Parallels RAS Educational Services Reviews & Insights

Score7 out of 10

263 Reviews and Ratings

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Parallels RAS

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Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Parallels Remote Application Server (Parallels RAS) are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Flexibility in User Management: Users have appreciated the system's ease of adding and removing users for project assignments, making transitions between projects smooth and efficient. The flexibility allows for seamless adjustments to team compositions and roles as needed.

Security Effectiveness: Customers have commended the system for its effectiveness in protecting organizational information, providing a secure environment for data. This robust security measure instills confidence in users regarding the safety of sensitive company data.

Enhanced Operational Efficiency: Reviewers highlighted the straightforward infrastructure scaling process as user-friendly, improving overall operational efficiency. The simplified scaling procedures contribute to a more streamlined and productive workflow within organizations.

Parallels RAS Reviews

12 Reviews

Educational ServicesHigher Education3Education Management9

Parallels delivers on our remote access needs

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

April 24, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Remote access to legacy server based applications is a real challenge that we were able to securely address using Parallels Remote Application Server (Parallels RAS). The performance was great and our user base appreciates the ease of use. For the investment, Parallels has completely met our needs and we would enthusiastically recommend Parallels for any organization who needs to securely provide remote access to applications. We have also used Parallels Remote Applications Server (Parrallels RAS) to run Windows based apps on Apple laptops.

Pros

allows remote access to legacy applications
allows access to applications built for one operating system from a different operating system
Increases performance for applications which struggle to perform properly over network hops

Cons

Parallels Remote Application Servers (Parallels RAS) does what we need in the way we need it so we see no need for improvement.

Likelihood to Recommend

Parallels excels at [providing remote access to legacy applications. We have not used it in any other way so I cannot comment as to areas it is not well suited for,

andrew knechel

Director of Technology in Information Technology at Franklin Township Board of Education (Education Management, 501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Great Remote Access solution.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

July 3, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Parallels RAS to allow our staff to access school resources from home safely and securely. We replaced our outdated Microsoft Remote Desktop solution with Parallels RAS, which has allowed us to offer remote desktop services to our teachers in the safest way possible, no matter what hardware they are using. Using the built-in MFA functionality, we are able to further secure the solution, affording us a higher level of confidence that our infrastructure is safe.

Pros

Publishing resources.
Multi Factor Authentication.
Ease of navigation for users.
App stability.

Cons

nothing really.

Likelihood to Recommend

Scenarios where time is a factor in having a solution in place and up and running safely and securely. Where there are older devices that ordinarily wouldn't be up to the task of running modern apps and services. Where users need to work away from the network, and security is a concern.

Chris Little

IT Manager in Information Technology at West Derby School (Education Management, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Falling behind the competition

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

March 26, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The goal with Parallels Remote Application Server was to make a few specific Windows applications available remotely and in emergencies while a user's computer was being repaired or replaced. We were drawn to it because of how happy we were with their desktop offerings.

Pros

Remote access
Intuitive
Affordable

Cons

Complex
Does not play nicely on all cloud platforms
Difficult to maintain

Likelihood to Recommend

This product would be better suited for medium to large size organizations with the infrastructure and I.T. staff needed to properly install and maintain it. It is also better suited to organizations wishing to offer more than just a couple of applications. Smaller organizations with limited cloud operations and staffing should seek out other solutions.

Verified User

Director in Information Technology (Higher Education company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Parallels Remote Application Access

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 21, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

- We used Parallels to run applications/software for MAC users through AppsAnyWhere. - Also, parallels were used to access Desktops in our University’s labs. - One of the main problems that we faced was adding new Desktops. It caused to get all the other available Desktops/labs on AppsAnywhere to be down.

Pros

Giving access to different Applications and software
Giving access to Labs PCs/Desktops
Running windows on MAC

Cons

The connection is sometimes slow and even disappears
Sometimes unable to connect to some remote desktops

Likelihood to Recommend

Allowing access to different windows Applications and software via individual devices from a shared server. And provide secure access to labs outside the campus for the students’ use. Through the pandemic, the students in our University were able to access all the needed software without the need to come on Campus. Also, some dedicated Desktops were used for Researches to complete their thesis.

Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology (Education Management company, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Good to Go Software for Quick Conversion During Pandamic

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 2, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's a good product to use the Applications that are compatible with the Mac os X Platform and we have extensively used it during Pandemic especially provisioning programs like Rhino and ArcGIS and many other applications.

Pros

Great Flexiblity
Serving other Platfrom Centrally
Easy Management especially in Campus and from Off-Campus ever after Pandemic as we manage classroom and Lab spaces to maintain social distancing,

Cons

Faster Acceablity
Less Bandwidth Connection usage
maintaining constant sandbox connection for longer periods (sometimes it will time out earlier than specified and students loos the connectivity to the server)

Likelihood to Recommend

Great Product to use for centrally hosted applications to serve multiple platforms we greatly used it during Pandemic and this gave us greater flexibility to go on online mode at the start of the pandemic. and still using even after Face 2 Face conversion to access the lab computers remotely to maintain the social distancing.

Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology (Education Management company, 5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Parallels Remote Applications and Desktops

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

May 4, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

During the Covid-19 pandemic lock down our users had to go offsite and continue their studies and work remotely. We use Parallels [Remote Application Server]:
To delivery existing high specification Windows workstations to users off site (who have any device, basic PC, MacOS, Chromebook etc.)
To expand and automate delivery and access to software on the AppsAnywhere hub offsite using virtual servers to users with any device.

Pros

Automate remote connection to a computer from any device
Automate remote applications from any device
Integrates with AppsAnywhere application streaming

Cons

Application servers needed complex firewall settings access to license servers
Requires some Microsoft RDP licensing but little guidance offered
On premise version takes considerable IT resources to set up, allow 3 months

Likelihood to Recommend

[Parallels Remote Application Server is] suitable for integration with AppsAnywhere application streaming, especially using existing workstations, when users are using their own devices to connect to any workstation in a pool.
Not suitable for booking the same specific workstation each time[.]

Verified User

Professional in Information Technology (Higher Education company, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Parallels RAS, simple, powerful, great value

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 11, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Student Health and Counseling Services, a department of Student Affairs at UC Davis, uses Parallels RAS to deliver a wide range of windows applications both to remote users and local users on other platforms. This software seamlessly allows us to provide applications to macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows users with native clients that add functionality.

Pros

Keyboard input detection is vital on iOS, where users are used to keyboard input bringing the keyboard up automatically.
Management of the RAS setup is extremely intuitive and works well.
Permission controls in the system are dynamic allowing several different policies to be applied depending on physical location, group membership, etc.

Cons

Remote install is one of the coolest features, but sometimes doesn't play well with domain policies such as recommended CIS Baselines in different VLAN zones.
Would be nice if seamless apps showed up as dock icons in macOS the way Parallels for Desktop does.

Likelihood to Recommend

It's affordable, but capable. If you are on a budget and can't afford more expensive options, Parallels is great for hosting windows applications and seamlessly integrating them on any platform.

Bret Benziger

Systems Administrator in Information Technology at University of California Davis (Higher Education, 10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Fills a critical gap for our Mac based organization

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 7, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are a mostly Mac (95%) based educational organization, which generally works very well for us. Unfortunately, there are a few areas such as finance where Windows-only applications are required. We use Parallels Remote Application Server to publish these applications needed for use by our users.
This includes:
A core piece of financial software, which was initially terminal access, then switched to an Internet Explorer only Active-X based solution. We were able to transition our users to an application published by Parallels Server.
Our library management software is also PC only. Initially, we deployed standalone Windows machines to run this software, but as they aged out, we migrated them to the Parallels client running the library application. As a positive side effect, the fact that the app was running on a server in the data center right next to the core database server made the app faster for our users.
Our psychology team has also dealt with several very custom pieces of software for diagnosing students that were PC only. Once again, we were able to use Parallels Remote Application Server to allow them to run on their Macs.
There have been some other pieces of software over the years that we also ran via Parallels, which have, thankfully, either started providing a Mac version or migrated to a standards-compliant web application.
We have been delighted with Parallels Remote Application Server as a solution to help us deal with this kind of issue. It has allowed us to provide critical applications as needed without fundamentally having to change our deployments.

Pros

Allows us to run Windows-only applications on our Macs
The administrative console is easy to use and understand
Ability to map local folders and printers to the remote server for use

Cons

On the client-side, it can be challenging to get users to understand what's happening - that they're running their apps on another computer and need to log off when they're done.
There is a nice feature to map your Mac printers to the Windows environment - but in successive versions of macOS and Parallels Remote Application Server the features seem to alternate between functional and not; we ended up installing all the printers on the server for users.

Likelihood to Recommend

Parallels Remote Application Server works very well to provide Windows-only applications to our Mac users. In our case, we've used it for finance and library software mainly, but over the years, it has also helped fill in with apps or websites that didn't work on the Mac.
One thing to note: since multiple users will be using the server, you need to make sure RAM, hard drive and CPU are adequate. I probably wouldn't recommend running hefty applications like Photoshop or 3D stuff through this solution.

Jeff Dyck

Coordinator for end user deployment, web development, archives in Information Technology at Consiel Scolaire Francophone de la Columbie-Britannique (Education Management, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile

A good solution for school districts

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 26, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Parallels RAS is being used for the deployment and access to our district's ERP system. In addition, we are publishing software for our School Psychologists requiring hardware dongles to non-compatible machines, and various home-grown solutions. Clients are using a mix of Mac & Windows devices, with speed that was not possible before when running fat clients on the machines.

Pros

Administration.
Remote Access.

Cons

Connection errors when clients switch network connections.

Likelihood to Recommend

Parallels Remote Application Server is well suited for deploying thick client applications that are not well suited for working over a LAN or WAN due to latency or large data utilization. It also is extremely useful when you need to access a Windows application from a non-windows device (such as Mac, ChromeOS, or tablets).

Joel Menezes

Systems Analyst/Programmer in Information Technology at Cajon Valley Union School District (Education Management, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

Parallels RAS--an unparalleled experience!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

February 4, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The initial booting of a school VDI system stemmed from concerns raised by our finance department. Our accounts people were troubled by thoughts of what to do should adverse weather hamper the ability of staff to access local systems in the event of travel disruption. Following the successful implementation of limited application publishing for mainly admin staff, the new plan is to open the system up to our Chromebook user base and allow Windows apps to run on non-Windows based systems.

Pros

Provides a simple way to access virtual Windows remote desktop securely
Allows the use of Windows applications on non-Windows systems

Cons

Pricing is expensive
The addition of connectivity to cloud-based VMs would help (such as Azure, AWS, etc)

Likelihood to Recommend

It's almost a struggle to describe just how wonderfully useful Parallels Remote Application Server is. My favourite aspect is the way you can use Windows-specific apps regardless of the client you find yourself on; be it Mac, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS or Android. If you have software that isn't web-based yet you need your traveling staff to access it, Parallels Remote Application Server is the way to go!
The only problem I see is scalability. Things start to get very expensive as you add additional licenses and the infrastructure needed to run the VMs.

Verified User

Technician in Information Technology (Education Management company, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

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Fills a critical gap for our Mac based organization

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 7, 2020

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are a mostly Mac (95%) based educational organization, which generally works very well for us. Unfortunately, there are a few areas such as finance where Windows-only applications are required. We use Parallels Remote Application Server to publish these applications needed for use by our users.
This includes:
A core piece of financial software, which was initially terminal access, then switched to an Internet Explorer only Active-X based solution. We were able to transition our users to an application published by Parallels Server.
Our library management software is also PC only. Initially, we deployed standalone Windows machines to run this software, but as they aged out, we migrated them to the Parallels client running the library application. As a positive side effect, the fact that the app was running on a server in the data center right next to the core database server made the app faster for our users.
Our psychology team has also dealt with several very custom pieces of software for diagnosing students that were PC only. Once again, we were able to use Parallels Remote Application Server to allow them to run on their Macs.
There have been some other pieces of software over the years that we also ran via Parallels, which have, thankfully, either started providing a Mac version or migrated to a standards-compliant web application.
We have been delighted with Parallels Remote Application Server as a solution to help us deal with this kind of issue. It has allowed us to provide critical applications as needed without fundamentally having to change our deployments.

Pros

Allows us to run Windows-only applications on our Macs
The administrative console is easy to use and understand
Ability to map local folders and printers to the remote server for use

Cons

On the client-side, it can be challenging to get users to understand what's happening - that they're running their apps on another computer and need to log off when they're done.
There is a nice feature to map your Mac printers to the Windows environment - but in successive versions of macOS and Parallels Remote Application Server the features seem to alternate between functional and not; we ended up installing all the printers on the server for users.

Likelihood to Recommend

Parallels Remote Application Server works very well to provide Windows-only applications to our Mac users. In our case, we've used it for finance and library software mainly, but over the years, it has also helped fill in with apps or websites that didn't work on the Mac.
One thing to note: since multiple users will be using the server, you need to make sure RAM, hard drive and CPU are adequate. I probably wouldn't recommend running hefty applications like Photoshop or 3D stuff through this solution.

Jeff Dyck

Coordinator for end user deployment, web development, archives in Information Technology at Consiel Scolaire Francophone de la Columbie-Britannique (Education Management, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile