Azure Virtual Machines vs. Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Virtual Machines
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Virtual Machines (VMs) are available on Microsoft Azure, providing what is built as a low-cost, per-second compute service, available via Windows or Linux.
$0
Per Hour
Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials was a tool to deliver Windows applications and shared hosted desktops from Microsoft Azure to any user on any device. It is discontinued.N/A
Pricing
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
3 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S
$0.0038
Per Hour
Spot - General Purpose - Av2
$0.005
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - Burstable VMs - B1S
$0.0059
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - Burstable VMs - B1S
$0.0075
Per Hour
Spot - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.0104
Per Hour
Spot - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.0125
Per Hour
Spot - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.016
Per Hour
3 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.0307
Per Hour
3 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.0369
Per Hour
3 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.0481
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.05
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.0548
Per Hour
1 Year Reserved - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.0753
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - Compute Optimized - Fsv2
$0.0846
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - General Purpose - Dv3
$0.096
Per Hour
Pay as You Go - Memory Optimized - Ev3
$0.126
Per Hour
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
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
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Features
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Azure Virtual Machines
7.6
25 Ratings
6% below category average
Citrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Virtual machine automated provisioning9.025 Ratings00 Ratings
Management console4.523 Ratings00 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup6.521 Ratings00 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Small Businesses
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Omnissa Horizon
Omnissa Horizon
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprises
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Omnissa Horizon
Omnissa Horizon
Score 7.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.7
(24 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Virtual MachinesCitrix Virtual Apps Essentials (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
If you want to host a dedicated Windows server on the cloud, and especially if you want to integrate it with your on premises Active Directory, Azure Virtual Machines should be your first choice. Obviously running Linux on Azure works very well too, but given Azure's pricing is not the cheapest, there are other providers out there that have a better cost-benefit ratio for Linux. That said, hosting Windows on Azure can be affordable (especially when compared to other providers) if you plan your licensing, topology, and application architecture correctly.
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Discontinued Products
For fast setup and implementation, Citrix Essentials was an enabler for connection success, otherwise, we could have just wasted time on other alternatives. Seemed that it was more 'out of the box' which works for us since we don't have the financial resources for complicated implementations. If this was a major ERP implementation, not sure if this would be the most appropriate solution across many countries.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • When demand is high, we scale the service out, eg During a Football Match.
  • When a football match is over and the throughput of data from OPTA drops we save by the service scaling back in.
  • Our App Service Plans along with the Clean C# code are lightening fast giving a good customer experience.
  • When producing the TV Guide information and a program overruns its scheduled time, a client can instantly be updated to the new programming schedule as our change is instant and its in the right place for all the clients to download and adjust their television guides appropriately to send out to the public giving a 24x7 uptime service that is precise and accurate and resilient to outages due to failover zones around the world.
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Discontinued Products
  • User interface
  • Support
  • Integration
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Pricing can be a concern if you are truly agnostic to which cloud you are building your particular solution in.
  • The UI, as is the case with any cloud provider, is crowded.
  • As with any cloud provider, it can be difficult to tune in exactly the right amount of servers for your needs...you might find yourself under/overprovisioning.
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Discontinued Products
  • Network Fileshare mapping where I have encountered some issues.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
definitely it will be renewed. considering the ROI and uptime.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Usability
Microsoft
No VM console, weak management interface, changing CPU/memory is not straightforward. On the positive side, basic RDP functionality is good to have. As long as things are working, the ability to host Windows VMs is appreciated.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Microsoft
I give the overall support for Azure Virtual Machines a 7 because I think while the overall support do a great job there are still areas that it could improve on such as efficiency and speed. So while I only give it a 7 and it has some issues it is still better than the overall support at Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Azure Virtual Machines offer unparalleled flexibility in provisioning, managing and upgrading the VM instances, both manually and programmatically. AVM offer very granular billing options and enables high costs optimisations (while still being costly). The other competitors I mentioned are very good at offering dead-cheap VMs. But if you need anything beyond that, especially for big computing, you need Azure Virtual Machines.
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Discontinued Products
Frankly, there were limited alternative products besides Citrix Essentials, and maybe we just need to learn more. We did not have the time to process complex Request for Proposals, obtain RFP responses, do a short-list, reference checks and a final selection with oral presentations, so IT helped Finance with moving forward and we appreciated their technical advice, speed, and guidance.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • It's so easy to spin up new instances, that it becomes also to easy to have to many of them to manage. Many teams end up with a couple of hundreds of VMs after a short while, making the whole thing very hard to maneuver
  • Azure VMs are the next step for us to rely on Onprem servers, and leaving the management of the infrastructure to the professionals
  • The ease of use, is also important when our main focus is to deliver new applications and integrations fast, and not having to worry about infrastructure. We sell bottles, not CPUs
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Discontinued Products
  • Client delivery
  • Relationship management
  • Visualization
Read full review
ScreenShots