We performed a comparison between Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) and Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Application Virtualization solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"The App is the most valuable feature."
"The ROI for us has been that when we had Hurricane Harvey last year, Xendesktop came in very handy for us. Even though people had electricity in Texas, many networks were down. Our offices could still get into our network and do work that was needed. It is an excellent virtual office that works anywhere, anytime and anyplace. It is worth our investment."
"Citrix offers a range of products that can be used straight out of the box."
"The most valuable feature is the desktop experience so that users don't see much difference between the remote desktop and the local desktop... It also provides virtualization for high-end graphics so that they can be displayed. AutoCAD can be done on Citrix. The graphics are very good."
"I found the ease of deployment, scalability, and security to be to our benefit when supplying virtual applications to our clients."
"The most valuable feature is the gateway to a remote connection, to a physical or a virtual PC. Compared to a normal VPN client and connection, the connection via Citrix is more stable and does not consume as much network bandwidth."
"Security is a shining point of the Citrix Workspace. Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops is a very robust solution when security is a concern. Furthermore, the content collaboration data-hosting that Citrix integrates with Virtual Apps and Desktops is among the best there is."
"The only thing that is really important for me is being able to connect from wherever I am. It is important for me because sometimes I am in places where there are not enough safe conditions to be able to work safely, in terms of security and confidentiality of my data. Being able to access internal resources from a secure platform allows me to work without fearing that my data has been stolen."
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"You have the opportunity to virtualize applications in different locations. Everything is in one pane or one window, which is quite good."
"We can provision the servers without the need for another third-party solution."
"We use RAS to publish cloud desktops to our clients. The ability to easily publish resources to a subset of users is what we find most valuable."
"Ease of use in publishing apps and installing the agent. The Interface is fairly intuitive after some tinkering. Although I inherited the app only two-thirds deployed, I was able to complete the deployment and service it over the last year without referring to any documentation."
"The stability is ok - once I finished the setup, the system was quite stable."
"Valuable features include the ability to set up security groups for accessing certain apps, and the ability to add apps easily and centrally without touching the servers they’re hosted on."
"Its price and ease of use are the most valuable. It is simple and has good performance."
"Setup was straightforward. Our particular use case involved an Active Directory forest involving two data centers and three domains. User authentication against Active Directory was the easiest to set up and validate of any application installed in the last three years."
"The Endpoint Management solution needs improvement when it comes to mobile device management. For example, they are still not supporting Windows 10 and this feature is required by many customers."
"There is room for improvement because it has a lot of dependency on Active Directory and other things. If they could come up with something similar and native, a complete solution portfolio would help."
"Dependency on server virtualization after v7.x is an issue which I encountered in small environments."
"Compared with the Outlook mobile app, the Citrix mobile app shows some lag in authentication."
"Using the app layering feature can be quite difficult and cumbersome."
"I would like to see simplification in the management of the on-prem infrastructure component of Citrix DaaS, particularly in the studio tool used to manage the DaaS infrastructure."
"Citrix should consolidate the multiple tools currently required into a single platform."
"We would like to be able to provide VDI, a full desktop, to each of our users."
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"Improvement is needed in performance monitoring of the client's endpoint, and automatic re-connection of the client in the event of circuit disruptions (this works well generally but can present challenges)."
"It would be great if there were more sophisticated GPO templates/options."
"HALB is not stable in our environment. When running two HALBs we have stability problems, so we use an active one and a passive for backup. Also, it would be nice to implement an upgrade of the environment without having to stop the servers. As it is, this must be done during off-hours."
"It needs Windows scaling on Android/iOS devices. At present, the concept of delivering apps to Android and iOS devices is appealing, but the reality is the screen size on these devices is so small that, unless there is some scaling option, it is not really usable."
"We use several gateways because access to our secret zone requires two-factor user authentication. It is a lot of hassle differentiating among users with or without two-factor. Of course, we could use two farms, but that would mean more management too."
"The customization of the web interface could possibly use some improvement. Little things, like being able to place a background image instead of just choosing from a palette of colors, would be nice."
"Sometimes you need to understand how to use load balancing and the gateway in order to scale, which means the team may need some additional technical knowledge."
"We have had significant, ongoing issues with printing. It would be great to have a best practice for dealing with printing that we can offer to our customers."
More Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) Pricing and Cost Advice →
More Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) Pricing and Cost Advice →
Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is ranked 1st in Application Virtualization with 92 reviews while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is ranked 5th in Application Virtualization with 24 reviews. Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is rated 8.4, while Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) writes "Flexible Deployment, reliable performance, and fast transmission speeds". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) writes "Provides good scalability and a secure environment". Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) is most compared with Amazon Appstream, VMware Horizon View, Amazon WorkSpaces, Citrix Workspace and Microsoft App-V, whereas Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) is most compared with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, Citrix Workspace, Parallels Desktop, VMware Workstation and NVIDIA GRID. See our Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service) vs. Parallels Remote Application Server (RAS) report.
See our list of best Application Virtualization vendors and best Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors.
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