Guacamole Bastion Host

I am not currently using Apache Guacamole , but I used this in my previous role where we deployed it for around three years. Currently, I am also providing some assistance for other companies that have deployed it, but I am not doing that very frequently.

I believe that the best use cases for Apache Guacamole  that I can recall were for virtual machine desktops and also for airports where Apache Guacamole was used to access machines that displayed flight information.

In one scenario, using Apache Guacamole, we replaced the VNC client for remote access. With the VNC client, customers had to use a web folder with several shortcuts for each monitor, so we replaced that solution with an entirely web-based application where they could authenticate and access all machines easily.

Before choosing Apache Guacamole, I evaluated other options such as the Windows remote desktop clients, which were not useful at all, and other installed software like MobaXterm and other similar tools, but they were not web-based as Apache Guacamole is.

The main features of Apache Guacamole from my perspective are that it is free and very simple to use. Within a few clicks and in a few minutes, you can get it working and start remotely accessing machines.

Being free makes Apache Guacamole stand out for me because you do not need to subscribe. We do not need to contact anyone. We can deploy and use it free of charge, and we also do not need to perform any maintenance on it.

In my previous role, Apache Guacamole was very helpful because the staff that needed to access the machines to provide maintenance was very diverse and worked around the clock. Without Apache Guacamole, we had no way to track and know which machines were being most accessed and what was being done.

The main impact Apache Guacamole had on my team's efficiency was that they did not need to access any server or anything else. Instead of performing several clicks to access a machine and needing to know where it was located, its full name, or the IP address, with Apache Guacamole, we were able to create groups and folders where machines were all properly organized and easy to access. Within a few clicks, using their own Active Directory account, they were able to access their own machines and the machines they needed to support at that time.

One of the improvements I believe Apache Guacamole could benefit from is some type of wizard to assist in the deployment of the tool. Currently, there are several installation methods available, but an official method that is very simple should be provided. I previously used a Bitnami image, and after some time it was discontinued.

I used this solution in my previous role where we deployed it for around three years. Currently, I am also providing some assistance for other companies that have deployed it, but I am not doing that very frequently.

Apache Guacamole is definitely stable.

Regarding Apache Guacamole's scalability, there are options available, but as our environment was very stable and not dynamic, we did not see any need to scale the solution.

There is no customer support for Apache Guacamole.

We used the VNC client for that, but it was horrible to maintain before switching to Apache Guacamole.

Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Apache Guacamole, there was no license at all. We simply downloaded and deployed it.

Regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Apache Guacamole, there was no license at all. We simply downloaded and deployed it.

Before choosing Apache Guacamole, I evaluated other options such as the Windows remote desktop clients, which were not useful at all, and other installed software like MobaXterm and other similar tools, but they were not web-based as Apache Guacamole is.

My advice for others looking into using Apache Guacamole is to create a test environment. Before making any changes in your stable or production environment, please test in a test environment and always keep a backup available. I would rate my overall experience with Apache Guacamole as a ten out of ten.

My main use case for Apache Guacamole  is remote server access and for provisioning systems to employees through a secure system.

Primarily, these are the two use cases I focus on, but ever since I started using Apache Guacamole , I have become extremely partial towards it compared to any other remote access software or remote desktop protocols. Apache Guacamole thus far has been both open source, simple to use, easy to set up, quick, and it makes it easy for me to provision systems as well. So thus far, it is honestly the best option out there.

The best feature Apache Guacamole offers is user provisioning, which is quick, easy to set up, and I can have a new employee up and running with their system in 15 minutes or less. I absolutely enjoy that. Setting it up for the first time was honestly a breeze, so the hosting as well as provisioning are what really stand out.

Whatever you would be paying thousands of dollars or millions of dollars to another company for, you can get all of that with Apache Guacamole itself. Due to its open source nature, I was even able to make company-specific adjustments to it without needing to rely on third parties.

I have seen a return on investment because we no longer had to worry about buying new systems or laptops for each person since we needed to specifically provision it. Instead, we set up a remote system, got Apache Guacamole, and provided access using user credentials specific to each employee. Onboarding a new employee for infrastructure became a 20-minute task rather than a one-week round trip.

Apache Guacamole can be improved in two areas: hosting, which requires a deeper understanding of the system to really set things up, and a definitive guide for setting it up neatly and cleanly, which should be updated regularly. Also, a manual for the rest of the features would help new users walk through it, ensuring better adoption. Additionally, while it is a really useful software, many dismiss it just because it is an Apache product and the UI looks outdated.

I would give Apache Guacamole an eight out of ten because there have been moments where I faced some networking issues with it, where connections were a problem, and sometimes the login and logout processes were issues as well. I chose an eight because there are odd moments where Apache Guacamole tends to fail. Sometimes the login or logout systems would not work as well, or even after resetting the password, it would not have accepted it, making me redo the reset. Also, it can get overloaded without any warning, requiring me to debug it myself. It is good, just missing a few quality of life features that would have made it a ten.

I have been using Apache Guacamole for two and a half years.

Apache Guacamole is stable.

Regarding Apache Guacamole's scalability, creating a new system and setting it up for an employee takes just 20 minutes, so it is very scalable.

Apache Guacamole's customer support is pretty active, but if you want priority support, you would need a third party. In my case, it was not a concern because I was adept at reading GitHub  issues, manuals, Stack Overflow, and documentation to fix issues myself. Overall, if you want to manage it yourself, it has a slight learning curve but is nearly hassle-free.

Before using Apache Guacamole, we considered renting laptops for each employee, which would take a few hours to a few days. Once we set up a bare-metal server and realized we had enough RAM and everything, we could share the same system. It turned out that of all the options in the market, Apache Guacamole was the best choice: open source, free, and I did not have to pay anyone for the service again.

Setting it up for the first time was honestly a breeze, so the hosting as well as provisioning are what really stand out.

I self-hosted Apache Guacamole. I downloaded it, set it up, and provisioned it for my organization, thus avoiding dealing with any third parties.

I have seen a return on investment because we no longer had to worry about buying new systems or laptops for each person since we needed to specifically provision it. Instead, we set up a remote system, got Apache Guacamole, and provided access using user credentials specific to each employee. Onboarding a new employee for infrastructure became a 20-minute task rather than a one-week round trip.

Before choosing Apache Guacamole, I evaluated a few options such as RustDesk, Zoho Assist , TeamViewer, AnyDesk , Chrome's Remote  Desktop, and Microsoft's standard RDP manager. Out of all of them, Apache Guacamole turned out to be perfect.

If anyone is purchasing Apache Guacamole, they really need to rethink what they are doing in the first place.

My advice for others looking into using Apache Guacamole is to self-host it. Please do not buy it from anybody; get a bare-metal server, put it on, and share the system with your employees.

More organizations should be using Apache Guacamole. I would rate Apache Guacamole an eight out of ten overall.

Our main use case for Apache Guacamole  is to implement industry-first standard security utilizing blockchain to still provide secure access to the servers. We used Apache Guacamole  to set up protocols and wrap our product around it so that any user can, for example, whenever a new person joins the organization, deploy an agent on their systems. However, we had the idea of what if we can provide the same level of security without installing any agent on a person's device? Because companies have restrictions. If guest users come, they have restrictions on installing any kind of software on it. So using that, a company can still invite guests and let them have secure access to their server.

The best features Apache Guacamole offers, in my experience, include the documentation, which is really in-depth. The second thing is their protocols. Their protocols are really efficient, and they also gave us the ability to customize it. The speed of accessing the server and the response rate between the client and server is really fast. That's one of the best experiences, and I got the opportunity to even modify it.

I customized Apache Guacamole because, due to us being in a security business, we had to secure whatever the protocols and whatever amount of data we were sending. So I had to encrypt those protocols in between because Apache Guacamole uses a canvas type of protocol to communicate in between. I had to encrypt it, and whenever there is any amount of packet sent to the guacd server and the Apache Guacamole client, it had to be encrypted. That's what I did, and I modified those protocols.

Apache Guacamole has a really great impact on our product. The requirement our customers had was very specific in that they do not want any of the customers or any of the guests or the restriction of organizations having an agent on the system. This was a bit of a problem, due to which our market at that point was inaccessible. There was a boundary between it. Apache Guacamole helped us cross that boundary. Leveraging that technology, we were able to expand our product surface area and the customers we can access.

Apache Guacamole impacted our organization positively, as we had a particular client, not just one client, but there were a list of two to three clients for this feature. As soon as we got the requirement, we hastened our development, and as soon as the development was completed, we were able to get those contracts for their company. As soon as we got the contract, they deployed our technology and started utilizing it.

We have specific metrics regarding time saved and increased security after deploying Apache Guacamole for those clients. For example, I am a product company, a fabric clothing company, and I have some designs which I have created. If some other person comes, for example, I have brought an SOC analyst and another person who needs to access our database or servers securely to validate or do whatever work they have. But what if they are third-party services and while they are doing some proctoring or whatever they are doing, they are accessing our system? We have a need that we cannot let them access without secure access. We need to provide them secure access, and their organization has a policy that you cannot install anything on your system. What our technology did was it used blockchain and all that web3 technology. Using our technology, what the user company, the main company can do is just create a user on our portal and give them the link or our website address. They will go into the website address, enter the ID and password and all that. As soon as the security credentials are verified, they will be able to access the server securely via their web browsers. It impacted a lot, and it provided us three additional clients which were already waiting, plus more clients which we marketed to.

Apache Guacamole can be improved as the documentation is really okay. It's written in very good detail. However, there's a problem in that it is written in too much detail and doesn't take you step-by-step. We did have some minor issues, such as there was some gap in mentioning how to install it and how to make and compile the file which they have posted on the repository. We had to figure it out, and once we got that knowledge, we were able to speed up our process. I think that the documentation wasn't that well written. There were gaps in it. It was well written but not written step-by-step.

They can improve Apache Guacamole's UI. We didn't use their UI and use our own UI instead, but their UI can be improved. Simple is also good but it can be improved.

We have been using Apache Guacamole for three years.

Apache Guacamole is really stable. The protocols are really stable, and their API and packages are really stable.

Apache Guacamole is highly scalable. The protocol guacd protocols are deployed on a server, and we can deploy multiple guacd servers. If we add load balancing in between, we can scale it as much as we need. We can scale it vertically, and we can scale it horizontally.

The customer support for Apache Guacamole is related to it being an open-source application, so it has a really good community of contributors and developers. The support comes from the developers themselves. If you say a company has customer support, Apache Guacamole has the customer support of highly technical people. I can just go on a forum and ask about it, and many developers will respond. Right now, for this interview, I am the one responding to your questions because I have developed it, and I am also a kind of support myself. Apache Guacamole has a really good community in itself.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that we didn't buy it. It was free. It's an open-source technology. There was nothing related to setup cost, licensing, and all that. You just need a server, and you have to pay for a server, which is a different kind of costing and it depends on the user. If you are deploying it locally on your system, then it's for free and you pay no price. However, if you have a server, you have to pay for it. There is no licensing cost included in it.

I have seen a return on investment, and I can share relevant metrics with you. It was an industry-first technology. In our market, we were the first company to develop and distribute this technology. Up till now, there is no other client using this because it's really hard to provide security using blockchain and implementing those features at the same time. If you say it pushed our company before the other companies, it is the own matrix which cannot be measured. However, it still can be measured because we brought additional clients. If you say proportional to one person, you say we have three DevOps and zero clients previously, and right now we have three DevOps and three clients. Then you can say proportionally, we got a lot of financial and monetary benefits out of it. The program which I wrote was so well written that you only need one DevOps to monitor it, just in case, passively.

Before choosing Apache Guacamole, we didn't evaluate other options thoroughly. There are simple SSH packages which we could use. However, the thing Apache Guacamole had is that you can use it as a buffer between our main server and our client's. Apache Guacamole was the only application which was providing it at that point. We used Apache Guacamole, and we didn't evaluate other technologies thoroughly. The other technologies which we evaluated were very rudimentary. For example, SSH client via Python, SSH clients via JavaScript, TypeScript, or other frameworks.

The advice I would give to others looking into using Apache Guacamole is to read the document very rigorously. If you understood the document, you will understand the whole architecture from top to bottom of how the system works. If you skim on it, you will get into issues and you won't be able to understand where the issues are coming from. Because it's written in C, Apache Guacamole's packages are written in C. The make file is written in C. You have to install particular packages. If you skip any of it and you are trying to utilize that feature of it, you will get an error and you won't be able to understand where that error is coming from. If you skip that package and you make the file and deploy it, you have to remake the file again after installing the package and redeploy it. You cannot just push an update into it. I rate this product a ten out of ten.

I am provisioning virtual machines for educational institutions such as schools and colleges. The access to these virtual machines is provided via Apache Guacamole .

Apache Guacamole  is really easy to use. If I have ten virtual machines provisioned under my name, I can access them with a single login for each virtual machine with their respective credentials. Security concerns are addressed with separate logins for each virtual machine, ensuring complete security.

There should be good documentation regarding GUI customization. Even though I can try customizing the GUI, the documentation is not comprehensive.

I have been using Apache Guacamole for approximately two years.

It is stable enough. The only requirement is to have good internet connectivity for stable access.

Its scalability depends on the cloud. If the cloud is scalable, the virtual machines are scalable as well. In case of failures, the system can autoscale to other virtual machines.

Apache has community support. Since I did not face significant issues, I haven't needed to reach out to them.

The setup was easy and would take just about half an hour to complete the deployment.

It is completely free of charge as it is an open-source solution.

For those considering using Apache Guacamole, I wholeheartedly support its users since it's a free open-source software that is easy to download and use with no significant issues.

Overall, I rate Apache Guacamole a nine out of ten.