Comparing Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365

Azure Virtual Desktop

Product: Azure Virtual Desktop Overview

Roadmap: Azure Virtual Desktop Roadmap

Licensing: Azure Virtual Desktop Licensing

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) offers a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), sometimes called a remote desktop solution, hosted in Azure with consumption-based pricing.

AVD provides traditional VDI with a broad range of configuration choices, extensive customization, and associated technical complexity.

A key feature and reason to select AVD is that it provides a highly configurable hosted VDI solution for deploying standardized virtual desktops or remote applications at scale. AVD utilizes pools of VM hosts with each VM capable of supporting multiple user sessions, which can be a more efficient use of compute resources and help reduce costs. Load balancing determines which VM session host a user connects to optimize performance. Services like FSLogix provide profile mobility that allows users to connect to different session hosts while retaining their data and settings, and VMs can be shut down or started to respond to changes in demand.