Forrester Research, Inc. evaluated the seven most significant VDI software providers and released their findings to help you choose the right partner for your VDI project. The Forrester report states: “Citrix brings a comprehensive enterprise-class offering to the VDI landscape.” Forrester introduced the concept of digital workspace delivery systems in 2014 to describe the rapidly expanding collection of 14 distinct technology solutions that I&O leaders can employ to ensure that workers have access to the technology they need to use Windows desktops and apps with any device, almost anywhere.1 The server-hosted virtual desktop, also commonly known as virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), is a critical piece to achieving the conflicting goals of flexibility and compliance. Thanks to improvements in performance, usability, and costs, it’s now arguably the most versatile.

The report evaluates each vendor on 26 criteria, including those that matter most to infrastructure and operations professionals. We hear from customers that security, user experience, flexibility and a proven solution strategy are critical components in choosing a VDI provider. In the report, Citrix received the highest scores in user experience, security and compliance, platform hypervisor support, and solution strategy.

According to Forrester, Citrix brings a comprehensive enterprise-class offering to the VDI landscape. Citrix’s XenDesktop VDI offering is distinctive at several levels, from the user experience with Citrix receiver endpoint clients that offer native HDX protocol support on all device and OS platforms to rich 3D graphics and multiple 4K monitor support and sophisticated features for multimedia and videoconferencing performance. Citrix consolidated its platforms in 2014 and finally has a single management console for the whole VDI stack. It’s also the only solution in the evaluation to offer FIPS 140-2 compliance. On the back end, application layering and personal vDisks help customers make better use of storage resources with pooled desktop instances, and customers can deploy them on Citrix, Microsoft, or VMware hypervisors — a significant advantage. XenDesktop is also part of the most complete suite of digital workspace delivery systems technologies in the industry, which includes XenApp for proven session-hosted desktop capabilities if desired. Citrix also just released its Workspace Cloud offering, giving customers a cloud-based entry point for end user XenDesktop sessions as well. Customers report that the user experience is excellent but that Citrix support is slow to escalate and resolve issues

Flexible hypervisor support

If you are looking for flexibility in your VDI solution, look to XenDesktop. You can deploy XenDesktop on XenServer, of course. But if you already have vSphere or Hyper-V, it will run on them, too. Forrester refers to this as “a significant advantage,” and Citrix received the highest score for platform hypervisor support, a full point higher than the next two vendors.

Download the report

Compare XenDesktop to the market. Download The Forrester Wave™: Server-Hosted Virtual Desktops (VDI), Q3 2015 now