Cisco AnyConnect vs. Citrix DaaS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco AnyConnect
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Cisco offers an SSL VPN solution via AnyConnect.N/A
Citrix DaaS
Score 9.0 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
Pricing
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Virtual Apps
$375
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
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
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
Features
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
Virtual Private Network
Comparison of Virtual Private Network features of Product A and Product B
Cisco AnyConnect
9.1
27 Ratings
3% above category average
Citrix DaaS
-
Ratings
AES 256-bit Encryption9.327 Ratings00 Ratings
Kill Switch9.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Platform Support8.826 Ratings00 Ratings
Split Tunneling9.125 Ratings00 Ratings
IP Address Masking9.224 Ratings00 Ratings
No-Logs Policy8.920 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple Server Locations9.022 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic Wi-Fi Protection9.422 Ratings00 Ratings
Simultaneous Connections9.322 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer Support Services8.723 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
Small Businesses
Norton 360
Norton 360
Score 7.2 out of 10
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.2 out of 10
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.2 out of 10
VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion
Score 7.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(111 ratings)
8.0
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(12 ratings)
8.2
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(91 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Availability
9.9
(9 ratings)
8.4
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(3 ratings)
7.4
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(93 ratings)
7.9
(8 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.4
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(7 ratings)
2.4
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.8
(3 ratings)
9.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
5.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco AnyConnectCitrix DaaS
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Providing secure remote access with a robust VPN, creating an encrypted tunnel so employees can safely access internal company resources like file servers and private apps from anywhere. It also allows enforcing device compliance: depending on policies, checks whether a device has an active antivirus and the latest OS updates before allowing it to connect. When there is not much need for remote access, the cost is too high.
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Citrix
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.
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Pros
Cisco
  • All Cisco AnyConnect data transfer processes are secure to enhance security.
  • It can connect multiple terminals across various sites directly.
  • Centralized management of the workstations connected to the network became easier than ever for managers with multiple locations in the organization's workforce.
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Citrix
  • Enables remote access anywhere, to any device which eliminates managing the endpoints how traditional VPN would require.
  • Integrates well with modern applications to offer optimized user experiences similar to native applications which increases user acceptance.
  • Extremely flexible in how policies are applied to different use cases to ensure the appropriate security mitigations are in place with minimal effort.
  • Easy to maintain and expand environments to fit business needs.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Cisco AnyConnect can use the system resources as long as the program is being run.
  • Account activation may be very difficult when connecting from areas requiring captive portal login, if certain settings are not allowed.
  • By default, it is possible to request the user to authenticate again at specific intervals.
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Citrix
  • 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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is perhaps the second most functional tool we have, it will definitely be renewed every year. Our network is stable, which ensures that there is less for our technicians to troubleshoot, which frees them up to ensure other parts of the company are maintained. This keeps our costs low and our downtime at a minimum.
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Citrix
Because it has been a mainstay of our business for many years.
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Usability
Cisco
It is very useful tool for companies having hybrid work culture. It will allow their employees to work seamlessly from home, office, other branches. This tool will increase your productivity as it will facilitates your employees to access corporate applications 24x7. Overall it is easy to use, deploy and integrate.
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Citrix
Getting the environment setup took me three months of off and on work, with 3 complete rebuilds of the environment. Utilizing the WebUI to access the environment had presented so many random issues that we had to require end users to use the Citrix Reciever App. As it was the only stable solution. Aside from that, it hasn't required much admin intervention since the stand-up was completed.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
I have been using Cisco AnyConnect for past two years and thus I can say very firmly that I have never seen the outage from the Cisco AnyConnect services either It is VPN, System Scans or the Network Connectivity. Talking about the errors likewise major errors I have faced throughout my period of use.
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Citrix
Xendesktop did a great job with HA of all the components.
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Performance
Cisco
Absolutely no speed issues, and I see no evidence of slowdowns across any of the multiple platforms I use daily. It's operation is completely invisible most of the time, except where there is a loss of connection due to server issues or a loss of power. Everything loads quickly and accurately.
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Citrix
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.
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Support Rating
Cisco
I don't know but nobody provides proper support for us as end user. They should have people to check whether end user is facing issues or not. Cisco AnyConnect having very high charges and still there is no proper support! Many requests and many tickets have opened, but the working speed is very low for the support team! They should have it to optimize.
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Citrix
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.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Citrix
I was self trained
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Online Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Citrix
Easy to understand and learn at my own pace
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
Our Managed Services vendor helped us with the implementation. When we initially setup our AnyConnect using MFA for remote connectivity, the setup was easy and straight forward and worked just fine. After a year, we decided to change to an "always on" feature and use machine and user based security certificates instead of MFA. We had to open a ticket with Cisco support and have their assistance getting this feature to work. Turned out they had a small bug in the code for that version of AnyConnect and it has since been corrected. We have had no issues with the upgrades since that time. The deployment of the software to the user machines was done with SCCM and was straight forward. The user machine upgrades are easy - when the user machine connects and sees a new version available, it upgrades itself! What could be easier?
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Citrix
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
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco is one of our core partners besides Microsoft and SAP. And so yes, we are utilizing very many projects from Cisco. I would mention the whole networking equipment, the routing equipment, the wireless LAN, and also when it comes to infrastructure to compute infrastructure, we are utilizing Cisco servers within our converged infrastructure Flex spot. So we have been running a flex bot from Cisco, NetApp, and VMware for 12 years, and we are still very satisfied with the product. We are looking forward to upgrading to the newest blades and fabric interconnect to continue this journey.
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Citrix
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.
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Scalability
Cisco
Cisco AnyConnect has been a speedy, reliable, and efficient tool for the creation of your own VPN whatever location that you've brought your laptop. Customer support is consistently top-notch, coming up with quick fixes to whatever difficulties are thrown your way. I would not hesitate to reccommend Cisco AnyConnect to any business that needs connected employees throught the world.
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Citrix
Easily scalable
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We are able to seamlessly work on multiple clients daily, and it allows us to quickly handle more projects at the same time.
  • Cisco AnyConnect has allowed our own company's coworkers to remotely connect back to the corporate network, easily assisting work schedules and processes, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being forced to work remotely, meant our processes still happened quickly and efficiently, by being able to leverage and use Cisco AnyConnect VPN.
  • Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I have worked 100% remotely for a few years now. This was always due to the reliable connectivity and ease of use with Cisco AnyConnect VPN. I live 2+ hours from our nearest corporate office, and even further from some of my client locations, and I have always been able to connect to any of my multiple Cisco AnyConnect VPN connections, within seconds.
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Citrix
  • XenApp has allowed us to continue support of legacy applications and all access of those applications to users across the globe with any device.
  • XenApp can also manage software licenses by restricting number of users, number of concurrent sessions, or combination of both to required specification.
  • While initial investment in XenApp can be costly, continuing support and upgrade are very cost effective and product stability is excellent.
  • While there are competing products from Microsoft and VMware, when it comes to remote application access, XenApp is the best of breed.
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