Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed non-persistent application and desktop streaming service that provides users instant access to their desktop applications from anywhere. Amazon AppStream 2.0 simplifies application management, improves security, and reduces costs by moving a company’s applications from their users’ physical devices to the AWS Cloud. The Amazon AppStream 2.0 streaming protocol provides users a responsive, fluid performance that is almost indistinguishable from a natively installed application. With Amazon AppStream 2.0, organizations can realize increased flexibility, improved scalability, and the agility to support a broad range of computing and storage requirements for their applications.

Interactively streaming your application from the cloud provides several benefits:

Instant-on: Streaming your application with Amazon AppStream 2.0 lets your users start using your application immediately, when using an image builder or Always-On fleet, without the delays associated with large file downloads and time-consuming installations.

Remove device constraints: You can leverage the computing power of AWS to deliver experiences that wouldn’t normally be possible due to the GPU, CPU, memory, or physical storage constraints of local devices.

Multi-platform support: You can take your existing applications and start streaming them to a computer without any modifications.

Easy updates: Because your application is centrally managed by Amazon AppStream 2.0, updating your application is as simple as providing a new version of your application to Amazon AppStream 2.0. That's all you need to do to immediately upgrade all your users, without any action on their part.

Improved security: Amazon AppStream 2.0 runs your applications on instances within AWS and only transmits encrypted pixels to the end-user devices. You can apply various security controls provided by AWS to secure your streaming instances.

Yes. AppStream 2.0 allows you to choose between an application or desktop stream view when you configure the fleet. The application view displays only the windows of the applications that are opened by users, while the desktop view displays the standard desktop experience that is provided by the operating system.

No. You cannot use the original Amazon AppStream service. Amazon AppStream 2.0 offers a greater range of instance types, streams desktop applications with no rewrite, simplifies application lifecycle management, and allows your apps to access services in your VPC.

Yes. Amazon AppStream 2.0 supports most analog and USB microphones, including built-in microphones.

Amazon AppStream 2.0 is the next-generation desktop application streaming service from AWS. Amazon AppStream was an SDK-based service that customers could use to set up their own streaming service with DIY engineering. AppStream 2.0 provides a fully managed streaming service with no DIY effort. AppStream 2.0 offers a greater range of instance types; streams desktop applications to HTML5-compatible web browsers with no plugins required; provides dual-monitor support on web browsers and 4-monitor, 4K monitor, and USB peripheral support through the AppStream 2.0 client for Windows. In addition, AppStream 2.0 simplifies application lifecycle management and lets your application access services in your VPC.

Many types of applications work well as streaming applications, including CAD, CAM, CAE, 3D modeling, simulation, games, video and photo-editing software, medical imaging, and life sciences applications. These applications benefit most from streaming because the application runs on the vast computational resources of AWS, yet your users can interact with the application using low-powered devices, with very little noticeable change in application performance.