Hey everyone! I'm on the hunt for insights about remote access and app publishing solutions because we're gearing up to set up a system for around 250 concurrent users. I'm particularly looking at Citrix (Virtual Apps or DaaS), Thinfinity Remote Desktop/App Server from Cybele, Parallels RAS, and GO-Global by GraphOn. Here are my main goals: I'd love to have solid HTML5 access to keep things lightweight, a good mix of app publishing and full desktop access, and support for multi-factor authentication (MFA) plus printer redirection. Keeping the management easy is also key – while I know Citrix offers a lot of features, it can be quite complex. I'd really appreciate any feedback on user experience over WAN (especially with HTML5), the admin overhead, tips on licensing, and how well these solutions handle VPN-less publishing. Also, any input on stability and vendor support would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for your help!
5 Answers
We're running Citrix for about 300 users. It does the job but we are only publishing a few apps. We had a tough time during our license renewal—Citrix wouldn't let us reduce our number of licenses despite our lower usage, which feels really limiting. We're looking to pivot away from Citrix soon.
After battling with Citrix for two years, we finally reverted to Microsoft RDS with published apps. The performance is noticeably better, and we no longer experience bugs like failed drag-and-drop or copy-paste. Overall, the speed and functionality vastly improved, especially with around 800 users accessing it.
We're using Citrix Workspace for a medical application setup across roughly 3-4k computers. While we had some issues before, our current setup is much more stable, even during peak hours. It integrates well with MFA and allows for remote access, which has been crucial for us. Just a heads up though: I only have secondhand knowledge about how well the app publishing is handling.
We’ve transitioned to using plain Microsoft RDS through Azure App Proxy. It supports MFA and conditional access directly in the browser using HTML5. The best part? We don’t have to worry about additional licensing besides RDS CALs and Windows Server, which we already need.
Definitely worth looking into! Thanks for the heads up.
We switched from Citrix to Parallels, and honestly, it's been a huge upgrade. The licensing model is super straightforward—you need RDS CALs like with any solution, but that's about it. The support is top-notch, and updates are a breeze; they mostly happen automatically. The HTML5 client works great, and printing redirection does its job well too. Just be aware, though, that webcam support isn't fantastic, so we handle our video calls locally. We had our fill of Citrix issues like slow connections with Workspace, so this has been a game-changer for us.
Have you considered AVD? It might be a good fit since Windows 11 session hosts in Azure don't require CALs.