At my job we use Citrix for Desktop as a Service (DaaS) — basically instead of running everything on a local machine, we log into a virtual desktop that lives on a remote server. I've been using it for a while now and overall it's been a solid experience, but it definitely has its ups and downs.

The Good

The best part is flexibility. I can log in from pretty much anywhere and have my full work desktop ready to go. There's also a security benefit — nothing is stored locally, so if a device gets lost or stolen, no company data is at risk. And when someone new starts, IT doesn't have to spend hours setting up a machine. They just create an account and that person is good to go.

The Bad

It's not all smooth though. The performance can feel sluggish sometimes — I think they could allocate more resources to the servers because basic tasks shouldn't feel slow. Anything graphics-heavy is rough too — Google Maps, websites with a lot of animations, anything with heavy visuals just crawls. Printing is another pain point. It's noticeably slower than printing from a local machine and sometimes it just doesn't cooperate.
And the worst part — when the server goes down, everyone stops working. It doesn't happen often, but when it does there's nothing you can do but wait. That's the trade-off of having everything centralized.

Final Thoughts

DaaS makes a lot of sense for most day-to-day work, but it's not perfect. If you need performance or you rely on anything graphics-intensive, you're going to feel the limitations. Still, the convenience and security make it worth it overall.