Windows 365 vs Azure Virtual Desktop: What are the Differences?

Both solutions offer the latest in cloud technology: built-in security, a premium remote work experience, flexibility—and all cost-effectively. Azure Virtual Desktop is a cloud VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) that allows you to fully customize your customer’s infrastructure and manage the resources supporting the virtualized infrastructure. Windows 365 Cloud PC is a fully managed Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solution providing the same great desktop experience as Windows, but without the hassle of managing infrastructure.

Operating Systems Available on Windows 365 Cloud PC and Azure Virtual Desktop
All Microsoft’s remote desktop products require Azure Subscriptions. The difference is that Windows 365 subscriptions reside fully in Microsoft’s Azure subscription and are fully managed by Microsoft at fixed costs. Meanwhile, Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is entirely customer-managed with flexible consumption-based pricing.

Cloud Storage
Focused on ease of use and setup, Windows 365 provides fully managed storage with fixed pricing. Lack of admin access to the VMs can make it challenging to back up, but with Microsoft managing it, the hope is that it will not be required. For AVD, it is all about flexibility with OS Disks, FSLogix profiles, and the ability to easily back up storage and VMs.

Cloud Networking
Windows 365 Enterprise has fully customer-managed networking with flexible routing, IPs and security. Meanwhile, Windows 365 Business will remain fully Microsoft-managed with no flexibility. For AVD, networking flexibility is a requirement with no Microsoft management provided.

User Profile Management
Windows 365 is a single-user managed desktop which will run in Microsoft’s Azure environment. As such, it will have a single user profile and no need for multi-user profile management. In Azure Virtual Desktop, FSLogix is a profile container holding user profiles in a Virtual Hard Disk v2(VHDX) file. When the user signs in to Azure Remote Desktop FSLogix redirects to the data and settings in the container and the virtual drive is mounted to transparently integrate into the virtual desktop environment. In pooled multi-user AVD deployments FSLogix is mandatory to manage the individual user profiles in the pool. In Single user AVD instances, FSLogix is optional and while it is not required it does provide additional portability.

User Identity and Accessibility
In Windows 365 business, only Active Directory (AD) Join will be available, while in enterprise Hybrid AD Join will be required. There is no AD Domain Services support for either type of Windows 365 Subscription. With Azure Virtual Desktop, AD Domain Services is required and both Windows AD and Azure AD DS are supported. Native Azure AD join is currently on the road map for the upcoming release.