Product ReviewVRAdmin

Horizon vs Workrooms: Feature and Admin Comparison After the Shutdown Announcement

UUnknown

2026-02-26

11 min read

Technical comparison of Horizon vs Workrooms after Workrooms' Feb 16, 2026 shutdown — migration checklist, admin steps, and integration advice for enterprise teams.

Facing the Workrooms shutdown? Here’s the technical comparison teams actually need

If your org relied on Meta’s Workrooms for immersive meetings, the February 16, 2026 shutdown created an urgent operational gap: where do you host persistent VR collaboration, how do you manage Quest fleets now that Horizon managed services is being phased, and which platform covers your integrations and compliance needs? This guide gives a practical, technical comparison of Horizon and the now-discontinued Workrooms, with concrete admin steps, migration checklists, and vendor recommendations so engineering and IT teams can decide fast.

Executive summary — most important points up front

Meta announced Workrooms will be discontinued as a standalone app on February 16, 2026 and has signaled consolidation of productivity features into its broader Horizon platform. At the same time, Meta reduced Reality Labs spending and moved some enterprise support (including parts of Horizon managed services) toward sunsetting or partner-based support. That leaves organizations with three clear paths:

Migrate to Horizon and rebuild lost admin workflows with third-party MDM/SSO integrations.
Shift to a third-party enterprise XR vendor (Spatial, Glue, VirBELA, etc.) to retain managed services and stronger enterprise SLAs.
Adopt a hybrid approach — Horizons for internal immersive apps + third-party management and recording pipelines.

How Horizon and Workrooms differed (feature-first comparison)

Below is a feature-by-feature breakdown focused on practical implications for engineering, IT, and product teams evaluating platform parity and integration effort.

Core collaboration and UX

Workrooms (legacy): Designed specifically for meetings — persistent rooms, whiteboards optimized for collaboration, shared desktop passthrough for using keyboards and apps, and meeting bridges to 2D video participants. Low-friction for scheduling recurring team sessions.
Horizon (current): Broader platform that hosts worlds and apps. Horizon’s productivity features are now intended to be app-driven rather than baked into a single meeting app. Expect flexible spaces and richer SDKs but more assembly is required to reproduce Workrooms’ opinionated meeting flow.

Workrooms provided an integrated infinite whiteboard and simple desktop sharing tuned for remote keyboard users — minimal friction for ad-hoc ideation.
Horizon focuses on third-party app integration. The benefit: plug in advanced tools (Figma/Multiplayer plugins, Miro-like apps) but the trade-off is configuration and, in many cases, building or installing connectors to your corporate storage (OneDrive, Google Drive, Box).

Cross-platform participation

Workrooms prioritized a mixed-presence experience (VR users + 2D video participants). It had a straightforward bridge that let non-VR users join meetings via web or video clients.
Horizon supports mixed presence via apps and SDKs, but bridging behavior varies by installed app. If your workflows depend on guaranteed web participants with synchronized whiteboards, plan integration work or pick apps that explicitly provide that capability.

SDKs, extensibility and standards

Workrooms was a productized meeting environment. Extensibility was limited to what Meta exposed.
Horizon is more extensible: developers can use Unity/Unreal SDKs, WebXR/OpenXR where supported, and platform-specific APIs. That opens possibilities for custom productivity apps and tighter integrations into corporate systems.

Admin tooling and device management — the real differentiator

For IT and security teams, the admin story dictates whether Horizon is a suitable replacement in practice. Here’s how the two compare and what you must replace or reconfigure today.

Device provisioning and fleet management

Workrooms + old managed services: Offered a simple admin flow bundled with Horizon Workrooms enterprise settings and a subscription-based managed service for provisioning Quest headsets, enforcing updates, and inventory tracking.
Horizon (post-consolidation): Horizon’s platform capabilities remain, but Meta’s move away from standalone Workrooms and changes to managed services mean you should expect to rely on third-party MDM and UEM solutions (VMware Workspace ONE, Microsoft Intune, MobileIron, Jamf) or vendor partners for fleet automation.

SSO, identity, and access control

Workrooms used Meta account systems; enterprise teams often integrated via directory sync. Horizon supports app-level identity patterns, but:

For enterprise-grade SSO and RBAC, implement SAML/OAuth/OIDC via your identity provider (Azure AD, Okta, Ping). Build the bridge in the app layer if Horizon’s native controls are insufficient.
Lock down access with conditional access policies, device posture checks, and network restrictions enforced by your MDM/UEM.

Policy enforcement and content controls

When managed services are reduced, your org must own policy enforcement:

Whitelist/blacklist apps with your MDM.
Disable or control any passthrough camera and microphone settings when privacy requires it.
Enforce OS updates on a controlled cadence via your device management solution to avoid breaking enterprise integrations.

Logging, audit and compliance

Workrooms’ integrated meeting logs and recordings were convenient, but Horizon’s decentralized model typically requires you to:

Use app-level logging connected to corporate logging (Splunk, Elastic, Datadog).
Ensure meeting recordings and whiteboard contents are stored in corporate storage via connectors to meet retention and e-discovery policies.

Integrations: Quest, APIs, and productivity stack

Integration surface area is critical for developer teams building workflows that include calendar invites, cloud storage, and productivity tools.

Quest integrations and device features

Horizon and Workrooms both support Quest hardware features — hand tracking, controller input, passthrough — but the availability of system-level integrations (like a shared keyboard passthrough) varies by app. Verify that the apps you adopt support Air Link or Oculus Link for PC streaming if you rely on heavy desktop apps during sessions.
Expect vendor fragmentation: each app may handle peripheral input and clipboard sharing differently; test critical scenarios (keyboard typing, copy/paste, Figma/IDE access) prior to broad rollout.

Calendar, storage, and collaboration tooling

Map your core integrations: Outlook/Google Calendar sync, OneDrive/SharePoint or Google Drive access, and single-sign on. If Workrooms previously offered out-of-the-box calendar sync, build or purchase connectors to match that experience in Horizon apps.
Use secure connectors (scoped OAuth tokens, service account with least privilege) to avoid extraneous data access. Prefer server-side proxies that keep refresh tokens off client devices.

APIs and automation

Horizon’s shift toward an app ecosystem benefits teams that want to automate workflows:

Build or use REST/WebSocket APIs to orchestrate meetings, inject content into spaces (recordings, slides), and pull analytics.
Prefer OpenXR/WebXR for future-proofing where possible; but expect to use vendor SDKs for deep device features.

Security checklist for teams migrating off Workrooms

Quick actions your security and IT teams should complete during the migration window:

Inventory current Workrooms usage: active spaces, meeting schedules, who holds recordings and whiteboards.
Identify business-critical integrations (calendar, storage, SSO) and create an integration gap matrix for Horizon apps.
Deploy or expand MDM/UEM to cover all Quest devices and lock down required policies (app whitelist, update cadence, device encryption).
Route recordings and meeting data to corporate storage via secure connectors; update retention policies and e-discovery rules.
Run a two-week pilot with a single team to validate UX, logging, and break/fix procedures before org-wide migration.

Migration plan — technical roadmap (8–12 week example)

Below is a prescriptive, pragmatic timeline you can adapt to your organization’s resources.

Weeks 1–2: Discover & plan

Audit Workrooms usage and integrations.
Choose target apps in Horizon or third-party vendors for parity (whiteboard, calendar, bridging).

Weeks 3–4: Set up infrastructure

Configure MDM, SSO, and conditional access for Quest headsets.
Build storage connectors for meeting assets.

Weeks 5–8: Develop & integrate

Integrate calendar and storage; test auth flows and token renewal patterns.
Implement logging/metrics integration into your existing observability platform.

Weeks 9–12: Pilot & roll out

Run a pilot with one team; capture feedback and iterate.
Train IT support and update runbooks for image provisioning and monitoring.

Cost, support, and managed services — trade-offs to evaluate

With Meta stepping back from some managed services and reducing Reality Labs investment, commercial decisions increasingly matter:

Cost of ownership: Horizon may reduce license friction but increases integration and engineering costs. Factor in MDM licensing, engineering time to build connectors, and ongoing support.
SLAs: If you previously depended on Meta’s managed service SLA, replace it with vendor SLAs or an internal SRE commitment for uptime, incident response, and data retention guarantees.
Third-party managed services: Consider partners who provide end-to-end Quest fleet management, compliance reporting, and user training as a service if your org lacks the capacity to operate the stack internally.

Alternatives to Horizon worth evaluating in 2026

If Horizon’s platform model or Meta’s shifting priorities create unacceptable operational risk, consider these enterprise-focused alternatives that remained active and enterprise-ready in 2025–2026:

Spatial — strong for mixed-presence collaboration and easy cross-platform web support.
Glue — enterprise-grade session and presence controls, used by engineering and design teams for workshops.
VirBELA — focuses on persistent virtual campuses and large-scale events.
Custom WebXR apps — for maximum control and corporate data residency, build your own web-first experiences and host behind your own identity and storage infrastructure.

2026 trends and predictions affecting your decision

Make any platform choice with these trends in mind:

AI-assisted meetings: Generative AI summarization, searchable transcripts, and meeting “copilots” are now common expectations. Pick apps or APIs that expose meeting transcripts and hooks for AI services.
AR + lightweight wearables: Meta and others are prioritizing AR wearables (AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses and similar devices). Expect a convergence of workflows across AR/VR — favor platforms with cross-device SDKs.
Standards consolidation: OpenXR and WebXR adoption has accelerated; platforms supporting these standards reduce vendor lock-in and simplify hybrid deployments.
Third-party managed services growth: With large vendors scaling back internal managed offerings, specialized XR MSPs will continue to grow — assess them as part of your procurement strategy.

Real-world example: Migrating a 200-headset sales org

How this plays out in practice — a condensed case study:

Situation: A sales org used Workrooms for weekly demos and training; recordings and whiteboards were business assets.
Action taken: IT did an inventory, provisioned Intune for Quest management, built a server-side connector to push recordings to SharePoint, and selected a Horizon-based app that offered calendar and guest web access. They ran a 3-week pilot, iterated on UX and permissions, and switched 200 users over in phases.
Outcome: Slightly higher upfront engineering cost, but improved auditability and an internal pipeline for AI summarization of demos.

Actionable recommendations — what to do this week

Export an inventory of your Workrooms spaces and record who owns each asset.
Schedule a 2-week pilot to validate Horizon apps or a third-party vendor with these success criteria: calendar sync, recording pipeline, device MDM control, and mixed-presence functionality.
Procure or expand MDM/UEM coverage for all Quest devices and create a device provisioning image with enforced security settings.
Identify a vendor or internal team to take over managed services if you currently rely on Meta’s enterprise offerings.

Bottom line: Horizon can replace Workrooms’ capabilities, but not always out of the box. Expect engineering and admin work to recreate the convenient operational flows Workrooms delivered as a standalone product.

Checklist: Migration quick audit

List active Workrooms spaces and owners
Map each to a Horizon app or third-party equivalent
Confirm calendar and storage connector availability
Put MDM/UEM in place and configure device policies
Establish logging/retention for recordings and whiteboards
Run pilot, collect feedback, update runbooks

Final thoughts and next steps

Meta’s decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app in early 2026 forces engineering and IT teams to act: either consolidate on Horizon and invest in integration and admin tooling, or migrate to third-party platforms that provide stronger managed services and enterprise guarantees. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer — the right choice depends on how much control, compliance and customization your organization needs.

If your team needs help scoping a migration, validating an app stack, or implementing device management and integration pipelines, start with a small pilot and use the checklist above. A focused pilot will reveal the true integration and engineering costs before you commit to a full rollout.

Call to action

Ready to evaluate a migration path? Download our free 12-week migration template and checklist, or book a 30-minute consultancy session with our XR infrastructure engineers to map your Horizon vs third-party trade-offs and build a low-risk rollout plan.

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