In-Depth

The Thin-Client Landscape, Part 1

• By Tom Fenton
• 01/29/2026

I wrote an article exploring the evolution of the thin-client market from its roots in dumb terminals to an industry that saw massive consolidation in 2025, when Citrix acquired Unicon to create a vertical "end-to-end" stack, and IGEL absorbed Stratodesk to increase its presence in the software-only endpoint space. The independent thin-client landscape evolved into three distinct camps: Citrix's closed ecosystem, IGEL's horizontal software layer, and 10ZiG's position, offering both hardware- and software-based thin-client solutions.

This leaves IT leaders with a choice between buying into a single vendor's vertical integration or partnering with a thin-client provider that doesn't require remote desktop and application lock-in.

In that article, I focused on the three thin-client companies mentioned above, but the market for thin clients is far more diverse. Some companies offer only thin-client hardware, while others offer a combination of hardware and software. In this article, I provide a broader overview of players in this marketplace and then offer a set of criteria to help you decide which to go with.

The reality is that the larger hardware vendors have not invested much time or effort in marketing or engineering their proprietary thin-client OSes and are more than happy to sell devices and have third-party thin-client OSes installed on them.

Thin-Client Hardware
Below is a list of the larger thin-client hardware vendors, along with the software they typically run.

The chart above illustrates the contrast in the thin-client market between hardware manufacturing and operating system standardization. While major OEMs like Dell and HP do have their own thin-client OS, the pervasive presence of "Common third-party OSes" like IGEL and 10ZiG, and to a lesser extent Windows IoT, across nearly every row suggests that large companies frequently view hardware as a commodity, often a choice of software. 10ZiG is in a unique position, as unlike its competitors, whose hardware is commonly wiped and repurposed with other software, 10ZiG's hardware column is empty of third-party OSes, implying a tightly integrated appliance model. Conversely, 10ZiG's own "RepurpOS" appears as a standard replacement on Dell, HP, and Lenovo devices, indicating that 10ZiG is successfully penetrating competitor fleets with its software while maintaining exclusivity on its own hardware.

Thin-Client OSes
Years ago, there were far more hardware-agnostic thin-client operating systems available, but over the years, the list has been pared down considerably, as indicated below.

This table underscores the industry's pivot toward software-defined endpoints, in which the operating system, rather than the physical hardware, serves as the primary strategic asset. It reveals a clear division in technical philosophy: vendors like IGEL, Citrix (eLux), and 10ZiG utilize Linux-based architectures to completely replace the underlying OS for maximum security and efficiency, whereas ThinScale relies on a Windows-based "lockdown" approach that preserves the underlying Microsoft OS.

A critical point is the dominance of "hardware agnosticism," with nearly every vendor targeting generic x86 PCs and laptops; this validates the market's growing demand to repurpose legacy assets rather than purchase new, dedicated thin clients. 10ZiG is the only major independent player bridging both worlds, offering a software-only repurposing solution (RepurpOS) for third-party devices while still maintaining its own hardware line, in sharp contrast to IGEL's pure-software model and Citrix's specialized vertical stack.

Initial Thoughts
In this article, I expanded my view beyond the recent market consolidation to examine the broader thin-client marketplace, identifying a diverse mix of hardware giants like Dell and HP alongside specialized software players. I found that while hardware manufacturers continue to produce devices, they have commoditized hardware, often under-investing in their thin-client operating systems and leaving the door open for third-party platforms to take over.

When I looked at the breakdown of hardware and operating systems, there was a distinct technical separation between vendors replacing the OS with Linux-based thin clients for security and cost, and those using a Windows "lockdown" approach, such as ThinScale. 10ZiG plays a unique role in this ecosystem. Unlike its competitors, whose hardware is often wiped to run other software, 10ZiG's hardware remains exclusive to its own OS, yet its "RepurpOS" software is deployed across devices from different hardware vendors (Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc.).

In part two of this article, I will provide a checklist to guide IT leaders through the thin-client selection process, emphasizing critical factors such as protocol compatibility, security features, and the importance of centralized management. I will also look at the difference between zero clients and thin clients.