DaaS (Desktop as a Service) comparison & reviews

Summary
Rank
3rd 5th 1st
Score
0%
0%
User Reviews
Question?
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Analysis expand by Ajay Walia by Ajay Walia by Ajay Walia
Select All
General expand
0%
0%
0%
  • Fully Supported
  • Limitation
  • Not Supported
  • Information Only
Pros
  • + End User Computing made Simple
  • + Designed for Multi-Cloud, Multi-tenancy, Simplicity –
  • + Very rich user experience with HTML5/browser access
  • + Strong integration with various public cloud platform, identity providers, native cloud storage integration
  • + 1) Windows 10 Multi session 2) three free years of extended security updates for Windows 7 3) Bundled Licenses, Integration with existing tools like AAD,Office,FSLogix and Azure
  • + Open Architecture
  • + Widely accepted protocol
  • + Flexible Use Cases
  • + Extensive Partner Eco-system
Cons
  • - Limited Unified Communications w/ USB webcam support
  • - No Multi-user / Multi-session capabilities
  • - General/Cons – ADD ‘No Generic USB redirection
  • - 1) 1st iteration of product Yet to prove in Enterprise grade real world implementations 2) Whole management and provisioning interface has basic functionality many tasks are only possible via Powershell 3) License does not include Azure resource consumption cost
  • - Lacks REST API support
  • - Orchestration is comparatively limited
  • - Still catching up on Cloud native features adoption
  Content  
  •  
Content Creator
WhatMatrix - Karan Chawla
WhatMatrix - Ajay Walia
WhatMatrix - Ajay Walia
  Vendor  
  •  
Vendor Overview
Frame was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in Endpoint Computing and it is the only multi-cloud Windows workspace service running at a global scale, with 4380 employees reaching 11.5 K users in over than 200 countries.
  •  
Vendor Overview
Frame was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in Endpoint Computing and it is the only multi-cloud Windows workspace service running at a global scale, 15,880 total customers – NPS score of 90 on 6-year average – 6100 Nutanix employees
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports, and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services
Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) aims to power a world where people, organizations and things are securely connected and accessible to make the extraordinary possible. We help customers reimagine the future of work by providing the most comprehensive secure digital workspace that unifies the apps, data and services people need to be productive, and simplifies IT’s ability to adopt and manage complex cloud environments. With 2017 annual revenue of $2.82 billion, Citrix solutions are in use by more than 400,000 organizations including 99 percent of the Fortune 100 and 98 percent of the Fortune 500.
  Product  
  •  
Product Overview
Manage users, publish and scale applications from a single online dashboard, and distribute tools to everyone, instantly.

Rich features allow even the most sophisticated workflows to move to the cloud: run globally in Azure and AWS locations; connect to your on-prem datacentre using a built-in hardware VPN; schedule backups and much more. Best of all you can set up a full PoC in minutes instead of months.
Windows Virtual Desktop is a desktop and app virtualization service that runs on the cloud.
Citrix Cloud is a platform that hosts and administers Citrix services. It connects to your resources through the Citrix Cloud Connector on any cloud or infrastructure you choose (on-premises, public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud). It allows you to create, manage, and deploy workspaces with apps and data to your end-users from a single console.
  History  
  •  
Cloud Native
Born in Cloud
Born in Cloud
Redesigned for Cloud
  Reach  
  •  
Market Presence
Global across regions
Global across regions
Global across Verticals
NEW
Cloud Architecture expand
0%
0%
0%
  Deployment Options  
  •  
Cloud
Available
WVD Service Hosted on Azure
Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktops Essentials on Azure
  •  
Hybrid
Available
All Cloud no On Prem availibility
Citrix Cloud
  Cloud Worker hosting platforms  
  •  
Azure Government
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
AWS GovCloud
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Azure public IaaS
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
AWS public IaaS
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
GCP public IaaS
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Any other public IaaS
No
No
Oracle cloud, IBM Bluemix(Softlayer)
  On-Premise Worker hosting platforms  
  •  
Integration with Microsoft Hyper-v
No
No
Yes
  •  
Integration with Citrix Hypervisor (formerly Xenserver)
No
No
Yes
  •  
Integration with VMware vSphere
No
No
Yes
  •  
Integration with Nutanix AHV
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Integration with any other HCI/Hypervisor
No
No
Yes
  Geographic Availability  
  •  
Control Plane locations
US
Global across regions
Americas, European Union, Asia Pacific & Japan
Enterprise Integration expand
0%
0%
0%
  Network Integration  
  •  
VPN connection
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Trunked Connection
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Virtual Network Peering
Yes
Yes
Yes
  SaaS application Integration  
  •  
Pre-integrated SaaS catalog
Not available
No
Yes
  Enterprise Services Co-hosting  
  •  
Utility Server hosting
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Enterprise File Services integration  
  •  
Windows File Services integration
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native integration with Cloud Storage - Box
Yes
No
No
  •  
Native integration with Cloud Storage – DropBox
Yes
No
No
  •  
Native integration with Cloud Storage – gDrive
Yes
No
No
  •  
Native integration with Cloud Storage – OneDrive
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
Native integration with Cloud Storage – Citrix Content Collaboration Service
No
No
Yes
  Enterprise File Services  
  •  
Native integration with any other Cloud Storage
Yes
No
None
  Enterprise Policy Management Framework Integration  
  •  
GPO/GPP support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  ITSM Integration  
  •  
Integration with ITSM tool
Yes
No
Yes
Service Features expand
0%
0%
0%
  Capacity Management  
  •  
Auto scaling
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
Auto shutdown
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Auto decommission
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
REST API to setup capacity management
Yes
No
No
  •  
Capacity management setup from GUI
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
GUI to setup instances based on schedule(s)
Yes
No
No
  Business Continuity  
  •  
Upgrades and Updates
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Disaster Recovery
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Data Backup/Restore
Yes
No
Needs configuration
  Bundled Offerings  
  •  
Compute Tiers flexibility
Flexible
Yes
Flexible
  Instance Types  
  •  
Instance type supported in Azure
Any
Yes
Any
  •  
Instance type supported in AWS
Any & default options recommended
No
Any
  •  
Bare metal Instances supported?
No
No
Yes
Guest OS Support expand
0%
0%
0%
  Windows Client OS  
  •  
Microsoft Windows 10
Yes
Yes
1607 and newer
  •  
Microsoft Windows 8 /8.1
No
No
Yes
  •  
Microsoft Windows 7
No
Yes
Yes
  Windows Server OS  
  •  
Microsoft Windows Server 2016
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Microsoft Windows Server 2012/2012R2
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Microsoft Windows 2019
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Linux OS  
  •  
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
No
No
Yes
  •  
Linux Ubuntu
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
SUSE Linux Enterprise
No
No
Yes
  •  
Linux CentOS
Yes
No
Yes
End-point Support expand
0%
0%
0%
  Fat OS platforms  
  •  
Native Client for Windows 7/8/10 (version)
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native Client for Mac OSX (version)
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native Client for Linux (version)
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Mobile OS platforms  
  •  
Native Client for Android (version)
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native Client for iOS (version)
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native Client for ChromeOS (version)
No
Yes
Yes
  Thin OS platforms  
  •  
Zero Client Support (Dell/HP/IGEL)
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Thin Client Support (Dell/HP/IGEL)
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Raspberry Pi Support (version)
No
No
Yes
  Browser platforms  
  •  
Internet Explorer
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Microsoft Edge
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Mozilla Firefox
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Google Chrome
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Safari
Yes
Yes
Yes
Service Protocol expand
0%
0%
0%
  Native Protocol  
  •  
Basic Remoting Protocol name
Frame Remoting Protocol
RDP 8.0
ICA
  •  
HD Protocol name
Frame Remoting Protocol
RemoteFX
HDX
  Browser Protocol  
  •  
Browser Protocol name
Frame Remoting Protocol
HTML5
ICA
  TCP/UDP support  
  •  
TCP support on Native clients
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
TCP support on HTML5 Browser clients
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
UDP support on Native clients
No
No
Yes
  •  
UDP support on HTML5 Browser clients
No
No
No
  Encoding  
  •  
Support H.264
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Support H.265
No
No
Yes
  •  
Use NVENC
Yes
No
Yes
  Advanced features  
  •  
QoS within Protocol
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Build to lossless
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
3D support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Support grayscale only
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Watermarking included into protocol
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Protocol automatically adapts based on network conditions
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Connection Resiliency
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Browser Experience  
  •  
GPU support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Multi-monitor support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Resolution
4K
About 3840 × 2160 px (4K)
Yes
  Multimedia Redirection support  
  •  
HTML5 video support
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Windows Media Redirection
No
With Remote FX
Yes
  Multimedia support  
  •  
Server-side rendering multimedia delivery
No
With Remote FX
Yes
  Bandwidth/resource management  
  •  
Ability to prioritize Printing, client drives, USB, Audio, Video Traffic/ Bandwidth
Yes
With Remote FX
Yes
  •  
Supports multistream UDP/TCP
No
No
Yes
Authentication expand
0%
0%
0%
  3rd Party IDP support  
  •  
Native support for AzureAD
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native support for Ping Identity
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Native support for OKTA
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Native support for Google Auth
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Native support for VMware Identity Manager
No
No
Partially Available
  •  
Support oAuth based Identity Providers
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Support SAML based Identity Providers
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Commercial Identity support  
  •  
Non Commercial Identity support
No
No
No
  Directory Services support  
  •  
Native support for Directory Services
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Cloud Directory  
  •  
Offers Cloud directory services
Yes
Yes
No
  Contextual Access Policies  
  •  
Restrict access/Functionality based on time/location/device
No
Yes
Yes
  Role Based Access  
  •  
Granular control
Yes
Yes
Yes
Image Lifecycle Management expand
0%
0%
0%
  Image Preparation  
  •  
Ability to customize base/golden Image
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Ability to Import Enterprise Image
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Update Management  
  •  
Application/Desktop remoting agent update
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Compliance updates
Customer Managed
Partially Available
Customer Managed
  •  
Shadow pool
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Backup/Restore/Rollback options
Yes
No
Yes
User Interface expand
0%
0%
0%
  Unified Console  
  •  
Unified Workplace for App, Desktops, SaaS, Mobile
No
Yes
Yes
  Categorization  
  •  
Application grouping
Yes
No
Yes
  Alerts & Notifications  
  •  
Maintenance Alerts
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Notifications about upgrades
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Website Experience  
  •  
Survey invitations
Yes
No
No
  •  
Customize web interface
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Custom logout Redirect
Yes
By Script you could send an e-mail
Yes
Service Offerings expand
0%
0%
0%
  Options  
  •  
Stateful
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Stateless
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Use Cases  
  •  
Remote Windows Desktop Experience
Partially Available
Yes
Yes
  •  
Remote Windows Application Experience
Partially Available
Yes
Yes
  •  
Remote Windows Server based VDI Experience
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Remote Linux Desktop Experience
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Secure Browser
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Launch applications via Web interface
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Launch applications as embedded app in Web Interface
Yes
Yes
Partially Available
  •  
Integrate services/webapps in web interface
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Publish Content
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Support Outlook 2016 cached mode
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Support Windows Search
Yes
Yes
Yes
Data & End-user experience expand
0%
0%
0%
  User Profile  
  •  
Built-in User Profile Management
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Selective Profile management
Yes
Yes with FSLogix
Yes
  •  
Ability to clear “user profile data”
Yes
Yes with FSLogix
Yes
  •  
Profile restore options
Yes
Yes with FSLogix
No
  •  
User Profile sync with FAT Client scenario
No
Yes with FSLogix
Yes
  •  
Integration with third-party profile solutions
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
User profile can be containerized
Yes
Yes with FSLogix
Yes
  •  
Option to store Archive of profiles
Yes
Yes
No
  Redirection  
  •  
Open local file-types using Remote apps
No
No
Yes
  •  
Generic USB Redirection
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Supported type of Ports
No
Yes
Yes
  Real-Time Audio-Video (RTAV)  
  •  
Webcam support
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Speaker & Microphone support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Unified Communication Hairpinning effect
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Microsoft SFB & Teams
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Display  
  •  
Multi-monitor support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Dual-monitor support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
4K monitor support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Uncommon Input Devices  
  •  
3D Space mouse
Can utilize Relative mouse feature
Yes
Yes
  •  
Pen/stylus
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Touch Support  
  •  
Touch Screen support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Touch optimization
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Gesture Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Data Access  
  •  
Clipboard Access
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Ability to upload/download files from native client
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Ability to upload/download files from browser
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Miscellaneous  
  •  
Show ‘tips’ at session start
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Client time zone Redirection
No
Yes
Yes
  •  
Native integration into Chromebook system Tray
Yes
No
Yes
  Feedback  
  •  
End user is able to provide feedback
Yes
No
No
  Performance Indicators  
  •  
Connection check page build-in web interface (check supported client, different datacentres, network bandwidth, latency)
No
No
No
  •  
Display network conditions (bandwidth)
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Display network conditions (latency)
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Display network conditions (distance)
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Display session time
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Check system availability
Yes
No
No
  •  
Display advanced session stats
Yes
No
Yes
  Self-Service capabilities  
  •  
Application Provisioning
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Upgrade/Downgrade Compute power
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
Allow users to reboot their Instances
Only Power-off possible
No
Yes
  •  
Users able to reset their desktop
Only Power-off possible
No
Partially Available
  •  
User able to Install Applications
Yes
Yes
Yes
Administration expand
0%
0%
0%
  Ease of Config  
  •  
Deployment Complexity
Fairly easy & Quick
Not Complex
Fairly easy & Quick
  Role Based Access  
  •  
Delegation of control
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Access to multiple tenants via ‘SuperAdmin’
Yes
Yes
No
  Visibility  
  •  
Analytics across multiple tenants
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
Update Management
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Portability  
  •  
Copy master image across multiple tenants
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
Copy tenant policy configuration across multiple tenants
Yes
No
No
  Publishing  
  •  
Automatic detection of new installed applications to easy onboard these apps
Yes
No
Yes
  Auditing  
  •  
Auditing and security logging of admin actions
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Troubleshooting Tools  
  •  
Diagnostic tools
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Remote Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Log Availability  
  •  
Syslog integration
No
Yes via Log Analytics
Yes
  •  
Historical data is available via GUI
Yes
Yes via Log Analytics
Yes
  •  
History of logs
Yes
Yes via Log Analytics
Yes
  Reporting  
  •  
Pre-defined and Customizable Reports
Yes
Custom Only via Log Analytics
Yes
  •  
Real-time Alerting
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Web based Reporting
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Scripting  
  •  
Scripting support and command-line interface
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
SDKs
Yes
No
Yes
  Automation  
  •  
User Provisioning
Yes
Yes
Yes
Security & Compliance expand
0%
0%
0%
  Data Protection  
  •  
Encryption Standards
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Compliance Standard  
  •  
SOC2
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
FEDRAMP / FEDRAMP Ready
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
GDPR
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
PCI
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
HIPAA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Monitoring & Analytics expand
0%
0%
0%
  Application/Desktop Instance Monitoring  
  •  
Availability
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Performance
Yes
Yes
No
  Service  
  •  
Metrices available for QOS
Yes
No
Partially Available
  User Experience Monitoring  
  •  
Session Performance
Custom via Log Analytics
Yes
  •  
Application level monitoring
No
No
Yes
  •  
Productive time
Yes
No
No
  Usage Analytics  
  •  
License Usage (hourly/daily/monthly/yearly)
Yes
Custom via Powershell
Yes
  •  
Sessions (hourly/daily/monthly/yearly)
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Peak usage & Peak time analysis
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Cost Control Recommendations
Partially Available
No
No
  •  
Region based analysis
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Usage analysis
Yes
Yes
Yes
  Risk Analytics  
  •  
Abnormal behaviour detection
Yes
No
Yes
Support expand
0%
0%
0%
  Service Level  
  •  
SLA
0.999
99.5
0.995
  •  
Service credits
Yes
No
Not Applicable to Control Plane but can be done via Cloud provider chargeback mechanism for Workers.
  Support  
  •  
Availability hours & Level
24/7/365
24x7
24/7/365
  •  
Languages supported
English
Multi Lingual
5 Languages. Click for more details
  •  
Support capabilities offered
Premium support
Yes
https://www.citrix.co.in/support/citrix-customer-success-services/
  •  
Migration toolset
No
No
Yes
  Documentation  
  •  
Support forum
support forum = my.nutanix.com
Yes
https://discussions.citrix.com/
  •  
Developer Network
https://developer.fra.me
No
https://developer.cloud.com/
  •  
Knowledge Base
https://docs.frame.nutanix.com
Yes
https://support.citrix.com/
  •  
Reference Architecture, Support documentation, Best Practice Guidance
https://docs.frame.nutanix.com
Yes
https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-cloud/overview/architecture.html
https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops-service/citrix-virtual-apps-and-desktops-service.pdf

https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2018/03/26/citrix-workloads-on-different-clouds-ctp-best-practices-for-a-successful-deployment/
License & Billing expand
0%
0%
0%
  Full Solution Licensing [Control Plane (PaaS) + Workers (VMs)]  
  •  
Concurrent user subscription
Yes
No
SKU for Trade-up customers only
  •  
Named user subscription
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Any minimum commitment
5 users minimum for Enterprise
No minimum needed
Minimum 25 users with minimum 1 year term-based subscription
  Control Plane (PaaS) only  
  •  
Named user subscription
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Any minimum commitment
100 users minimum for Enterprise
No minimum needed
Minimum 25 users with minimum 1 year term-based subscription
  BYOL  
  •  
BYO-Azure subscription
Yes
Yes
Minimum 25 users with minimum 1 year term-based subscription
  •  
BYO-AWS subscription
Yes
No
Yes
  •  
Use vendor – Azure CSP subscription
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Use vendor – AWS CSP subscription
Yes
No
No
  •  
BYO-RDS CAL
Yes
Only for Windows 2008R2/2012R2/2016/2019
Yes
  •  
BYO-EA (for vDesktops)
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Use vendor – RDS SAL CSP
Yes
Only for Windows 2008R2/2012R2/2016/2019
Yes
  Metering models  
  •  
Full Stack Metered usage subscription model
Yes
Yes
No, doesnt meter usage of IaaS components
  •  
Control plane Metered usage subscription model
Yes
Yes
No, doesnt meter usage of IaaS components
  Metering  
  •  
Metering parameter
Per hour
All
Per user/month
  •  
Services measurement
Partially Available
Yes
License usage only
  Miscellaneous  
  •  
Crediting system
Yes
No
No
  Pricing  
  •  
Control plane + Worker Pricing
https://www.nutanix.com/products/frame/pricing
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-au/pricing/calculator/?service=virtual-desktop#virtual-desktop4f3e3aec-e445-40c4-aa0c-9076bffe4742
TCO - https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2017/09/25/xenapp-essentials-delivering-apps-from-the-cloud-whats-the-total-cost-of-ownership/
Subscriptions : https://www.citrix.com/products/citrix-workspace/
Citrix Virtual App and Desktop service - https://www.citrix.co.in/global-partners/microsoft/windows-10-azure.html)

Matrix Score

  •  
  •  
  • Nutanix
  • Microsoft
  • Citrix
  •  
  • 3 rd
  • 5 th
  • 1 st
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