VDI Platforms Compared
September 19, 2026
Every vendor’s comparison page tells you their platform wins. This one does not work that way. I have spent years architecting and running Azure Virtual Desktop environments, so I am not neutral about where I would start, but a platform decision that does not fit your actual setup costs you more than the one you almost chose. Here is what each option actually costs, where it actually struggles, and how to tell which one fits you.
Comparison table
| Platform | How it is billed | What usually drives the cost | Ongoing management | Good fit if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Virtual Desktop (cloud) | Consumption based Azure compute, often already covered for user access rights under Microsoft 365 E3, E5, or Business Premium | Session host sizing and idle capacity, this is where a badly designed environment quietly bleeds money | Low once it is designed and automated properly, high if it is left to run as deployed | You want elasticity, no hardware to manage, and you are willing to invest in getting the architecture right up front |
| Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid | Per-user Azure licensing for the management plane, infrastructure cost stays on hardware you already own | How much spare capacity your existing Nutanix AHV environment actually has (VMware vSphere support is on the way through Nerdio, not yet live) | Similar to cloud AVD, managed through the same tools, just pointed at local hosts instead | You already have solid, fairly recent Nutanix AHV hardware and want cloud style management without moving compute to Azure yet |
| Windows Server RDS (on-prem) | Upfront hardware plus Client Access Licenses, roughly $150 per user for a 3 to 5 year term | Hardware refresh cycles and staying on the right side of CAL compliance | High. Patching, updates, and infrastructure upkeep sit with your team | Your headcount and workload are stable, and you are not planning to grow or add remote staff |
| Citrix DaaS | Roughly $30 to $50 per user monthly at list price, on top of whatever Azure infrastructure it runs on | Licensing plus the specialized expertise Citrix environments tend to need to run well | High. Image management and policy tuning are a real, ongoing job | You need a specific Citrix capability AVD does not match, and you can absorb the licensing cost |
| AWS WorkSpaces | $25 to $149 per user monthly, or hourly, across several bundle tiers | The default one-desktop-per-user model, which adds up fast without deliberate shared pooling | Low to start, but cost scales close to linearly with headcount unless it is re-architected | You are already deep in AWS and want the simplest possible setup more than the lowest per-user cost |
| Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon) | $4.67 to $12.50 per user monthly on subscription, or $1,500 to $31,000+ for on-prem perpetual licensing depending on scale | Licensing tier, plus the hardware and hypervisor costs behind it | High, particularly for on-prem deployments | You are staying on VMware or vSphere infrastructure and want to keep that investment working |
Azure Virtual Desktop (cloud)
AVD’s real advantage is elasticity: you are not paying for hardware sitting idle overnight, and scaling up for a busy season or down for a quiet one is a configuration change, not a purchase order. The catch is that AVD rewards good architecture and punishes bad architecture more visibly than almost anything else on this list, since the bill is a direct reflection of how the environment is designed. A well-built shared-pool setup with a properly sized session host and a standardized image can run a fraction of the cost of an unoptimized one-desktop-per-user build on the exact same platform. This is not a platform where you can quote a single monthly per-user number honestly, since the real cost depends entirely on how it is architected and managed, not just on Azure’s list pricing.
Azure Virtual Desktop Hybrid
This reached general availability only weeks before this page was written, so most comparisons online have not caught up to it yet. It gives you the AVD management experience, Azure Arc, Nerdio, the same control plane, while your session hosts stay on hardware you already own. Nerdio’s AVD Hybrid support currently covers Nutanix AHV, with VMware vSphere support on the way. If you’re on a different hypervisor today, it’s worth confirming where Nerdio’s support stands before committing to this path. If you already invested in decent, fairly recent Nutanix infrastructure, this lets you get more out of it instead of writing it off to move everything to the cloud at once. It is also a realistic middle step for anyone modernizing off Citrix, Omnissa, or RDS without a full rip-and-replace on day one, as Nerdio’s platform coverage here expands.
Windows Server RDS (on-prem)
RDS is the option most companies already have, since it has been part of Windows Server for decades, and for a stable, predictable environment with no growth on the horizon, it can still work fine. The real cost is not always obvious upfront: hardware refresh cycles, CAL compliance risk, and a team that has to keep patching and maintaining it directly. If your headcount is not changing and you are not adding remote or distributed staff, there is a real argument for leaving it alone rather than migrating for its own sake.
Citrix DaaS
Citrix built its reputation on features AVD genuinely does not match one for one, complex app layering and policy control chief among them. But 2026 has been a difficult year to be a Citrix customer: a license activation mandate forcing upgrades, and renewal quotes climbing sharply for a lot of organizations. If you specifically need what Citrix does well, that is a legitimate reason to stay. If you are on Citrix mostly out of inertia, this is probably the year that inertia gets expensive enough to revisit.
AWS WorkSpaces
WorkSpaces is genuinely simple to stand up, which is exactly why it is easy to end up with an expensive version of it. The default model gives every user their own dedicated desktop, and unless someone deliberately builds shared pools instead, that adds up in a way that is easy to miss until the bill reflects it. It is a reasonable choice if you are already committed to AWS for everything else and simplicity matters more to you than shaving the last percentage off per-user cost.
Omnissa Horizon (formerly VMware Horizon)
Horizon is the platform for companies with real investment in VMware or vSphere infrastructure who are not ready to walk away from it. Since the Broadcom acquisition and the Omnissa spinoff, pricing and licensing have been in enough flux that it is worth getting a current quote rather than assuming last year’s numbers still apply. If your infrastructure team’s expertise and existing hardware are built around VMware, that continuity has real value, just go in with clear eyes on what it costs to keep running.
How to actually decide
Start with what you already have, not with which platform sounds newest. If you have solid, recent Nutanix AHV hardware and are not ready to move everything to the cloud, AVD Hybrid is worth a serious look precisely because almost nobody else is telling you about it yet. If your workforce is genuinely stable with no growth or remote expansion coming, RDS might be the right call to leave alone. If you are already paying for a platform and the renewal just got painful, whether that is Citrix, Omnissa, or a WorkSpaces bill that crept up over time, that is usually the actual trigger worth acting on, not a theoretical best-fit exercise.
If you want a second opinion on what a move to Azure Virtual Desktop, cloud or hybrid, would actually cost and look like for your setup, schedule a free discovery call.