Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop Migration: A Step-by-Step Plan

By David, 2026-09-23

Most teams reading this have already had the meeting. A Citrix renewal quote arrived, someone asked what Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) would cost instead, and now the question is no longer whether to move but how. This guide is the how: a step-by-step plan for a Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop migration, from choosing the target to switching off the last Delivery Controller.

If you're still weighing the two platforms, start with our Azure Virtual Desktop vs Citrix comparison. This article doesn't repeat it. It assumes the destination is AVD and covers the route.

The short version: don't convert your Citrix estate. Rebuild it on AVD from clean images, start users on fresh FSLogix profiles, prove everything on a pilot, and move users in department waves while Citrix is still there to fall back to. Most of the calendar goes on inventory, apps and profiles, not on standing up AVD.

You don't have to run every step yourself. Atlas AVD consulting can help at any point along this path: a one-off assessment before your renewal, a design review of the plan you already have, hands-on help with the pilot, rescuing a migration that has stalled mid-wave, or tuning the new environment after cutover. Each step below says where that help fits.

Why Citrix customers are re-planning now

The facts, with dates and sources, because there is a lot of rumor around this topic:

What that means in practice:

• Citrix is now subscription-first. A perpetual estate that used to cost only maintenance each year now meets a subscription conversation at renewal, often with minimum quantities attached.
• The renewal is the forcing event. For most teams the real deadline is whichever comes first: the Citrix subscription term, the end of maintenance on what you own, NetScaler appliance support, or the next hypervisor and hardware refresh. Write all of those dates down.
• Plan backwards from the earliest date. A migration that starts planning two or three quarters ahead finishes on its own schedule. One that starts a month before the renewal usually ends with another year of Citrix anyway.

We won't quote anyone's renewal price here, because quotes vary by estate and agreement. Staying on Citrix is a legitimate outcome, and for some estates it's the right one. The rest of this guide is for the teams that have decided to move.

Where consulting helps: an AVD Assessment turns those renewal dates into a timeline and a business case before you sign anything.

Step 1: Decide the target

There are two sensible destinations, and choosing early saves months of rework.

Option A: Full Azure Virtual Desktop. Microsoft runs the broker, gateway and web access. Your session hosts run in your own Azure subscription, users connect with Windows App, and there is no third-party VDI license on top of Azure. This is where most Citrix migrations end up, and it's what the rest of this guide plans for.

Option B: Citrix DaaS on Azure, for a transition period. Microsoft names Citrix as one of the Azure Virtual Desktop Approved Providers allowed to deliver Windows Enterprise multi-session. In this model the desktops move to Azure first while Citrix stays the delivery layer: users keep Citrix Workspace app and HDX, and your Citrix admins keep the consoles they know. You still pay for a Citrix subscription on top of Azure, so treat it as a bridge with an end date, not a destination.

Option B makes sense when:

• A hardware or data center exit is due before you can retrain users and re-test every app on a new client.
• A small group depends on HDX features you haven't yet validated on RDP, such as specialist graphics workloads.
• Your Citrix term runs on for a while anyway, and moving compute first spreads the work out.

Option A makes sense when the renewal is the reason you're moving: paying for Citrix on top of Azure keeps the cost you're trying to remove. Many teams do both in sequence: move the bulk of users straight to AVD and keep a small Citrix-on-Azure group until its last apps are proven.

Where consulting helps: this decision is a good fit for a short strategy call. Bring your user counts, your renewal dates and your hardest apps.

Step 2: Inventory what you actually run

The most common reason a VDI migration goes badly is that the team migrated what they thought they ran. Citrix Studio (or Web Studio in Citrix Cloud) and Director hold most of the answers, so export before you plan.

Delivery groups and machine catalogs

• Every delivery group: desktops or apps, the users and groups assigned to it, and its power management and autoscale settings.
• Every machine catalog: single-session or multi-session (Server OS or desktop OS VDAs), random or static, and whether it's provisioned with Machine Creation Services (MCS), Provisioning Services (PVS) or manually.
• Real concurrency, not entitled users. Peak concurrent sessions per delivery group over a normal month is the number your AVD sizing is built on.
• Delivery groups and catalogs nobody uses. Long-lived Citrix sites accumulate them, and the cheapest one to migrate is the one you retire.

Published applications

• Every published app with its delivery group, assignments and command line. Use Director or Monitor launch data to find which apps are really used and by whom.
• Apps that depend on being on a Server OS VDA, on a specific hostname, or on a license dongle or MAC address. Pooled AVD hosts are rebuilt from images, so anything bound to a machine identity needs a plan.
• Apps delivered with Citrix App Layering. List each layer and decide per app: install it in the image, deliver it at deploy time with WinGet, or repackage it for App Attach.

Policies

• Export your Citrix policies and note what each one actually controls: clipboard, client drives, USB, printing, session limits, bandwidth and graphics settings. Most become host pool RDP properties, Group Policy or Intune settings on AVD.
• Workspace Environment Management (WEM) configuration, if you use it: drive maps, printer maps, environment settings and conditions.

StoreFront, Gateway and sign-in

• Every StoreFront store, how users reach it (internal, through Citrix Gateway on NetScaler, or Citrix Workspace in the cloud), and the sign-in methods in use, including smart cards and the Federated Authentication Service (FAS).
• Every bookmark, shortcut, kiosk and intranet link that points at StoreFront. Each one needs a replacement.

Profile management (UPM to FSLogix)

• Citrix Profile Management settings: where profiles are stored, folder redirection, exclusions, and profile streaming.
• Average and worst-case profile sizes. These set your FSLogix storage design.
• Which app settings users would genuinely miss. Those get re-applied by policy on AVD (see Step 4).

Endpoints, identity, network and peripherals

• What users connect from. Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and web browsers are all covered by Windows App. Thin clients built around Citrix Workspace app need checking model by model with the vendor, and some will need replacing.
• Whether desktops depend on on-premises Active Directory, and where the apps' back ends live. A desktop in Azure talking to a database that stays in your data center adds latency to every query.
• Scanners, signature pads, dictation devices, label and receipt printers, smart card readers, webcams and headsets, per department. This list is what your pilot tests against.

Where consulting helps: discovery is the most time-consuming step and the easiest to hand off. An AVD Assessment can run the inventory with your team and hand back a migration-ready list.

Step 3: Map Citrix concepts to AVD

Most Citrix concepts have a direct AVD equivalent. A few don't, and those are where planning effort goes. This table maps concepts only. For which platform does each one better, see the comparison page.

A licensing note on Server OS VDAs. If today's published apps run on Windows Server, check the licensing before you copy that design. On AVD, Windows 11 Enterprise multi-session session hosts are covered by eligible Microsoft 365 and Windows licenses many organizations already own, such as Microsoft 365 E3, E5, F3 or Business Premium. Windows Server session hosts still need RDS CALs with Software Assurance or RDS User Subscription Licenses. Moving server-based apps to Windows 11 multi-session is often part of the savings, but test each app first, because some installers refuse a multi-session OS. Windows 11 Multi-Session vs Windows Server covers when Windows Server is still the better host.

Where consulting helps: a design review of your concept map catches the gaps (a FAS dependency, a PVS-only workflow, a policy nobody documented) while they're still cheap to fix.

Step 4: A phased cutover, with a pilot checklist

Run the migration in four phases. The rule that makes it safe: Citrix stays fully available to every user until their wave has signed off.

Phase 0: Landing zone (two to four weeks)

Build the AVD side before anyone moves:

• Networking to wherever your apps live (VPN or ExpressRoute), DNS, and the region choice from your inventory.
• Identity: AD DS, hybrid, or Microsoft Entra join for the session hosts.
• FSLogix storage on Azure Files or Azure NetApp Files, with share permissions and antivirus exclusions set. Our FSLogix optimization guide covers the details.
• A first golden image, a pooled host pool, and monitoring wired to Log Analytics.

Phase 1: Pilot (two to four weeks)

Start with IT and one friendly department whose apps and peripherals are representative. Write the success criteria down before the pilot starts.

Pilot checklist:

• Logon time is at or below what users get on Citrix today, measured, not guessed.
• Every app on the department's list launches and works, including printing from inside each app.
• A Teams call with video and screen sharing runs optimized (see Step 5).
• Every printer model the department uses prints correctly.
• Every peripheral on the inventory list works: scanners, signature pads, smart card readers, headsets.
• Multi-monitor layouts, clipboard and file transfer behave the way your policies say they should.
• Users can reach the desktop from every endpoint type they use, including home devices.
• Reconnects after a network drop or sleep return users to their session.
• The helpdesk has a runbook for the five most common tickets.
• The rollback steps below have been tested once with a real user.

AVD Insights shows logon duration per phase, so you can see whether a slow logon is the profile, Group Policy or the shell. If logons are slow, our FSLogix troubleshooting guide is a good place to start.

Phase 2: Department waves

Order the waves from simplest to hardest: task workers on a small app set first, and departments with specialist apps or peripherals last. Each wave follows the same cycle:

1. Two weeks out, confirm the wave's apps are in the image or catalog and their peripherals passed the pilot.
2. Move profile data. The safest pattern is a fresh FSLogix profile: move documents through OneDrive Known Folder Move and re-apply the app settings that matter by policy. Converting UPM profiles tends to carry years of bloat and corruption across.
3. Assign the wave's groups to the AVD application groups and send users the Windows App setup instructions. Citrix Workspace app can stay installed.
4. Run a week or two of hypercare with a named contact for the wave.
5. Sign off, then remove the wave's Citrix delivery group assignments.

Rollback plan

Write it down before Phase 1, not during an incident:

• Trigger. Agree in advance what forces a rollback, such as a blocking app failure or logon times over a set threshold for a set number of users.
• Mechanism. Rolling back is an assignment change. Remove the wave's groups from the AVD application group and restore their Citrix delivery group assignment. Users open Citrix Workspace app, which is still installed.
• Capacity. Keep enough Citrix capacity for the largest wave in flight. Don't shrink the Citrix site until the wave after has signed off.
• Data. Profile moves are one-way. Anything a user changed only inside their AVD profile won't be in their Citrix profile, which is another reason documents belong in OneDrive.

Phase 3: Decommission

Once the last wave signs off, remove the remaining delivery groups and catalogs. Keep a backup of the site configuration and your final master images for an agreed period. Then time the end of the Citrix subscription, NetScaler appliances, hypervisor hosts and storage to the dates you wrote down at the start.

Where consulting helps: this is where most teams want a second pair of hands. Consulting can stand up the landing zone and pilot with an AVD QuickStart, run individual waves with your team, or step in when a wave has stalled and users are waiting.

Step 5: User experience parity

Users judge the migration in the first ten minutes of their first Monday. These are the areas to test hardest.

HDX vs RDP Shortpath. HDX has a long reputation for graphics-heavy and media-heavy work, and the comparison page covers that trade-off. For the migration, the practical step is to turn on RDP Shortpath, which carries sessions over UDP for lower latency, and then measure your real workloads in the pilot. Most office workloads are fine. Test CAD, imaging and video-editing users on GPU-enabled hosts before you commit them to a wave.

Teams optimization. Citrix's HDX optimization for Teams doesn't carry over, so set up the AVD equivalent. Use the new Teams app: Microsoft's support for classic Teams in VDI ended on 1 October 2026. On the session hosts, set the IsWVDEnvironment registry key, install the WebRTC Redirector Service, and install Teams per machine on pooled hosts. Then confirm Teams reports AVD SlimCore Media Optimized or AVD Media Optimized. Our Teams on Azure Virtual Desktop guide walks through it.

Printing. The Citrix Universal Print Driver and Universal Print Server don't come with you. On AVD the options are RDP printer redirection, Universal Print, a print server, or direct-IP printers installed on the session hosts. Printing in Azure Virtual Desktop without a print server compares them. Test every printer model on your inventory list.

Peripherals and USB. AVD redirects most devices through high-level redirection: printers, drives, cameras, audio, smart cards and the clipboard. Devices outside those categories need opaque low-level USB redirection, enabled on both the client and the session host. Scanners, signature pads and dictation devices are the usual suspects. Set redirection per host pool with RDP properties to match what your Citrix policies allowed.

Sign-in. If you use FAS or smart cards with Citrix today, plan single sign-on with Microsoft Entra ID early. A second password prompt at the desktop is the complaint users notice first.

The top 10 Azure Virtual Desktop mistakes covers the configuration problems that most often show up as "AVD is slow".

Where consulting helps: an Optimization Engagement is built for this: logon performance, FSLogix tuning and density, during the pilot or after the last wave.

Step 6: Build the cost model, before and after

Build the model before the renewal meeting, from the concurrency you measured in Step 2.

Before (what Citrix costs you today)

• The Citrix subscription or maintenance, at the quantity you'd have to renew.
• NetScaler appliances or licenses, and their support.
• Hypervisor licensing, hosts, storage and the hardware refresh they're heading for.
• Windows Server licenses and RDS CALs for Server OS VDAs.
• The admin time spent patching controllers, StoreFront, PVS servers and Gateways.

After (what AVD costs)

• Azure compute for session hosts, paid by the hour, so autoscaling shuts down hosts nobody is using.
• Storage for FSLogix profiles and images, and networking.
• Licensing: user access usually comes with Microsoft 365 or Windows licenses you may already own. There's no per-user broker license.
• A management layer, if you use one, and your team's time.

The AVD cost calculator models the after column for your headcount and hours. Cut Idle AVD Compute: Our Cost Model Shows Up to 60% covers the levers, and Reserved Instances vs Savings Plans on AVD covers commitment discounts for the hosts that run all day. For density and VM sizes, see our AVD sizing guide. Treat your first density figure as a hypothesis, and let the pilot's CPU, memory and logon data confirm it before the big waves.

Where consulting helps: the AVD Assessment includes a full cost and waste analysis, so the model your finance team sees is built from your data, not a vendor's rule of thumb.

Where Atlas AVD fits

To be clear about what Atlas AVD doesn't do: it doesn't import Citrix delivery groups or machine catalogs. No tool converts a Citrix site into AVD without rebuilding, and the inventory and app decisions above are still yours. What Atlas AVD removes is most of the build-and-operate work on the AVD side, which is where a migration's weeks go once the decisions are made.

Imaging. Customize a VM, then capture it from Imaging into an Azure Compute Gallery image version. The capture can generalize with Sysprep, install the AVD agent and pre-install FSLogix, and you choose the replication regions as part of the build (Full vs Shallow replication explains that choice). When a new version is published, the Outdated Image view lists the hosts still on an older image. From there you can move them with Rolling Replace (Zero Downtime) or a Scheduled Re-Image, which is the closest thing to a PVS vDisk update without streaming.

Scaling. Each host pool's Scaling & Intelligence settings cover Start VM on Connect, a minimum number of idle hosts, and weekday schedules. DrainGuard drains a host and re-checks the live session count before any automated shutdown, re-image or replacement, so moving hosts onto a new image never logs anyone off. Adaptive Density tunes users per host from measured usage once the waves are live.

App catalog. The Application Catalog sets which WinGet apps each host pool installs. It inherits from global to tenant to host pool, so a common baseline is defined once and department apps are added per pool, much like apps assigned per delivery group. Winget History shows what Winget-AutoUpdate patched on each host, and the WinGet integration post goes deeper. For apps you repackage, Atlas also keeps a registry of your App Attach packages.

Profiles. FSLogix is configured per host pool: storage location, size limit, profile type and the related settings, pushed to every session host. Atlas can create the storage account and file share for you. FSLogix Operations then shows host coverage, health and capacity across pools, which is the view you want open on the first Monday of each wave.

Pilot evidence. With AVD Insights connected, the Logon Breakdown on the Analytics Experience tab shows logon time by phase, median and 95th percentile: the numbers your pilot checklist needs. The host pool settings also include an Optimize Teams switch and an option to install the WebRTC Redirector Service on new hosts, which takes two of the Teams steps off the checklist. For printing, Atlas Spool assigns direct-IP printers to pools, hosts, users or groups with no print server.

Atlas AVD runs in your own Azure tenant (why that matters), and a first host pool can be up quickly: see How to Deploy AVD in Under 30 Minutes. Moving off VMware Horizon as well? The Horizon to AVD migration guide follows the same plan.

Atlas AVD consulting: start wherever you are

You don't have to hand over the whole migration to get expert help, and you don't have to start at the beginning. Atlas AVD consulting can step in at any point along the path, for one step or for all of them. Organizations moving off Citrix, VMware Horizon or legacy RDS are one of the core groups the practice works with.

You work directly with Atlas AVD's founder: more than 20 years in remote desktop, from PC Anywhere through RDS and Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop, and AZ-140 certified. Consulting is a separate engagement from the platform, and engagements receive preferential pricing on Atlas AVD if you choose to run your new environment on it.

Planning a move off Citrix, or partway through one? Book a 30-minute call and we'll look at your renewal dates, delivery groups and apps, and tell you where help would save the most time.

Book a Citrix migration call or see the consulting packages.

FAQ

How long does a Citrix to Azure Virtual Desktop migration take? It depends on the number of delivery groups, apps and peripherals more than on user count. The landing zone and pilot usually take one to two months together, and each department wave takes a few weeks including hypercare. Inventory and app packaging take most of the calendar.

Can Citrix and AVD run side by side? Yes, and they should during the migration. Users keep their Citrix delivery group assignment until their AVD wave signs off, and Citrix Workspace app and Windows App can be installed on the same device. That overlap is your rollback plan.

Can I keep HDX and still move to Azure? Yes. Citrix DaaS can deliver Windows Enterprise multi-session desktops on Azure, so users keep Citrix Workspace app and HDX while the desktops move. You keep paying for Citrix on top of Azure, so most teams use it as a transition for specific groups rather than the end state.

What replaces PVS and MCS? Image versions in an Azure Compute Gallery. You build a new image version, then re-image or replace session hosts from it after draining them. There's no disk streaming: each session host has its own managed disk.

Do Citrix UPM profiles migrate to FSLogix? Not well. Converting profiles tends to carry corruption and bloat across. Start users on fresh FSLogix profiles, move documents through OneDrive, and re-apply the settings that matter by policy.

Does Atlas AVD migrate Citrix for me? Not automatically. No tool converts a Citrix site without rebuilding it. Atlas AVD automates the AVD side: images, host pools, scaling, apps and profiles. Atlas AVD consulting can plan and run the migration itself with you.

Can Atlas AVD consulting help with just one part of the migration? Yes. You can bring consulting in for a single step, such as the assessment before your renewal, a review of your plan, the pilot, a stalled wave, or tuning after cutover, and run the rest yourself.

Do I need to buy Atlas AVD to use Atlas AVD consulting? No. Consulting engagements stand on their own. If you then choose to run your new environment on Atlas AVD, consulting customers receive preferential pricing.

Where can I compare the two platforms feature by feature? On the Azure Virtual Desktop vs Citrix comparison page.

Licensing and corporate events are as reported in the sources linked above, with the dates shown. Microsoft product details are taken from Microsoft Learn as of October 2026. Check current terms with Cloud Software Group and Microsoft before you make a renewal decision.