Best Citrix Alternative in 2026: Why Teams Are Moving to DartRelay

Published 14 April 2026 by the CIS team

For more than a decade our engineers have designed Citrix StoreFront and NetScaler Gateway portals for organisations around the world. We know Citrix well, and we still respect what it does. But over the last few years the conversations we have with customers have changed. The question used to be "how can we make our Citrix portal look like our brand?" Now it is more often "is there something simpler and more affordable that does what we actually use Citrix for?"

This article looks at why so many teams are searching for a Citrix alternative in 2026, what to look for in one, and why we built DartRelay to answer exactly that question.

Why organisations are looking beyond Citrix

Most of the teams we speak to are not unhappy with the user experience. Their concerns are about cost, complexity and control.

• Licensing and renewals. Since the Cloud Software Group acquisition, Citrix licensing has moved firmly towards subscription bundles, and many customers tell us their renewal quotes have risen sharply, often for features they never switched on.
• Infrastructure overhead. A typical Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops site needs Delivery Controllers, StoreFront, a licence server, a SQL database and NetScaler Gateway for remote access, plus a Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) installed and maintained on every host. Each layer has its own updates, versions and compatibility rules.
• Specialist skills. Keeping all of that healthy takes experienced Citrix administrators. Smaller IT teams find that a large share of their time goes into the platform itself rather than the applications users need.
• Branding takes effort. We have built hundreds of custom StoreFront and NetScaler themes, and they work well, but every major upgrade means the customization has to be reviewed again.

For a large enterprise with thousands of users and complex HDX requirements, Citrix can still be the right choice. For a small or mid-sized business, a managed service provider, or a department that simply needs to publish a handful of Windows applications securely, it is often far more platform than the job requires.

What a good Citrix alternative should offer

When we evaluate alternatives with customers, we use a short checklist:

1. Browser-based access to published applications and full desktops, with nothing to install on users' devices.
2. Little or nothing to install on your hosts, so publishing a new server does not mean deploying and patching another agent.
3. Strong security built in: two-factor authentication, sign-in protection, session timeouts and an audit log, without buying extra modules.
4. Real branding: your logo, colours and sign-in page, not just a logo upload.
5. Transparent pricing that you can work out yourself before you speak to a sales team.
6. Self-hosting, so your data, credentials and sessions stay on your own infrastructure.

The alternatives in brief

There are several capable products on the market, and each suits a different situation:

• Microsoft Remote Desktop Services with RD Web Client is included with Windows Server and needs no host agent, but you still deploy the Gateway, Broker, Web Access and licensing roles, buy RDS CALs, and branding options are very limited. (We customize it for exactly that reason; see our RD Web Client customization.)
• Parallels RAS is a full-featured platform that many Citrix customers consider. It installs its own agent on each RD Session Host and has its own set of gateway and broker components.
• VMware Horizon (now Omnissa) is aimed at large VDI estates and uses the Horizon Agent on every virtual machine.
• Azure Virtual Desktop is a good fit if you want Microsoft to host the control plane, but your session hosts live in Azure and each one runs the AVD agent.

DartRelay: a self-hosted, agentless Citrix alternative

DartRelay is our own answer to that checklist. It delivers your applications and desktops to any modern browser, from one server that you install and own.

Nothing installed on your hosts

DartRelay is agentless. The DartRelay server connects to your existing Windows desktops and Windows Servers over RDP, the same protocol the Remote Desktop client uses, and streams each session to the browser over HTTPS and a secure WebSocket. There is no VDA or host agent to deploy, upgrade or troubleshoot. DartRelay can even install the Remote Desktop Session Host role on a server for you.

One server, not a stack

The user portal, the administrator console and the session relay all run on the DartRelay server, which can be Windows or Linux. A small installation keeps its settings in a single SQLite file; larger ones can use SQL Server, MySQL or PostgreSQL. Only one web port needs to be reachable from outside, so there is no separate gateway product to buy.

Security included

Two-factor authentication, picture CAPTCHA, sign-in lockout, password policies, session lifetimes and idle timeouts, administrator roles and a full audit log are all part of the product. Windows passwords are handled on the server and never reach the browser.

Everything users expect

Users get a clean catalogue of their applications and desktops with favourites, search and categories. Each application opens in its own tab, files can be transferred in and out of the session, and printed documents come back as PDFs. Web applications can sit in the same catalogue alongside published Windows apps.

Branding with no limits

This is where our CIS background shows. DartRelay ships with a range of ready-made themes and a block editor for the sign-in and home pages, so you can match your brand without writing code. If you want something unique, our team can design a custom DartRelay theme for you.

Pricing you can read

Every DartRelay licence includes every feature. At the time of writing, a base licence is $300 a year including 5 Relay Seats, and each additional seat is $15 a year. There are no editions, no add-on modules and no per-feature upsells.

Citrix and DartRelay side by side

Moving from Citrix to DartRelay

Because DartRelay connects to your hosts over RDP, a migration does not have to be a big-bang project. You can install DartRelay next to your current Citrix site, point it at the same session hosts, publish the applications your users need and let a pilot group try it. Once they are happy, you move the rest of your users across and retire the Citrix components at your own pace.

Our engineers have spent years inside Citrix environments, so we can help you plan the move, recreate your branding in DartRelay and support you after go-live.

Try it for yourself

The best way to judge any Citrix alternative is to publish your own applications on it. DartRelay comes with a 30-day free trial, with every feature switched on. If you would like a walkthrough first, talk to our team.