Citrix Virtual Apps (formerly XenApp) vs Parallels RAS

• Excellent for remote satellite users with low bandwidth and high latency connection.
• Keeps data and applications secure in the data center as users are only getting "screenshots" of the application and mouse/keyboard inputs.
• Platform agnostic allowing users to access from Apple OSX, iOS, Android devices, Windows, and Linux.
• Allows increase user density when applications are installed on centralized servers as opposed to on user desktops and laptops.

Read full review

• Parallels Remote Application Server provides access and published applications to specified users or groups via Active Directory user or group privileges
• Parallels Remote Application Server provides on the fly remote access via HTML5-Gateway
• Parallels Remote Application Server provides remote printing service to local printers

Read full review

• Although I recommend Xenapp in all serious VDI/remote application situations, it is expensive and will add a lot of money to any projects budget. Some places will have a hard time justifying using it vs. the built in (free) Microsoft product and this makes the cost an area they could improve on.
• Previous versions of Xenapp were more admin friendly than the current iteration. One example would be the ability to assign values to each server in your farm such that if you had a server that you wanted less users on it was an easy task. Xenapp now divides the users evenly with little way of doing granular load balancing.
• Another crucial missing feature of Xenapp is the ability to move users from one server to another without making them log back in. For example, if you have a server that you know is having an issue it would be helpful if we could move users off onto a healthy server without making them logoff/kicking them off.

Read full review

• Active directory dependent. Would like to have other options for authentication outside of AD. Can use SSO with Google, etc but still needs to verify the user against AD for permissions.
• There are a log of group policy options that can be used, some directly Parallels related, others Windows OS/Terminal Services specific. Would be nice to have a collection or guide of best used GPO options for performance, security, etc.

Read full review

• Adding additional seats to the license usually comes with a lot of up-sell before the sales rep will actually sell you the license you need.
• The requirement of Microsoft RDS to run Citrix XenApp doubles the cost required to run and adds an additional server. RDS could be used alone to do the same thing Citrix does.
• The cost of upgrading (and dependencyon on) RDS licenses prevents us from upgrading the citrix environment.
• Once setup, it is fairly stable and requires very little admin intervention.
• Our External Auditors quickly approved Citrix as a security tool.

Read full review

• As a replacement for Citrix, the ROI is massive as its simpler but just as good at 90% of things
• Time saved on the RDP management compared to the standard windows options is great
• Does require a couple of servers to run and can be done on a DC which is a shame

Read full review