XenServer is a hypervisor used to run and manage virtual machines on physical servers. It helps organizations consolidate workloads and provide virtualized servers, desktops, and applications.

What company sizes and industries is XenServer the best fit for?

XenServer’s strongest fit appears to be enterprise and mid-market organizations, with notable use in IT services, healthcare, and education. Positive experiences also appear among smaller businesses.

Company size: Enterprise and mid-market organizations are the most represented segments, with small businesses represented as well.
Industries: Information technology, healthcare, and education stand out among the industries using XenServer.

How long does it take to implement XenServer across a team?

Reported implementation times range from less than a day to more than a year, but deployments under one month are the most common. The reported timing varies with the environment and scope of the rollout.

Time to go live	Relative frequency
Under one month	Most common
One to three months	Less common
Three to six months	Less common
More than 12 months	Least common

What customer support options does XenServer provide, and how do users find the overall support experience?

XenServer support options include email or help desk assistance and FAQs or forums. The support experience is mixed: users describe helpful assistance and issue fixes, while others find that troubleshooting guidance or technical support can fall short.

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Rod M.

Senior Digital Delivery Analyst, End User Device Management

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

6/5/2016

"Open source, enterprise level and cloud-ready technology with world class Citrix quality and support"

4/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

I like that this product is open source and cloud supported, and if XenApp or XenDesktop is already implemented in your organization, no other hypervisor will allow for deeper integration with your Citrix environment as XenServer. This product also makes patching and updating your VMs easy and centrally managed.

With the server virtualization market having become mature and saturated with vSphere and Hyper-V, Citrix has focused their attention on making XenServer cloud-ready and supported on many different public cloud platforms such as Citrix CloudPlatform, Apache CloudStack and OpenStack.

Icing on the cake with this product is that it comes with the world class support that Citrix provides. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

If you have vSphere or Hyper-V in your organization then there is little need to have this technology at your Enterprise. As well, if your organization does not currently have Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop, there is little need to implement this in my opinion - vSphere is a lot more feature rich, and if you're a Microsoft shop then you will probably not want XenServer which is Linux based. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Steve L.

Strategic Consultant

Automotive

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

7/12/2016

"I use this product to access other programs hosted on Citrix servers"

4.5/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

The servers are reliable and very rarely do we have a problem being able to access the servers we use to do our work every day. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

Stability has improved in my time using the product however when they fail, it can be detrimental to our workload. I'm not in IT so I'm not directly involved with issues like that so maybe it isn't the software but sometimes other factors. Overall, I'd say we've been successful with Citrix Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Education Management

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

5/25/2016

"Citirix XenServer review"

3.5/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

Ease of use and reliability. I work remotely approximately 1-2 days per week. I access our VDI environment(s) by using a Citrix receiver. While working remotely, I'm required to access many different VDI environments (testing, training, and production environments) simultaneously to test certain functionalities and diagnose end-user issues. The Citrix XenServer is able to accommodate this high usage of data easily without any noticeable lags. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

I've experienced a few instances where I had to download the Citrix receiver more than once no matter which browser I'm using. These instances were merely inconvenient and resolved themselves rather quickly. It seems that the Citrix receiver does play favorites with certain browsers as I tend to have the most trouble using it through FireFox (with Chrome or Edge I typically have no issues). Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

The XenServer is great for organizations with employees who work remotely or work on the go outside of the office. We live in a society where we're constantly connected, and the same can now be said for the workplace. Using Citrix XenServer is intuitive even for first timers. I was able to walk myself through the entire installation process on my personal computer without any assistance. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

We have countless people who work remotely or on the go and it is imperative that they have immediate access to their office desktops. The Citrix receiver solves that problem by allowing users to connect to their machine at work no matter where they are currently. The Citrix receiver allows communication to take place that wasn't possible a mere decade ago. Communication is key in any modern organization and the citrix receiver allows internal communication to occur seamlessly no matter where the individuals are. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Adriano P.

Cloud Computing CTO

Higher Education

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

3/9/2016

"Great Hypervisor!"

5/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

XenServer has a wide range of possibilities and implementation sizes, you can use it as a small user with a single host, a single cluster with few hosts, multiple cluster into a single data center or even multiple clusters across multiple datacenter, all these hosts can be easily managed at a single point using xencenter.

Its very easy to install and configure, after some specific automation you will just need to boot your server and hit install. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

Xenserver has a fame to have low market share, so many application developers do not care to be compatible with Xenserver. (Not really Xenserver fault, but has some impacts).

Xenserver still takes too long to put available guest os compatibility with new linux releases. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

If you are just trying go by yourself, but if you need to put a bigger production environment hire some citrix or partner support to help. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

We are managing a big on premise cloud environment, most of it based on xenserver as hypervisor, we accomplish all virtual machine visualization goals with a very low cost. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Christine C.

Sales Manager

Hospitality

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

5/31/2016

"Useful Virtual Server"

4/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

Citrix XenServer is nice in that it keeps all of my applications in one place. I like that I can log-in and have everything I need right at my fingertips, instead of opening each application from my desktop. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

I still have to enter a password for each application I use. I would like to be able to just log onto Citrix and open the applications I need without having to enter a password each time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

It's very nice not having to pay for multiple licenses. If you wanted to work from home, you would just have to download Citrix to have access to the tools you need. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

Again, it's nice to have all applications in one place. It also makes working from home so much easier, as we don't have to pay for licenses on each of the programs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Flavio S.

Cyber Security

Government Administration

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 2/3/2016

"I love citrix xenserver"

4.5/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

I like the ease of use, quality of the management of virtual machines. is a very reliable system, it is similar to VMware ESX, it is open source and is supported by many servers and storage systems.

I use it for some time. initially used for virtual machines demo and now has become the main system virtualization.They 'very reliable, the server hardware resources of virtualization are distributed properly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

technical support is not the same level of other similar product. vmware has a better technical support. the product does not have native integration between it and RedHat's RDO packages Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

you have to study well the product.It has a very comprehensive forum where you can get instant answers to all kinds of problems. including the very difficult Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

I have the ability to manage a large virtual infrastructure while reducing costs. Can I move my resources to buy better hardware resources Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Cyrano R.

IT Director

Higher Education

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

2/11/2016

"Almost the best"

4.5/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

First of all it's free! I like too much of this product, It's easy to administer, today I'm responsible by an IT center that have hundreds and hundreds of XenServer hosts fully operational, to support the largest private cloud in Latin America, one of the largest educational private cloud on the entire world Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

I like 99.999% of XenServer, the single problem it's the fact of not support VXLAN, in my perspective, if you put every hypervisor in a scale, all of them are the same or very close, just losing in the VXLAN functionality Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

To future users I recommend the product by some reasons, when you compare all features with VMware for example, you probably will think VMware it's the best answer, but if you compare the features and limits that you need between them, you will see that both can help you, but one it's free, maybe you need to hire some support. My main recommendation to Citrix it is implement the VXLAN support on XenServer, with this feature is no limit to implement XenServer as Cloud Hypervisor in all my projects Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

I started to implement XenServer in my projects a long time ago, but, few years ago, more precisely in 2012, I received a mission to create an infrastructure that should support the consolidation of 149 small data centers spread on 9 cities, without centralize the IT staff (people), the main reason it was to reduce costs. I design a private cloud computing (IaaS), and the base to this cloud is XenServer Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Vinicius L.

Técnico em Informática

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

2/11/2016

"Low Cost and reliable Hypervisor"

5/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

Citrix XenServer is an low cost solution that delivers the powerful infrastructure to build a virtualization environment. Is a very ease to use tool with advanced features such as high availability, multi-server management, reporting, live migration, power management, overcommit, etc.

You can use XenCenter to manage all your servers hosts, deploy virtual machines and manage your pool storages. The interface is very simple and provides access to almost all tools.

XenServer is very easy to install and configure and is free. If you want, you can buy support solutions for your company depending of your knowledge about the platform.

You can also integrate XenServer to orchestration solutions, such as Apache CloudStack to build a robust private cloud environment. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

The XenCenter manager tool is only available for Windows systems. If you are a Linux user, you will need to deploy a Windows machine only to use it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

If you are looking for a low cost virtualization environment implementation you have to consider using Citrix XenServer. But is very important you make sure that the management team has enough experience to implement and manage the environment because you will not have support when using the free version. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

Virtualization of several servers and to deliver a private cloud environment to University community. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Information Technology and Services

Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

7/20/2016

"Xenserver fits right between VMware and Hyper-V"

4/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

We can migrate the VM's from one server to another using Xenserver and it is very easy to do so. Organization view, Objects by tag, taking snapshots easily are some of the features of Xencenter which I find handy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

Xenserver doesn't allow you to reduce the size of the storage of the copied VM. I think that feature would really be very good. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Higher Education

Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

Originally submitted 7/10/2016

"Great features!"

4/5

What do you like best about XenServer?

The product has plenty of amazing features and is easy to use and setup. High data usage has never really been a problem in terms of noticeable lags. The ability to run multiple operating systems on a single device is also a great feature! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about XenServer?

I used it for quite a while and didn't really find anything to dislike. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering XenServer:

If you're using the free version, make sure you have experience managing the system environment as no support is provided. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is XenServer solving and how is that benefiting you?

As I worked from outside the office quite a bit, XenServer proved out to be of a great use! Further, I never faced any downtime which saved a lot of time! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.