Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) Reviews

Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Formerly XenDesktop) does have a bit of a learning curve and can get complex at times.

Pricing on the system can be a little steep for large deployments considering it is an add on to MS Terminal Services/RDS.

An issue that is probably not Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) specific, but since these are virtual apps if used on a connection that has high latency or frequent internet drops users can become frustrated. Unlike true web services, users do require a solid internet connection. Slow is ok; latency is not.

Optimization for audio and video is not the best.

Logging is very weak and makes it hard to troubleshoot issues.

Can run a little slow depending on the applications

Overall desktop lag is present

Works with Mac but not without issue occasionally.

It's not cheap to operate.

Complex, there are a lot of moving parts, so it takes some dedication to set up and manage.

The constant changing of names is annoying (i.e., Virtual Apps and Desktops—formerly XenDesktop).

Product documentation is bloated with information and lacks documentation on assisting with first time setup.

Customer service offers very little assistance when it comes to using your support contract.

Default Policy, out of the box, allows Clipboard, File Share, Printer Sharing, Drive redirection, and others security risks that should be disabled by default.

Screenshots are not prevented, other products blank a screenshot or sniping tool image. Watermarks are the only security citrix offers and are disabled by default.

Renewal cost of support contract is 80% of initial purchase price. Other companies renewal cost is significantly less.

End users who do not properly log off can leave a hung connection, and requires manual deletion of the connection for users to re-connect.

Deploying the client and updating it are a challenge at times.

Connection can sometimes "stutter" when moving between screen setups (example: docked laptop, multiple monitors, etc.)

XenDesktop is not good for running Adobe Creative Suite.

XenDesktop is not good for color accuracy when compared to print output.

XenDesktop is not good for fast response when accessing large image files.

Sometimes the system freezes

I've run into issues where it tells me I have multiple instances of a program running even if I don't

I wish the mobile versions worked better

Speed could be improved. But this will always be an issue for connecting to servers.

Direct mirroring of desktop would be better than a similar desktop setup for all employees.

Technical support is lacking.

Flash or HTML Videos lag with Zero clients.

Support cost is expensive when their support is really poor.

Sometimes the VDI system can be in maintenance mode which keeps users from being able to connect to them.

No other issues reported.

Monitoring and troubleshooting tools are lacking. Unless you can afford the costly step up to Platinum licensing, there is little native visibility into the Inner workings of the system, or into the ICA tunnel protocols. there are third party tools available, but because ICA is licensed by Citrix, there are only a few vendors who have the ability to really see what is occurring under the covers.

Profile management is very sloppy. Once again, a third party tool is required to effectively manage roaming profiles and keep login times down to a manageable level. UPM allows profiles to grow dramatically and requires careful monitoring and frequent intervention.

The Citrix Receiver client (Windows) is quirky and often causes end user performance and UX issues. Installing and upgrading the client is not straightforward or easy, although Citrix has been improving this weakness in recent releases.

Integration with third party server and storage vendors

XenDesktop can benefit from application virtualization suites like Microsoft App-V, however this functionality isn't built into XenDesktop. Some products are close like personal vDIsk, but the ability to manage a single image and stream users' application to that image would lessen maintenance.

XenDesktop used to offer a free 10 user version (Express) in XenDesktop 5.X however this is no longer available in 7.6 and is sorely missed to help ease customers into XenDesktop. Most all of the Express installs that I performed in 5.X became licensed and paying customers after 10 seats.

Remote access requires Netscaler which can be tricky to setup. This would mostly be a request to make NetScaler setup more seamless, intuitive, and wizard driven.

While you can present multiple global sites in one pane of glass to users, from an administrative standpoint they must be managed separately.

XenDesktop is more complex than previous Citrix products (XenApp).

None that I can point out at this time.

For 2008 R2 Hyper-V environments, if VMM goes offline no new connections to desktops can be made. VMM cannot be clustered making it a single point of failure.

Desktop Director could be more robust.

Support for webcam & softphone.

Definitely want to see improvement & bug fixes in RemotePC access.

Offline VDI & application access to offset threat from Microsoft's Direct Access technology.

Some legacy features have not yet made it to newer versions of XenDesktop architecture, specifically around troubleshooting information from EdgeSight.

Citrix level 1 support can be painful at times.

While nothing else compares to XenDesktop in terms of features and functionality, the lesser-featured rivals can be less expensive, so it can be a battle to demonstrate the total cost of ownership (TCO) against alternative solutions that have hidden costs.

File accessibility: Currently, Citrix offers the ability to transfer files to and from their virtual desktop via client mapped drives. This works ok, but can be clunky and a little slow at times. ShareFile is a good segueway, but can be a little cumbersome to set up in a Hosted-Shared environment.

Offline access: With XenClient, users can run offline instances of virtual machines and still get the benefit of the virtual machine managed from the datacenter. The process isn't very seamless and could be more integrated into XenDesktop. If a XenDesktop virtual desktop could be delivered to a users local machine and then cached, that would be a great solution.

Name changes

Vaporware

Platinum tax

Better user control

Better reporting

More open API

The Director leaves a lot to be desired. I have had to resort to scripts and a custom page to get the information I need to properly manage our environment. The previous EdgeSight had detailed information that this just seems to leave out. There is no way to customize views, add or remove content, or otherwise customize for our brand.

One thing left out from this version that was in previous versions, was the ability deploy applications from all servers, not just those in a delivery group. As it is set up now, you can only deploy an app to a specific set of servers in a delivery group. If I have Group A running SAP and Group B running Office, only Group B can host Office for the users, even if Group A has Office installed. It would make better use of my servers if I could have on application run from both groups and still load balance properly. It is possible to have it run from both delivery groups, but the load balancing functionality appears to not work correctly.

A new functionality in the Feature Packs (1 and 2) was session recording. The functionality is useful, but is still clunky and uses a large amount of storage space. I have yet to see a way to auto purge old recordings without manually deleting them. Storage may be cheap now, but it still needs to be managed and used wisely. Being able to purge old recordings would go a long way.

Using XenDesktop on a non computer device is a bit cumbersome.

Not ideal for traveling users, who would need to work offline and carry a laptop with them to be able to use the XenDesktop.