
With the emerging practice of working from home, remote desktop solutions are becoming critical for all industries. For anyone working with cloud-native applications or working from home for different organizations, including IT, banking, healthcare, manufacturing, or government sector, remote desktop providers offer all the necessary utilities and secured access to centralized apps & data.
Remote desktop services offered by Windows are vulnerable to cyber threats and only limited to support Microsoft Windows or Server. Amid growing concern about cybercrimes, organizations need a better solution with more robust security features that are scalable and support various operating systems. Fortunately, various remote desktop (RDS) alternatives are available in the market.
This blog post will discuss the top remote desktop alternatives you must consider for your organization in 2023. Let’s discuss this in detail.
What is a Remote Desktop?
Remote Desktop alternatives offered by various cloud-hosting service providers can host applications and operating systems (OS) for delivering virtual desktops . The system Administrators can use remote desktops to deliver pre-installed and pre-configured applications to their remote and in-house employees.
These remote alternative solutions incorporate efficient and secure functionality. The remote users are connected to a centralized network or cloud that hosts virtual desktops and delivers a seamless user experience for various end devices, including tablets, desktops, laptops, etc.
The centralized network deals with all the extensive workloads by hosting and running high-end software applications and allocates required scalable resources to authorized client devices. The remote users experience seamless provisioning of all resources and functionalities. All these centrally-hosted applications and resources perform as deployed on the client PC without any need to host, administer, manage, or maintain any resources.
The remote desktop solutions allow remote employees to:
- Access a workplace system from home or while traveling;
- Troubleshoot any software-related issue remotely
- Perform administrative roles
- Transfer files from one system to another
- Print or share documents remotely.
Benefits of Choosing Remote Desktop Alternatives?
Below are some convincing and practical reasons that make it inevitable for organizations of any scale to abstain from using remote desktop alternatives in 2023.
- Cater Remote Employees – Remote desktop solutions allow organizations to equip their remote employees with suitable applications without buying expensive applications for each client’s PC. It results in more effective and secured remote teams.
- Remote Access – Users can access workplace systems from their homes or while traveling at any given time. It results in employee satisfaction and productivity.
- Centralized storage – Various remote desktop providers offer cloud-native frameworks with centralized and scalable storage. The cloud-native framework ensures strict data & information security. It eliminates the need to set up and manage local servers to host and secure critical business data.
- Enterprise-grade security – Cloud-hosted remote desktop solutions remove the burden on client organizations to deal with growing cybersecurity challenges. Cloud-native remote desktop solutions offer enterprise-grade security for all hosted applications and organization data.
- Budget Friendly – Remote desktops allow organizations to save a significant part of their budget. They don’t have to administrate, install, maintain, and secure high-end applications or resources. Another aspect is to save multiple licensing costs linked with deploying dedicated softwares on each employee’s PC, which is much more expensive.
- Flexibility – Most remote desktop providers support Windows and Linux for various devices. It allows organizations to deliver desired OS to employees that best serve their functional requirements.
- Resource Distribution – Remote desktop allocates more optimized resources to run hosted applications without any need to upgrade each end device. It eliminates the liability of acquiring expensive hardware resources and scaling the computing performance to meet demand.
5 Best Remote Desktop Alternatives in 2023
Below is a list of some of the best remote desktop alternatives in 2023 that you must consider for your business.
- 1. V2 Cloud
- 2. TeamViewer
- 3. AnyDesk
- 4. Amazon Appstream 2.0
- 5. Citrix DaaS
V2 Cloud
V2 cloud is a remote desktop solution offered as VDI(Virtual Desktop Infrastructure). It enables small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to deliver cloud-hosted applications to remote employees by secured and budget-friendly allocation of resources. It also supports Raspberry Pi Thin Client devices to access cloud-native workspace and deliver a seamless desktop experience to the users.
V2 cloud offers cloud-native virtual desktop solutions for multiple remote users.
- Extended Backup Retention that allows storing daily workflows, individual files, and entire virtual machine
- Easy cloud accessibility for web and mobile users
- The intuitive management console for quick desktop provisioning and management
- Multi-factor authentication to ensure infrastructure and data security
- Provision of high-end engineering softwares like CAD (Computer Audit Design) & BIM (Building Information Modeling) softwares like AutoDesk Revit, Bluebeam Revu, AutoCAD, etc.
- 24/7 technical support for client organizations
- Global data centers to cater ensure minimum latency and durability of services for a global clientele.
The pricing model of the V2 cloud is subjective to the client’s needs. It varies significantly depending on the number of users, type of subscription plan, allocated resources, etc. You can visit the official site of V2 cloud or connect with their sales representatives to get an accurate quotation for your specific requirements.
TeamViewer
TeamViewer supports over 130 different ends, IoT (Internet of Things) devices, and applications, making it a reliable option.
TeamViewer RDP solution offers the following unique selling points (USPs) that organizations can leverage:
- Provide remote access and control of centrally-connected systems
- Accessing, sharing, and printing files with remote access
- Recording snapshots of remote workflows
- End-to-end encrypted SSL (Secured Socket List) connection to ensure information security
The TeamViewer offers three licensing plans that are billed annually:
- For single users – TeamViewer Remote Access for $11.90 per month and TeamViewer Business for $25.90
- For Teams – TeamViewer Premium for $52.90 per month and TeamViewer Corporate for $102.90 per month
- For Enterprises – TeamViewer Tensor – The prices are subjective to the organization’s specific requirements
Limitations: The pricing model of TeamViewer is not budget-friendly for small organizations.
AnyDesk
AnyDesk is another option in the list of remote desktop alternatives in 2023. Its innovative DeskRT codec is the framework’s fundamental foundation that compresses image data before delivering remote desktops to reduce resource allocation and ensure faster delivery.
Its significant features allow it to outshine rival products, such as:
- AnyDesk service provider offers remote desktops with minimum latency and high frame rates.
- Offers file access and sharing to multiple remote desktops simultaneously
- Secured VPN technology to implement high-end security
- Allows remote users to troubleshoot technical problems easily
AnyDesk comes with three pricing models:
- Solo – $10.90
- Standard – $21.90
- Advance – $57.90
Limitations: Once the service fails to pair successfully, it ceases to auto-reconnect, and you have to connect manually from the start.
Amazon AppStream 2.0
Amazon AppStream is based on a fully-managed framework that can be configured to provision virtual desktops. Amazon AppStream gives administrative rights to the user to limit the data transfer between the cloud and the end-user devices. It ensures secured and regulated resource transactions between the network and the client. It delivers a fresh remote desktop to the user after each log-in session. Amazon AppStream 2.0 eliminates the need for companies to administer, manage, secure, and maintain the framework.
It offers the following features and utilities:
- Stream cloud-hosted applications to any end device
- Uses Amazon Web Services (AWS cloud) for consistent and seamless streaming services
- Provisioning of cloud-hosted applications as SaaS (Software as a Service)
- Support high-end and complex applications like CAD (Computer Audit Design) & BIM (Building Information Modeling) softwares like AutoDesk Revit, Bluebeam Revu, AutoCAD, etc.
- Support for Windows and Linux OS
The pricing of Amazon AppStream 2.0 is also subjective to the user’s needs. You are charged for streaming resources you choose to provision and a monthly fee per desktop user.
Limitations: Requires AppStream 2.0 client for streaming sessions on USB devices.
Citrix DaaS
Citrix DaaS enables client organizations to leverage a secure working space and deliver remote desktops to any user device. It’s a fully-managed and cloud-hosted DaaS solution that offers maximum agility, scalability, enterprise-grade security, and productivity to the end users.
The following features make it outstanding among potential competitors:
- Secure delivery of cloud-hosted desktops to remote users
- Offers seamless scalability to meet varying client needs and workloads
- GPU support for graphics-extensive workloads
- Support Windows and Linux OS
- Hybrid cloud framework that ensures maximum control to the client organizations for customized setup and configuration
Citrix Daas pricing is based on the following pricing strategy:
- Standard Package – $10 USD (billed monthly or annually with pay as you go model)
- Advanced Plus Package – $13 USD per user per month
- Premium Package – $20 USD per user per month
- Premium Plus Package – $23 USD per user per month
Limitation: Limited provisioning for AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure Cloud for up to 1500, 2000, and 2500 resources, respectively.
Which Remote Desktop Alternative is Best for Your Business?
All these remote desktop alternatives enable your employees to access centralized applications remotely. The remote desktop alternative that best suit your business is subjective to your specific requirements. V2 cloud is well-recognized among small and mid-sized businesses for offering enterprise-grade security and reliability of services. Moreover, it also supports high-end manufacturing and engineering softwares, making it a perfect fit for enterprise-scale organizations.
How Does V2 Cloud Help in Remote Access and Management?
Remote work culture will normalize and ease the provisioning and administration of remote desktops for businesses across industries. V2 Cloud is a cloud-native and highly scalable remote desktop solution that helps in remote access and management by leveraging cloud technology to provision virtual desktops and applications to remote users. It allows users to access their virtual desktops and applications using different types of end devices, irrespective of their operating system. V2 Cloud is undoubtedly a leader in offering remote desktop solutions as managed services to SMBs and improving productivity and collaboration among remote teams of client organizations.
