Enterprise VDI built for the VMware infrastructure you already own
If your data center runs on VMware vSphere, Omnissa Horizon is the VDI platform that was built for it. Formerly VMware Horizon before the Broadcom acquisition spun off the end-user computing division as a standalone company, Omnissa delivers the Blast Extreme protocol, Instant Clone technology for millisecond VM provisioning, and App Volumes for real-time application layering. For organizations with significant VMware infrastructure investment, Horizon often delivers better performance-per-dollar than any competing platform.
Omnissa was formed in 2024 when Broadcom — after completing its $69B VMware acquisition — divested the End User Computing division to focus on infrastructure software. The company now operates independently, managing VMware Horizon, Workspace ONE, and the associated EUC product portfolio. This separation has actually benefited customers: Omnissa now has more product roadmap freedom and has been aggressively investing in the Blast Extreme protocol, multi-cloud support, and AI-assisted session optimization. For VMware-heavy enterprises, the existing vSphere skills and infrastructure represent a significant competitive moat for Horizon.
Deployment model: On-Premises, Cloud (Horizon Cloud), Hybrid, Azure. Pricing model: Subscription per named or concurrent user. Typical price range: $250–$450/user/year; concurrent available. Pricing is negotiable at volume — Compare Select benchmarks quotes against real transacted deals before you sign.
Provision a new desktop VM in milliseconds by cloning a running parent VM. Supports zero-overhead provisioning at scale — critical for VDI login storms.
Omnissa's display remoting protocol delivers H.264/H.265 encoded sessions with adaptive bitrate. Excellent for 4K content and high-frame-rate video over LAN and WAN.
Real-time application delivery via virtual disks (AppStacks). Attach applications to users at login — no reimage, no rebuild — making application management radically faster.
Replaces roaming profiles and folder redirection with policy-driven persona management. User settings follow them across desktops and sessions without the profile bloat.
Deep integration with Omnissa's unified endpoint management platform allows a single console for virtual and physical device management, policy, and compliance.
Deploy Horizon pods on Azure, Google Cloud, AWS, or on-prem, and manage all pods from the Horizon Cloud Control Plane — true hybrid cloud brokering.
| Alternative | How it compares |
|---|---|
| Citrix DaaS | Citrix has a deeper security analytics stack and better performance on very high-latency WAN. Horizon wins on vSphere integration and Instant Clone efficiency. |
| Azure Virtual Desktop | AVD is cheaper for cloud-only deployments. Horizon supports true hybrid — keeping sensitive workloads on-prem while bursting to cloud. |
| Parallels RAS | RAS is significantly simpler and cheaper. Horizon's depth — Instant Clone, App Volumes, DEM — is overkill for most environments under 500 seats. |
Broadcom divested the entire End User Computing division — including Horizon, Workspace ONE, and App Volumes — to a new independent company called Omnissa in 2024. The products continue under the same names and team. Licensing migrations for existing VMware EUC customers are handled through Omnissa directly.
For on-premises deployments, yes — Horizon is optimized for vSphere and vSAN. Horizon Cloud on Azure runs on Azure compute, so vSphere isn't required. However, organizations running on other hypervisors (Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV) will find the integration more limited.
For environments over 200 concurrent desktops, yes — Instant Clone reduces login storm impact dramatically and cuts storage consumption vs. full clones. For smaller deployments, the operational overhead of managing golden images and recompose cycles is manageable.
Compare Omnissa Horizon against every alternative in our VDI / DaaS / App Delivery comparison, or browse the full vendor directory. Ready for pricing? Talk to a Compare Select advisor — our guidance is free and vendor-neutral.