environment securely and improves their productivity. We also get to access our client environment from remote locations and complete the tasks assigned to us.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Next to zero downtime
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Performance
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.
Read full review
There are a lot of things that went into my rating from the ease of use compared to other systems to the limited amount of issues I have had with this one. Any issue with this system has been identified and resolved in a much quicker manner than I have seen with like systems.
Read full review
Support Rating
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.
Read full review
It is surely way better than Citrix, but it could improve a bit. Usually, they send us the solution without saying what was the root cause so we can avoid breaking something in the future. Besides that, VMWare support answers in an OK time-frame and even speaks our language (Portuguese).
Read full review
In-Person Training
I was self trained
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Online training isn't bad just an over view more then anything else.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
VMware Horizon seems to be more powerful and adaptable to multiple operating systems than the Citrix products I have used. VMware has been simpler to use and has a lot more customization than other of the other similar products I have used. It has solved a lot of the issues I have encountered with the systems put out by Citrix.
Read full review
Scalability
Easily scalable
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • 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.
Read full review
  • ROI is good, but from calculations it takes time, you won't see benefits in a first year or two
  • It will allow us to provide access to software on personal machines where it was not possible before
  • It is hard hunting applications that are allowed to be virtualized
Read full review
ScreenShots