Citrix Hosted, ‘As a Service’ or In-House – A Guide to Choosing the Right Solution

Last updated April 2, 2020

Did you know that Connectria has provided Citrix Hosting since 2003? That’s longer than any other hosting company! In fact, we offer a wide range of Citrix hosting solutions and are also a Certified Citrix Service Provider, which means we can “rent” the necessary Citrix software and appliances our clients need for a successful cloud deployment.

We know that there are many ways to virtualize your application with Citrix, so we have identified the pros and cons of a few different solutions to see how they stack up against each other. Most may think that the “Citrix-as-a-Service” model is an ideal choice but see below for how it compares to the alternative, hosted solutions.

Cost

Hosted Citrix features highly flexible rent licenses at cost, or buy upfront options. There is no need to lease data centers or any hardware. The cost per user decreases as more users are added. In a Citrix-as-a-service solution, licenses are rented out at an increased price with no additional resources needed. The cost per user remains the same as the environment grows. Finally, in the Citrix in-house option you must buy your licenses upfront. You also need to acquire data center space and all necessary hardware.

Customization

Hosted Citrix enables users to host virtually any application compatible with Citrix. This solution allows for dedicated computer resources and access to Citrix Management Console. Citrix-as-a-service offers moderate customization and a limited set of applications.  This option allows for shared computer resources and no access to the Citrix Management Console. For the Citrix in-house solution, there is low customization with limited available in-house expertise and internal resources, but there is access to the Citrix Management Console.

Support

Hosted Citrix features security features and backups as well as 24/7 high-level expert support for Citrix, Microsoft and other technologies including:

• Linux
• Oracle
• IBM

Citrix-as-a-service supports only a limited set of applications and all other services require additional third-party support. The Citrix in-house solution features limited support based on in house expertise. 24/7 resources also may not be available.