Aug 12 2026
This is a buyer's guide for ISVs - software development companies that build Windows applications and sell them to business customers - not for internal IT teams handing laptops to employees. That distinction shaped every judgment below. We evaluated each platform against three ISV-specific criteria, in order of weight.
First, zero code changes required: can an ISV publish an existing Windows application without rewriting, repackaging, or porting it? App publishing should be a distribution decision, not a re-engineering project. Second, ISV-native licensing: does the licensing model reflect how ISVs actually sell - per-user, per-seat, or concurrent - rather than forcing the over-licensing that corporate VDI cost structures impose? Third, clean remote delivery: does the platform avoid the perennial pain points - slow logon sequences, printing failures, session instability - that dog general-purpose VDI tools when they're bent toward ISV use.
We also weighed two secondary factors: deployment flexibility (on-premises, cloud, or hybrid) and setup effort. A quick technical note on terminology: most platforms here use session-based application delivery, where multiple users share published applications on a server, which is lighter than full VDI (a virtual desktop per user separating the desktop environment from the physical device). For ISVs publishing a single application - often as a path toward SaaS-like delivery without rewriting the product - session-based publishing is usually the leaner, cheaper fit.
Each of the platforms below earns its place by addressing at least one of the three ISV criteria - zero code changes, ISV-native licensing, or clean remote delivery. GO-Global leads because it's the only option here engineered specifically for ISV app delivery rather than adapted from corporate virtualization. The rest follow, each strong in a defined niche. Where you land depends on your budget, your customers' devices, and how much infrastructure you want to own.
GO-Global by GraphOn is the only platform in this roundup built exclusively for independent software vendors rather than repurposed from corporate desktop virtualization. Its entire premise is straightforward: take the Windows application you already sell and publish it to customers remotely, as-is.
That "as-is" matters more than it sounds. With Go-Global, there's no porting, repackaging, or refactoring - your existing Windows software runs through session-based delivery without a rewrite, which is what separates app publishing from a multi-year web-app rebuild. GraphOn frames the product as a purpose-built alternative to general-purpose virtualization stacks, and the licensing model reflects that: it's structured around how ISVs sell to their customers, not how enterprises provision employee desktops, which sidesteps the over-licensing that inflates costs on corporate-grade tools like Citrix or RDS.
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Pricing is not publicly listed; it's available on request from the vendor.
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Who it's best for: ISVs delivering B2B Windows applications to customers who want zero-rewrite publishing and a licensing model that matches how they actually sell - the default choice when the primary need is lean application publishing rather than full desktop delivery.
TSplus Remote Access is a lightweight, Windows-based remote access and app publishing tool that has found broad adoption among smaller software vendors and SMB-oriented ISVs. Its appeal is simplicity and price: you can stand up published Windows applications without the infrastructure overhead heavier platforms demand.
It supports both web-based and client-based access, includes basic session management and user access controls, and - thanks to wide SMB uptake - has a healthy pool of community resources and familiarity to draw on. For an ISV publishing a straightforward application to a modest customer base, it removes friction quickly. Entry-level tiers are budget-accessible, though exact figures are best confirmed with the vendor.
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Best for: Smaller ISVs with straightforward delivery needs and tight budgets - a strong starting point, less so a long-term enterprise-scale answer.
Thinfinity Workspace, from Cybele Software, takes an HTML5-first approach: end users reach your Windows applications through any modern browser, with no client install at all. For ISVs marketing to device-agnostic customer bases - some on Windows, some on Mac, some on tablets - that removes a whole layer of onboarding pain.
The platform renders RDP-based connections in-browser and supports web access to both Windows desktops and individual applications. If your core requirement is "our customers should just click a link and be running the app," Thinfinity delivers that cleanly across Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android clients. ISV-specific pricing is available on request.
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Best for: ISVs whose defining need is clientless browser access; less suited to those with heavy concurrent-session or licensing-management demands.
Inuvika OVD Enterprise is an open-standards-based application and desktop delivery platform positioned explicitly as a lower-cost alternative for organizations familiar with the Citrix/RDS paradigm. It runs on a Linux server backend - a notable differentiator from Windows-only stacks - while still delivering published Windows and Linux applications.
For an ISV that already understands the corporate virtualization model and simply wants to cut total cost of ownership without a full platform rethink, Inuvika is a credible move. It offers both web and native client access and is under active commercial development. The trade-off is that it remains a general-purpose delivery platform, not something engineered around the ISV sales motion. Pricing is available on request and positioned below Citrix-tier costs.
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Best for: ISVs already fluent in the Citrix/RDS model who want to reduce cost and are comfortable with Linux-backed infrastructure.
Kasm Workspaces takes a modern, container-based approach: applications and full workspaces stream to the browser, with each session running in its own isolated container. That isolation model is genuinely useful for ISVs serving many customers from shared infrastructure, since it reduces the risk of one tenant's session bleeding into another's.
Kasm ships an active open-source community edition alongside its commercial offering, which appeals to teams that value transparency and want to trial before committing. It supports both Windows and Linux application streaming with a zero-persistent-client delivery story. The catch is architectural: this is a container-centric platform, and getting legacy Windows applications running well through it takes real DevOps investment. A community edition is available, with commercial licensing for enterprise and ISV use on request.
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Best for: Technically sophisticated ISVs whose applications benefit from strong isolation and who have the DevOps capacity to run container infrastructure - not ISVs wanting a low-friction path for legacy Windows apps.
Leostream occupies a slightly different slot in this list: it's primarily a protocol-agnostic connection broker rather than an all-in-one publishing stack. It supports multiple display protocols - RDP, PCoIP, HP RGS, and others - and manages user-to-resource assignment across mixed cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments, integrating with numerous hypervisors and cloud providers.
For an ISV with sprawling or evolving infrastructure - some workloads in the cloud, some still on-premises, protocols in flux - that flexibility is a real strength. Leostream is good at the hard problem of brokering connections across heterogeneous resource pools. What it isn't is a complete delivery solution on its own; you'll pair it with other components to publish and run the applications themselves. ISV-specific pricing is available on request.
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Best for: ISVs that must mix cloud and on-premises delivery or manage heterogeneous infrastructure, and are prepared to assemble a fuller stack around the broker.
Workspot is a fully managed cloud desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) platform with multi-cloud support across Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. The pitch to ISVs is that you offload infrastructure management entirely - Workspot runs the servers, backed by enterprise SLAs - and deliver Windows applications through cloud-hosted desktops.
For a cloud-first ISV with a global customer base and no appetite for owning infrastructure, that's a compelling proposition, and the seat-based model scales as customer numbers grow. The trade-offs are structural: it's a full desktop delivery model rather than lean per-application publishing, which is heavier than many ISVs need if they're publishing a single Windows app, and the per-seat cloud costs can outpace self-hosted alternatives at scale. ISV pricing is available on request.
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Best for: Cloud-first ISVs that want to offload all infrastructure and deliver through a managed service - not those needing on-premises control or lean per-application publishing.
Windows application publishing means delivering an individual Windows application to remote users over a session - multiple users share published applications running on a server. Full VDI, by contrast, gives each user a complete virtual desktop that separates the desktop environment from the physical device. For an ISV that simply wants customers to run one product remotely, app publishing is the leaner path: less overhead, lower cost, and no need to manage entire desktops when you only need to deliver an application.
Yes - and this is exactly the criterion that separates purpose-built ISV platforms from repurposed corporate tools. Platforms like GO-Global publish existing Windows applications as-is, with no porting, repackaging, or refactoring. That lets ISVs offer remote, SaaS-like access to customers without undertaking a multi-year rebuild of the product as a web application. Browser-first options such as Thinfinity Workspace also deliver existing apps without a rewrite, rendering them in the browser instead.
Corporate virtualization tools license around how enterprises provision employee desktops, which frequently forces ISVs into over-licensing - paying for capacity or seats that don't match how they sell to customers. ISV-native licensing instead reflects the vendor's own sales motion, whether that's per-user, per-seat, or concurrent, so the ISV pays for what its customers actually consume. Over the life of a deployment, that difference in cost structure is often the deciding factor between a platform built for ISVs and one adapted from internal IT use.
Prioritize three things. First, whether you can publish your existing Windows application with zero code changes. Second, whether the licensing model fits how you sell to customers rather than forcing corporate over-licensing. Third, whether remote delivery is clean - free of the slow logons, printing failures, and session instability that plague general-purpose VDI tools bent toward ISV use. Beyond those, weigh deployment flexibility (on-premises, cloud, or hybrid) and how much infrastructure you're willing to own versus
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