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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Citrix DaaS

    Score8.7 out of 10
    N/ACitrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, or XenDesktop) is a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and application virtualization solution from Citrix.

    $375

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Pricing
    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
    Editions & Modules
    Virtual Apps
    $375
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—The free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
    Considered Both Products
    Cloud Software Group
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    100%
    Would buy again
    22 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    21 Answers
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    94%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    16 Answers
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    Features
    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Citrix DaaS and Microsoft Azure
    Feature
    Citrix DaaS
    -
    Ratings
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime00 Ratings8.126 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling00 Ratings8.725 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing00 Ratings8.624 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates00 Ratings8.225 Ratings
    Monitoring tools00 Ratings8.326 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images00 Ratings8.424 Ratings
    Operating system support00 Ratings8.926 Ratings
    Security controls00 Ratings8.626 Ratings
    Automation00 Ratings8.224 Ratings
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    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
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    VMware Fusion
    Score7.4 out of 10
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    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware Fusion
    Score7.4 out of 10
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    VMware Workstation Player
    Score9.9 out of 10
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (55 ratings)
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.2
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    Availability
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    7.4
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.9
    (8 ratings)
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.3
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    2.4
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    5.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Citrix DaaSMicrosoft Azure
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cloud Software Group
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cloud Software Group
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cloud Software Group
    • 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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cloud Software Group
    Because it has been a mainstay of our business for many years.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cloud Software Group
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Cloud Software Group
    Xendesktop did a great job with HA of all the components.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Cloud Software Group
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cloud Software Group
    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
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    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Cloud Software Group
    I was self trained
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Online Training
    Cloud Software Group
    Easy to understand and learn at my own pace
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    Cloud Software Group
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cloud Software Group
    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
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cloud Software Group
    Easily scalable
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Cloud Software Group
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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