ISL Light vs. Remote Desktop Services

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
ISL Light
Score 8.7 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
ISL Light is remote support and remote access software that enables SMBs and large enterprises to offer fast and efficient support and maintenance for Windows, Mac and Linux computers as well as mobile device support for Android and iOS.
$418
per year (1 concurrent user)
Remote Desktop Services
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Remote Desktop Services from Microsoft is virtual desktop and remote user session technology.N/A
Pricing
ISL LightRemote Desktop Services
Editions & Modules
Standard
$34.90
per month (billed annually) per concurrent user
Self-Hosted
$44.90
per month (billed annually) per concurrent user
Premium
$54.90
per month (billed annually) per concurrent user
Enterprise (Managed Private Cloud)
$23,976
per year 20 concurrent users
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ISL LightRemote Desktop Services
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsISL Online's pricing model considers the number of licenses purchased, which determines the maximum number of concurrent users within the organization. A concurrent user is defined as anyone running one or more sessions simultaneously from any device. There are no restrictions on the number of ISL Light users within a company or the remote devices managed. For example, with three licenses, an unlimited number of people in a company can use ISL Light and can access an unlimited number of remote devices, but only three users can use it concurrently. When one of these three users ends their session, a fourth user can begin their session, and so on.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
ISL LightRemote Desktop Services
Considered Both Products
ISL Light
Chose ISL Light
While these are all good products and provide a solution in other use cases, at the time we were searching, ISL Light fit our use case best. It is a completely self-contained and privately hosted solution with a tool for each step, user contact, information gathering, remote …
Chose ISL Light
Overall functionality, ease of use and stability for unattended remote management
Chose ISL Light
it is reliable, easy to install, easy to use, cost-effective

Remote Desktop Services

No answer on this topic

Features
ISL LightRemote Desktop Services
Remote Administration
Comparison of Remote Administration features of Product A and Product B
ISL Light
8.1
90 Ratings
2% above category average
Remote Desktop Services
4.4
4 Ratings
57% below category average
Screen sharing8.684 Ratings6.54 Ratings
File transfer9.384 Ratings4.64 Ratings
Instant message7.467 Ratings1.01 Ratings
Secure remote access with Smart Card authentication7.916 Ratings6.32 Ratings
Access to sleeping/powered-off computers6.262 Ratings2.02 Ratings
Over-the-Internet remote session8.681 Ratings3.74 Ratings
Initiate remote control from mobile7.752 Ratings3.43 Ratings
Remote management of servers & workstations8.570 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Remote Active Directory® management8.523 Ratings6.83 Ratings
Centralized management dashboard8.151 Ratings3.83 Ratings
Session record8.258 Ratings4.03 Ratings
Annotations8.443 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring and Alerts7.835 Ratings4.33 Ratings
Multi-platform remote control7.864 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
ISL LightRemote Desktop Services
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(90 ratings)
7.9
(19 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(3 ratings)
6.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(53 ratings)
7.0
(4 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(1 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(3 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
ISL LightRemote Desktop Services
Likelihood to Recommend
ISL Online
ISL light is suitable for anyone who plans to provide remote assistance services on a medium to large scale. Due to the high entry price, it is less suitable for consultants with a smaller number of clients or remote stations that need management. Their smallest package in which minutes are rented does not seem suitable for most cases.
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Microsoft
Remote Desktop Services provides access to work environments from any device. This allows us to ensure business continuity in case of disaster. It provides admins more control over access and security. Remote Desktop Services simplifies software updates and compliance management by reducing the need to act on end users devices.
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Pros
ISL Online
  • Prikaz strani na kateri se nahaja uporabnik
  • Prikaz kontaktov uporabnikov
  • Zgodovina pogovorov s strankami
  • Možnost spreminjanja statusa dosegljivosti
  • Nalaganje datotek, zajemov slik,..
  • Klepetalnik, ki je enostaven za uporabo
  • Nas obvesti, da smo dobili sporočilo, tudi če smo izven klepetalnika
  • Display the page the user is on
  • Displaying user contacts
  • Customer conversation history
  • Ability to change availability status
  • Uploading files, capturing images, etc.
  • An easy-to-use chatbot
  • Notifies us that we have received a message, even if we are outside the chat room
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Microsoft
  • When you connect with RDS, everything looks and feels (and is) exactly like you're sitting at that desktop. This is great for us and for users.
  • You can sign in with RDS and the desktop will be the same as when you left it (if you choose to set it up that way).
  • Although they take some setup, RemoteApps are a very handy way to let users access a program without requiring them to actually connect to a remote desktop on the server.
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Cons
ISL Online
  • Need a control toggle at least on AlwaysOn. User moves the mouse and you lose all control instantly.
  • Clipboard features are a bit wonky still, and your clipboard seems to get emptied a lot. So if you're trying to copy and paste you might lose something
  • Passwords for the systems are saved per machine, so if you work from multiple devices it can be tricky if you have complex passwords
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Microsoft
  • Remote Desktop Services currently does not support multiple monitors on the terminal server. Unlike other applications such as Teamviewer, there's no feature to toggle between multiple screens even if they were connected to the terminal server.
  • Remote Desktop Services should provide an option to scale up or down the screen size after a connection is established. Currently you can only adjust the screen size prior to a connection is established. So you'll have to take a best guess at what display screen resolution will fit best on your screen.
  • Remote Desktop Services should offer some kind of menu to send special key strokes like Ctrl+Alt+Del to the terminal server. Currently the substitute for that particular combination is Ctrl+Alt+End. But I have yet to discover a replacement for other combination keystrokes such as Alt+PrintScrn.
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Likelihood to Renew
ISL Online
We are renew the license for 10 years now and we do not see why would change that. It just gets better with every new version.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Usability
ISL Online
Everything works well and quickly, and that's all we need. ISL Light always works, and we've never had a situation where the server was inaccessible or the website was down. It simply gives us a 100% guarantee that we can always log in to our customers' systems. We can install the ISL Light client at our customers' sites without any problems, even though security is high.
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Microsoft
The initial setup for Remote Desktop Services is complex, and licensing is costly. Each user connects to their virtual desktop hosted by a single server or group of servers, so a change or issue with servers quickly impacts every single user at the same time. Aside from that, users appreciate seeing their same personal desktop from any device or geographical location.
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Reliability and Availability
ISL Online
During the entere time of use, I have never come across any availability issues.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
ISL Online
High performance!
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Microsoft
There are some third party tools available that allow you to manage multiple connections.
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Support Rating
ISL Online
We had issues with mouse skipping on mobile devices. Support is immediatly availabe, they examined our case and in one of the new versions of the app this problem was gone.
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Microsoft
As with any Microsoft Server product, support for Remote Desktop Services requires a paid support package. These are license-based and very costly, on top of the already costly product licensing. Microsoft's licensing is complicated to begin with, so setting up licensing alone essentially requires a licensing expert's counsel. There is community documentation and support available on Microsoft websites, as well as community websites.
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Implementation Rating
ISL Online
It was so easy!
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
ISL Online
Multi-monitor handling is super easy with ISL Light. The licensing model of ISL Light's self-hosted version is unbeatable. Great technical support, which often used before I purchased. The unbelievable price increase during and after the covid time of remote tools, has ended, when I found ISL Light. ISL Light is really a underdog in the remote utility market. I'm glad that I found it.
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Microsoft
We selected Remote Desktop Services based upon price alone. Other solutions on the market are significantly more expensive, but if your company can foot the bill you should seriously consider products that have been on the market for longer. The lack of an ability to easily upgrade farm servers has been a challenge for us - although it is still faster than updating an application on 2000+ machines. The lack of a centralized management console in 2008 R2 is also challenging, but you get by with the tools available to you. If you don't have the money to spend on Citrix or VMWare Horizon, Remote Desktop Services is a decent replacement.
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Scalability
ISL Online
Easy to deploy onto new devices. Ability to group devices so they can managed remotely efficiently.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
ISL Online
No professional services used
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
ISL Online
  • Saves time: able to help our customers right-away. No need to visit them physically
  • Fastest aid in problem-solving: customer happy and more likely to return
  • Negative: not much negativity about ISL Light, although I get even less in-person contact with clients :-)
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Microsoft
  • Allowed remote users access from home
  • Shared file access for multipolar users from a centralized location
  • Cost to add additional users when maxed out
  • Purchase multiple licenses for programs to run in virtual machines. Or unable to run on a virtual machine
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ScreenShots

ISL Light Screenshots

Screenshot of remote access control in ISL Light.Screenshot of unattended access setup. Access can be allowed to as many computers as desired.Screenshot of a connection with a remote client, which can be set up by sending an email or sharing a link.Screenshot of interactions with the Windows UAC on a remote device.Screenshot of the dual panel File Manager, used to transfer files.Screenshot of the web console where remote desktop sessions can be managed from a web browser.