Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Reviews & Product Details

I use Citrix on my work desktop with two screens all day and disconnect at the end of the day. I log into my laptop (2 year old Chromebook) and then launch Citrix where it picks up exactly where I left off. I get a call when I’m not near my laptop so I log into Citrix from my cell phone (iOS) and access a an Excel form to provide someone data. I travel and work at a workstation at a different office and simply log into Citrix to access my files, saved passwords in my browser, Outlook, Skype for Business, etc.

Nothing. This is a great product and would not know what to do without it.

Ease of access, cabaility to work on any platform very effectively.

Citrix has become a vital portion of our research team's work. For a user with an encrypted computer and secure internet connection, Citrix allows our team to access applications and desktops for research containing protected information. What would normally require a specific, onsite authorized computer in a specific location due to desktop application availability and security can be accessed from a personal encrypted computer with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

Citrix might run slightly slower depending on the size of the application accessed.

Ensure that each user's computer is encrypted and has access to secure connection before accessing a virtual app or desktop.

Solving time-sensitive problems would normally require physical travel to a site with an authorized computer containing the desktop/application. These problems can now be solved from a personal computer with Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

it works perfectly. It allow us to virtualize operating systems (windows, linux) and also apps. They run very smoothly. It is very difficult to identify when an app is running locally or remotely with citrix. Operating system performance is much better on citrix. People have access to their "computers" anytime, anywhere, anydevice. It has been a hit in our university. We have around 1400 VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure)

Mac is not allowed because Apple restrictions, not because citrix technology

when evaluating to PCs vs VDI, I suggest to include all costs as maintenance, support, and particularly productive improvement.

I stop buying computers since 4 years ago. Instead I replaced them with Light Clients which has no mobil parts so never get hardware problems. My professors can ask for more memory, more cpu, more gpu o more space easely and we can serve them very fast. Before, when we used PCs, if a professors ask us for more memory we took 3 months looking for it, backing up the pc, installing the memory, etc. Now, it just take us a couple of minutes. It is much more cheaper to have VDi than PCs... (around 20% less per year).

I love that citrix creates its own window, so that if somebody that doesn't work for the company come in and tries to use it, they have a difficult time.

Citrix can lag at certain times, it takes a while to load up as well.

Definitely try it, it can help your company out a lot. I do believe that it's nice because your employees have an easier time having access to all work applications in one place.

Keeping all of the work applications in one place.

I like that using Citrix allows me to connect to my company's server so that I can perform all of my work tasks from the comfort of my home office. It is easy to install and easier to use.

Citrix times out and logs you off after about 15 minutes. This might be set by our IT folks (not sure). However, any apps you have already opened are not affected by this. You will only notice you were logged off when you attempt to open something new.

Easy installation for the users, easy process to login, great way to allow remote users to connect. As a user, it is a great!

I am able to work much more effectively and efficiently from my home office. I do not have the distractions of being at company headquarters. By eliminating the need to dress for the office and commute to work each day, I am able to use that time more productively for my company and get things done.

I can be anywhere and access all the key applications right from Citrix as well as do a Remote Desktop through the Citrix interface. We had a disaster occur a couple of years ago and I had to work remotely through Citrix for 9 weeks. Our clients said had we not told them about our situation they would not have known. Citrix enabled us to access resources and applications on our network with such ease. I truly do appreciate the product!

If I'm having to borrow someone else's computer to get in Citrix, then I need to install the Receiver and the triCerat ScrewDrivers. This takes such a long time to get set up. Often the audio and video quality in training through Citrix displays with a lower quality than when I'm outside of Citrix.

It's hard to say since I truly just get to use the product and don't have to consider implementation and troubleshooting when there are upgrades.

Citrix allows me to remotely access files and desktop applications that operate in my work's secure network environment. I can securely and safely use Remote Desktop through the Citrix environment as well.

its a simple system that allows users with IT experience to get started. We moved from Microsoft DOS to this and it is much better, however there are better options on the market.

I wish this was a bit smoother, for example when we change something we have to manually make that change on each physical device. This creates a lot of extra work for the IT department. I wish would just send an update request and do them at the end of the business day.

Really look at all of the needs you think you'll have and then ask questions based off of real needs vs. wants.

This is a great minimum ability software that will get the job done but it has no bells and whistles.

it has definitely increased productivity on the desktop and mobile side. However we came from such an old system that anything would be night and day.

Astheicly pleasing and simple layout. Easy access to help functions and tutorials. Easy to change password. SBMS and VIEW layouts easy to find and customize. Easy to log in and off. Easy to group accordingly. Easy to refresh if needed. Resources are readily available and listed in clear and simple manner so they are easy to find. Also enjoy the 'hint' feature that shares tips and help on a daily or frequent basis.

Theres not too much to dislike since we are only talking about the citrix homepage and not the functionality of te apps themselves. It serves its purpose and does so in a way that is not confusing or conveluded. If i was to pick something that I dislike, it would be the conent portion of the options is lacking. It lists 5 options for me that link to web resources. If those resources were available offline or if they had additional resources available based on what i most frequently use. That could be helpful.

I am using primarily to schedule and buy media and client reporting. Makes the buying process a lot faster and cleaner since insertion orders can be easily entered and adjusted, and makes reporting very simple.

I like that this software allows me to work from home and access the same desktop that I would get at work. I can connect securely and relatively simply. It is a reliable product and works as expected.

This software requires an internet connection and provides a virtual desktop. We have a Fiber connection at my home and reliable and fast internet, even so, I find that there is a significant lag when using the Citrix desktop. It is difficult to switch between applications. Even the most simple tasks such as creating a document are hindered by the lag. There is a distinct lag in even getting your cursor at a specific place in the document. Tasks that are usually simple, such as resizing a screen in Windows are slow and bulky.

Patience is key.

I need a secure connection to my desktop when I work from home. This software does solve this problem. We have upgraded to this from a previous solution. It is better and allows me to see my desktop exactly as I would at work, rather than a suite of applications I can use, but offers me a slow and frustrating experience.

I can have access to the main servers in our company without having to be on a Windows computer (due to our security policy).

I find it to be slow, the graphic quality is not good. Using a mac I have had issues over the years with the client not meshing well with the browser I am using and multiple issues of an .ica file downloading instead of loading in the client.

If you need to manage virtual desktops in multiple locations this software is good on an enterprise level.

We are a large company over a large geographic area that needs to share information. Using the XenDesktop is good for our IT to be able to manage multiple users and their software without having thousands of different workstations.

Allows access to my work materials and software from the comfort and reliability of my personal system. I am able to transition from desktop to laptop without issue, and have also had reasonable experiences on a thin client.

The lag is unbearable at times. I've seen the gamut of issues including frequent hung sessions, random performance issues, and crashing. I'm not sure if that's our iteration of it, or perhaps our internal network, but it can be very agrivating at times.

Make sure you have a reliable internet and network connections. Any disruptions can lead to some major productivity issues.

I am a remote employee and it enables me to do my work in a remote setting. Our local office recently ceased operations, and I would be without a job currently without having access to it

That I can get to my VDI from anywhere at anytime.

When you have dual monitors, and you open multiple windows, and have to switch back and forth between machines, whenever you go back to your VDI via Citrix, the windows are re-arranged and over lay each other on only one monitor. It does not hold your window positions from how you left them if you switch mahcines. Also, when switching it take several seconds for the screen to refresh.

Make it so your arrangement of windows stays the same with Dual Monitors when switching between machines.

Deploying VDIs to users across the Enterprise.

Supports multiple end point devices, with smooth transitioning when switching which endpoint device you are using.

Supports 3 different types of hypervisors, XenServer, Hyper-V and vmware ESXi.

Ease of setup and configuration. Many components that need to be installed and performance issues occur when you multi purpose the components.

Non-Persistent desktops are very difficult to setup when using PVS (Provisioning Services).

Product keeps getting easier and easier to install. If you had issues before in versions 5 and 6, 7 makes it that much easier.

PVS, although difficult to get going, works beautifully when implemented properly as deploying to endpoints on-premise is as simple as setting up PXE.

Also, with the support of multiple hypervisiors, it can be implemented without having to change your existing infrastructure.

Desktop mobility for users on the go that do not want to carry a full size laptop.

XenDesktop allows powerful desktops that will not drain a users battery when mobile computing.

Citrix XenDesktop allows you to leverage pre-existent infrastructure to get VDI up and going in your business. Now that being said - SMB's will still eventually past very small deployments go to separated infrastructure to house your VDI environments as larger loads will put more obvious stress on your components such as the hypervisor.

Of note - the ability to spin up images from a golden image quickly, cleanly and easily makes maintenance and monitoring a snap.

Something this complex has moving parts. In this case - many MANY moving parts. Something of note - if you do not have a desktop engineer, a virtual engineer and Citrix engineer this will prove to be a daunting task - as the parts are numerous and many.

Look into it - it certainly is a market leader for now - but make sure you test and roll out in a small batch - you will find this will stress your environment in ways you may have not thought nor considered.

Being able to be nimble in desktop deployment, having the ability to separate and control desktop environments and the biggest one - having the ability to have redundant available desktops anywhere in the world for your task force are awesome things that Xendesktop gives you.

My Citrix Experience has been overall pretty good. It is nice being able to work from home with it.

Sometimes it does freeze up and also shows a ghost screen when you are trying to go somewhere else.

Being able to work from home. Also having multiple people be able to use the same files through the shared drive.

One thing worth mentioning about Zen is that it supports all the hypervisors which you usually don't see in other virtualization software. Zen is also very easy to use and does not require much time and energy to implement in your business.

HDX is one of the features that you hear a lot when you want to buy this product but I personally couldn't see much of difference using zen. Also portable device experience is not as smooth as your desktop (however already expected).

If you are after a standardized work environment for your workers this product will work fine for you.

Most of our researchers do not really require a personalized virtual environment and a standard framework works the best for them as they deal with data and analysis most of the time not heavy processes. This also helps tremendously when it comes to troubleshooting.

Protocol performance, PVS as a delivery mechanism, simple client distribution, overall Citrix product suite support and integration with things like Branch Repeater and NetScaler is pretty nice.. Merging XenApp application delivery is a step in the right direction. The concept of groups and catalogs is quite nice and offers more flexibility than the competition. Support for 3D use cases has come a long way with Nvidia GRID support for vSphere.

Managing the implementation is significantly more cumbersome than Horizon View. The new GUI overlays are like pig with lipstick. Things need to be redeveloped.

There is usually a big gap when deploying XenDesktop on vSphere. Most implementations are in fact on vSphere, but Citrix likes to pretend that VMware doesn't exist and thus has very limited support for this combination.

There is some confusion over what version of Receiver we are to use to support all aspects of XenDesktop.

Plan your implementation. Use Citrix' planning guides and documentation first. Have a vision AND a strategy for your deployment. Prepare for the cost and if you need to justify its expense which is higher than VMware View, be prepared.

A wide swath from containing data to providing a flexible work space to long-term cost avoidance. Most recent implementation that I was involved with was at a major hospital system. Clinical care stations running XenDesktop are well-received by the nurses.

Possibility to securely connect from any devise to remote desktop/application. Citrix support with additional package helps to keep the XD infra functional in good shape.

Complexity and troubleshooting sometime is real challenge. Some weird errors appear from nothing and google mostly helps but not with new product.

Make sure experienced specialists are hired and environment and management are ready for.

Provide possibility to utilize servers vs laptops/PCs and centrally manage and update. different application versions can be provided for the same user which isn't not possible to implement on laptop/workstation. Let users perform teleworking, reduces electric bills for the company, reduce HW costs for user's platform. Ultimately will substitute laptops/PCs

I'm not a huge fan of Citrix. But we are a small branch, and it works well enough for our small team.

It's clunky. Once you have a certain number of Apps open it will say you can't open any more. The number of apps you can have open seem to change by the hour. I use dual screens and when I remove my laptop, any app opened through Citirx will crash. I have to log out and then log back in. In the grand scheme of things, It's not a big deal, just a pain.

This is the first time I have ever needed/used a mobile desktop, I am not very impressed with this.

Citrix allows me to work remotely but keeping sensitive info on a secure network, as opposed to my home one.

With an internet connection, you basically have everything at your fingertips. That allows you to work remotely and enables me to access information from a site if needed.

Sometimes it can be a little slow and gets bogged down from time to time. It causes a different set of issues when adding devices and such to the cloud. A little more than just plugging it into the internet and going, which makes some of the troubleshooting I do a little trickier as that is not my primary focus.

It is a good set up and allows a good quick and reliable connection to the "work station". Goo on mobile devices as well, although the smaller screen of my iPhone is a little tough it would be awesome on a tablet in the field to reference information.

We originally had a server sitting in the back collecting dust and info and eventually we started running out of room of course and it was begin to crap out. Going to the cloud allowed us more space and coupled that with better accessibility and mobility with what we are doing.

I like how easy it is to install, set up, and troubleshoot Citrix as needed. The web site is very user-friendly and clean looking. Installation on your computer is a breeze. The only trouble I've ever experienced are when I upgraded to Windows 10, but a quick re-install fixed everything.

I do wish the initial connection was a bit faster, but that also may be in part due to the server that I'm connecting to. Otherwise, I have no complaints.

If you do encounter any issues during setup, the Citrix support team is very helpful.

I'm using Citrix to connect remotely to my work computer almost daily.

It is so easy to download the app to any device, connect to my desktop and get my work done from anywhere.

Every now and then latency is an issue, though I think this could also be related to a slow network connection.

The Citrix XenDesktop has saved us time and money as an organization. We no longer deploy individual pcs to each employee. They now use a Wyse client that accesses the desktop. Remote employees are able to connect to their desktop from anywhere as long as they have an internet connection. Updates to applications are easier to manage as they are done one time and then deployed to a group of users.

Much easier to manage. Saving us money on equipment as we no longer need desktop pcs for each and every employee. Updates to applications are easier to manage as they are done one time and then deployed to a group of users. Again, the money and time savings are awesome!

It's easy to connect to our network and my desktop with Citrix. The connection time is short and the connectivity is not an issue while on the premises. I'm able to easy connect to my office desktop while traveling or sitting at home working remotely. No matter what image I'm connecting to, Citirix makes it easy.

I do experience connectivity issues during peak hours when working remotely. When initially installing the Citrix receiver app from my own machine, I experience a great deal of issues. There are multiple pieces of software that must be installed on personal machines for Citrix to function correctly. You must also go to your privacy settings for every browser that you want to use the receive on and enable them to allow Citrix. The process is extremely time consuming, but it is easy to complete.

It can be a bit finicky at times, but it is a great piece of software overall. The initial installation on your personal device is time consuming, but it is easy and totally worth the effort/time.

Connecting to our desktops easily from anywhere. The benefits of using Virtual Data Interfaces versus wired and connected modems is substantial. All of our data is housed in one central location and can be accessed by authorized users easily and instantly.

It makes my home pc look exactly like my work pc. I can bring up my desktop artwork exactly as I left it and continue working with all of my windows still open.

Occasionally it does not connect even when there is good internet, but I think that is probably not a fault of the tool itself. For the most part, it is very dependable.

Just allows me to connect for small things without having tondrive the 40 minutes in to work. It is very convenient.

It's really convenient to be able to access my files from different computers.

It often seems slow or glitchy, and trying to use it on a mobile device is very difficult (though I realize that would be a difficult problem to solve).

Might be worth looking into other programs that could achieve the same goals, but it's useful for what it needs to be.

It's great to be able to access my programs from my home computer or on the go.

I like citrix because it helps with running programs that may not be compatible with your computer. It's a secure environment for business programs.

I dislike how it can change your windows appearance settings and you can't change the time out period before it closes.

Definitely try it. It's great for virtualizing programs without having to run a separate OS.

Having to run programs needed to do work without necessarily making people use a different operating system.

I like that XenDesktop is easy to use and allows me access regardless of where I am.

Difficult for new users as it is not the go to program for virtual access and therefore there are less online resources.

I recommend that others should definitely try XenDesktop out as it may make what you are trying to accomplish easier. It suits my company's needs and may do the same for you.

Allows me to virtually access to my work applications and desktop.

I like that I am able to access my apps from almost any device in almost any place. Other than that, there isn't much to like.

I am constantly getting disconnected, losing my application specific settings, and have to manually disconnect from servers in order to get a session to start up. Often the windows will open up off of my devices desktop, or they just won't open up at all.

I would consider looking at other solutions available, if any. As just an end user of this software, I don't know what else is available, but if something is...maybe that would be the way to go.

Allowing remote access to your apps and services is an important business issue we are trying to solve. That is the major benefit of this application...other than that it is just a point of frustration for me.

My favorite thing about XenDesktop is that its mission is to enable flexibility for today's mobile workforce and really aims to provide a solution for every use case. And it does that better than the rest of the industry with a deep community to back you up when you need it.

Citrix can be slow to innovate at times and of course simplicity for the users usually translates to complexity for the administrators. So, there is a steep learning curve for engineers compared to less feature rich solutions.

Security, remote access, single image management, lab environments, the possibilities are endless and generally defined by Citrix then adopted by the rest of the industry.

I liked Citrix the best because it is very simple to use. There are only a few options available to select from that I actually need to use and it's very user friendly.

I don't like that Citrix's makes you log in as well as Adbooker in addition to. It's just one extra user name and password that I have to remember. It would be nice if there were only one single login for both apps.

I use Citrix (adbooker) to bill for our digital insertion orders that come through accounting.

I can access work software from home, write notes, check email.

It takes several attempts and minutes to log in. It kicks you out the first few times. And then you cannot access everything. For example one cannot access auto deposit/ paychecks.

This is a pretty good software. I don't know of a comparable product so I cannot compare whether there is better or worse.

We are able to access work software, document, bill for services from off campus.

We use to remotely login to our network, and even some customers when the need may be. It is simple and easy to use.

So hard to setup when using any provisioning system! Also their support for vmware ESXi needs reall improvement.

If you use provisioning services, contact them and make sure it works.

Our users need to access their desktops when they are on the road or remote.

I love the fact that I can launch individual applications via a web portal on any platform and/or mobile device. It's great to be able to securely launch various enterprise applications and utilities on my phone.

Graphical performance seems to be sacrificed for optimal speed, but in my opinion that is very minor.

Save cost and resources by using Citrix XenApp to replace full VM provisioning with access to applications/desktops through XenApp.

The ability to license and run an application without downloading, installing, and configuring on my local machine makes a huge difference. It's also great to have the access to individual applications with only an internet connection and browser.

I like that I am able to reach my school server through my laptop at home.

I don't like how long it takes to load at times.

Be careful about saving things, will timeout with some applications without saving.

Able to work on projects from anywhere not just on campus, also allows for collaboration with other students and professors.

XenDesktop is a great system for our users to work anywhere without worry about university software may not work off campus network. They can connect by using tablets, smartphones, even just a web browser. It is excellent system to reduce IT staff workload, reduce system complexity. Just brilliant!

To deploy and maintain this system will need very sophisticated knowledge, from complex network, dedicated servers to robust storage array, a network engineer or system administrator cannot manage it in a easy way.

Users cannot access business system and shared files from off campus network. It simplifies IT infrastructure and management.

I like that Xendesktop was able to incorporate with VMware very well. We were able to build our environment of VMs and easily get them imported into the desktop controllers and have them populate.

We were also able to allow our helpdesk staff to use a web based version of the console to help troubleshooting prior to hitting higher level engineers. The web console contained a wealth of knowledge that could be passed up the chain and not requiring engineers to track those down.

The management console was very robust and easily laid out. Configuring desktop groups and catalogs was easy and very straight forward.

my FAVORITE part is that the console outputs all of the actions into powershell, which makes it very easy to script able Xendesktop.

I disliked that the UI was somewhat clunky. Also the Xendesktop 7 was kind of a drastic change from the Xendesktop 5.5 environment.

It is a rock solid platform for any VDI environment and incorporates with VMware vms.

We were implementing a solution where we could manage all VMs from a single location and a single piece of software. This allowed our engineers to pinpoint the errors and our help desk to help relay better information up to the engineers.

It's easy and accessible via browser. no need to install much.

it can be slow and can be a pain due to plugins incompatibility.

deploy automatic updates so it wont be a hassle to users to have to undergo updates and then find out that they cant do it due to admin privileges are required to make changes.

I use if for RDP. and some apps as well. It is convenient cause I dont need to login to rdp to open outlook. It can be accessed via webpage

Remote access to my desktop and server. The interface is clean and it's much faster than I heard it used to be back in the early days.

It's not intuitive at all. For access to my servers it does not necessarily know where each of the directories is supposed to be. This makes it difficult to know how to save and if it's saving correctly. Also, I can't use my office email via XenDesktop - we use Outlook desktop log in.

I'm solving the problem of too much work and not enough time. So I can work remotely from home either after being in the office, before being in the office or save myself 3 hours in total commute time for the day.

I love that I can use my Mac to connect to our Windows Server without issues or compatibility issues.

Occasionally when I am disconnected I am unable to reconnect to my existing session and requires a new connection which forces me to be logged in to programs twice and IT has to force me out of the programs.

I can use a variety of products to connect to the network which doesn't require a certain brand or type of operating system.

Its easy and convenient way to access client apps.

Always having to go back and download one extension or the other. Wish it was a way it could stay downloaded after I close the VDI or VPN.

Customer Management Tool that hosts everything else. General Customer request for account management and client services.

The product was simple to use but it was complex as well. It had a lot of great features. My company loves it and our customer did too.

The product can get pretty complex. Our engineers would need training on how to use it.

We architect and deploy XenDesktop and XenApp into our customer envirnoments.