Termidesk Study: The Russian VDI Market Remains Heterogeneous, but Customer Requirements Are Becoming Increasingly Mature

Termidesk (part of Astra Group) has presented the results of a market study on virtual workplaces (VDI), terminal solutions, and remote access. 262 market representatives took part in the survey. The study was conducted from March to May 2026 and covered organizations from IT, the public sector, the financial industry, government, education, fuel and energy, manufacturing, medicine, and other segments.

The main conclusion of the study is that there is no single dominant remote access model in the Russian market. Organizations use different scenarios depending on the industry, scale, security requirements, and current state of infrastructure. Remote access to physical workstations is used by 56% of respondents, VDI desktops by 50%, desktops on a terminal server by 46%, and application publishing on a terminal server by 43%. Moreover, more than half of the survey participants combine several models.

The study also shows that VDI and remote access usage scenarios vary significantly by industry. In the financial sector, mature centralized implementations based on corporate VDI platforms, local deployment, thin clients, and increased requirements for infrastructure resilience are more common.

In the government sector, public organizations, and education, a significant portion of customers are still selecting a target platform, so remote access to physical workstations is more often retained here as a transitional or mixed scenario. For regulated and socially significant industries — government, medicine, education, and fuel and energy — VDI technologies and terminal access are more often associated with tasks of security, import substitution, centralized workplace management, and support for Russian operating systems. In medicine, government, education, public organizations, and the financial sector, the importance of applied user scenarios, particularly peripheral device management, is also higher.

A separate differentiating factor is the scale of implementation. In organizations with up to 500 remote workplace users, remote access to physical workstations is more common: such a scenario is easier to use as a quick way to connect employees without restructuring the entire infrastructure. In the segment of 5,000 users and above, on the contrary, centralized models are more noticeable: VDI, application publishing, and terminal desktops are used more often. Large-scale implementations place more detailed demands on platforms – stable operation over weak communication channels, support for multiple monitors, video conferencing, thin clients, Kerberos authentication, and user environment management. This shows that as the number of users grows, VDI is transforming from a remote access tool into a full-fledged infrastructure platform.

Import substitution remains one of the key factors in market development. Among users of foreign solutions, 18% are already switching to new platforms, and another 35% are planning migration. Among the main reasons for the transition were security requirements, the impossibility of updating foreign products, and changes in licensing terms. At the same time, VDI migration is rarely limited to just replacing the platform: for many organizations, it affects the hypervisor, operating systems, user directories, authentication tools, network infrastructure, and peripheral equipment.

"The VDI market in Russia cannot be described by a single universal model. Customers are simultaneously solving problems of remote access, security, import substitution, and workplace management. Therefore, VDI is increasingly perceived not as a separate connection tool, but as part of the corporate infrastructure," noted Denis Mukhin, Business Development Director at Termidesk.

Local deployment remains the basic model for most organizations: it was chosen by 82% of respondents. Hybrid and cloud scenarios are present but occupy a smaller share, 11% and 7% respectively. The report emphasizes that this is not due to a lack of interest in the cloud, but to the specifics of industries, regulatory requirements, and infrastructure control tasks.

Requirements for VDI solutions are becoming increasingly applied. For 72% of respondents, user profile support is important, for 51% multi-factor authentication, and for 45% single sign-on. A separate trend is the formation of a mixed workplace environment. Windows remains the most common OS for remote workplaces: it was indicated by 89% of respondents. At the same time, Russian Linux distributions are already found in 58% of questionnaires, especially in government, public organizations, medicine, education, and fuel and energy. This increases the importance of supporting different operating systems within a single VDI infrastructure.

According to Uveon-Cloud Technologies, a quarter of survey participants are still at the solution selection stage. This makes the market open to competition: customers continue to compare platforms, clarifying requirements for security, user experience, peripheral support, operating systems, hypervisors, and authentication tools. At the same time, the most mature and demanding demand is formed by large-scale implementations: it is they who set benchmarks for functionality, reliability, and integration of VDI with other elements of the corporate IT infrastructure.

About the Study

The study was conducted via an online survey from March 30 to May 28, 2026. 262 respondents took part. The survey was distributed through specialized industry Telegram channels and the personal account of users of Astra Group solutions.