Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs CoreOS Clair comparison

Microsoft and Red Hat are both solutions in the Container Security category. Microsoft is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.1, while Red Hat is ranked #27 with an average rating of 9.0. Microsoft holds a 0.7% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Red Hat’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Microsoft users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Read 40 Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) reviews

839 Views
276 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

CoreOS Clair

Read 2 CoreOS Clair reviews

503 Views
119 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

CoreOS Clair

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

CoreOS Clair and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) compete in the container security and managed Kubernetes space. AKS has the upper hand due to its extensive feature set and user-reported value despite higher pricing.

Features: CoreOS Clair is known for detailed vulnerability scanning, robust threat detection, and security-focused tools. AKS offers seamless Azure integration, scalability, and comprehensive DevOps support.

Room for Improvement: CoreOS Clair needs better tool integration, more comprehensive reporting, and enhanced scalability. AKS could improve documentation, monitoring options, and simplify complex configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CoreOS Clair has a straightforward deployment but limited customer service. AKS has a more complex deployment process that requires expertise but provides extensive customer support.

Pricing and ROI: CoreOS Clair offers competitive pricing with limited ROI for specialized functionality. AKS has higher setup costs but delivers favorable ROI through extensive features and ecosystem support.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. CoreOS Clair Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. CoreOS Clair

June 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 858,469 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Ranking in Container Security

17th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

CoreOS Clair

Ranking in Container Security

27th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is 0.7%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CoreOS Clair is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security

Featured Reviews

Shaijith KB

Senior System Engineer at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)

Professional services boost confidence but pricing and user-friendliness need attention

We have multiple solutions such as SimpliVity, Nutanix, and DXRail, which are all part of our Ansible-based system. It gives us more confidence and we can control our groups effectively. The solution is not particularly user-friendly for novice administrators, making it challenging to understand certain aspects. Templates are not readily available, requiring users to build their own worksheets and everything from scratch. This is a main decentralization we observe compared to VMware. We have tested various solutions including Rancher, RHEL, Canonical from SUSE, and the bare metal version from RHEL direct. Since pricing is not a major concern, we chose the best fit for our application, which was specifically designed for this particular platform.

Read full review

Felipe Giffu

Red Hat Solution Architect at Seprol Computadores e Sistemas

An operational system, similar to Linux where you can run your applications inside containers

With CoreOS, you can run your applications inside containers. For example, if you have an application that needs to run on Linux, you can create and install a container. However, it's important to note that you don't install CoreOS inside a container; CoreOS is the host operating system that manages containers. When you mentioned using Nacula as part of your CI/CD pipeline, it means your application is deployed and managed automatically through the CI/CD process. Containers are used to deploy your application within this pipeline, but CoreOS does not run inside these containers. Instead, CoreOS is the base operating system that supports and manages these containers.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution has great support and is flexible to understand."

"We find the container orchestration tool that this solution provides to be very valuable."

"We are not yet fully public cloud-native, however, Azure Kubernetes Service promises interesting scalability and flexibility for the future."

"The product serves the purpose of helping streamline our company's application deployment and scaling processes."

"The advantage of AKS is somewhat greater than that of Kubernetes, such as those provided by Google Cloud or AWS. However, the unique benefit offered by Microsoft is its robust CI/CD capabilities, along with the Azure feature for building workflows. When you combine the entire ecosystem, AKS becomes an excellent choice, particularly for enterprise applications."

"It employs high availability."

"I found the Helm deployment feature of the solution valuable."

"The Front Door and Service Bus are the most vital features"

More Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) pros

"CoreOS Clair's best feature is detection accuracy."

"With CoreOS, you can run your applications inside containers. For example, if you have an application that needs to run on Linux, you can create and install a container. However, it's important to note that you don't install CoreOS inside a container; CoreOS is the host operating system that manages containers."

Cons

"The solution's cost could be cheaper."

"One area that could be improved is the Azure CLI. It would be beneficial if they could abstract some of the complexities related to deployment scripts and make them a part of Azure CLI."

"Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is not up to optimal standards when it comes to capturing logs and visualization."

"The solution's logs have room for improvement."

"I would like to see the stability get more synchronized."

"Its integration functions could be enhanced."

"Configuration management and troubleshooting performance issues are difficult to solve and could be made easier."

"I would like to see Azure implement something like the K9 terminal for interacting with Kubernetes clusters. It's a user-friendly CLI interface."

More Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cons

"It can be improved in its support response. They usually take up to seven days to resolve the issue."

"An area for improvement is that CoreOS Clair doesn't provide information about the location of vulnerabilities it detects."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"The price of AKS is expensive. We pay approximately $10,000 monthly."

"The product follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model which is good for small enterprises. You need to pay only for the services that you use."

"As you scale your operations, AKS becomes more cost-effective."

"The cost of the solution is extremely high. Both Amazon and Azure cost extremely high. Given the basic features like when they are coming over the cluster nodes, we think over ten times before giving the solution to clients. No matter how many offerings the solution provides, it becomes so much of a burden that you are not even getting back your invested money from customers."

"It is not expensive."

"The control plane is free and we only pay for the usage and time."

"The pricing of the solution is dependent on the choice of virtual machines, specifically the amount of memory required. There are various options available, ranging from around twenty-five to even more choices to select from. This flexibility allows you to customize the pricing based on your specific needs. From my perspective, virtual machines in the cloud tend to be slightly more expensive compared to virtual machines offered directly by data centers. However, this cost is offset by the benefits of a managed service. Taking the overall picture into account, the managed service approach is advantageous. The pricing for the platform can vary, typically ranging from three hundred euros per month to two thousand euros per month, depending on the specific requirements and setup you choose."

More Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) pricing and cost advice

"CoreOS Clair is open-source and free of charge."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Security solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

858,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

25%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

The platform's high scalability is one of its biggest advantages.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

Could you please tell what areas of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) you think could be improved or enhanced? It doesn't necessarily have to be something advanced. Perhaps there are some minor things...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

Could you please describe your customers' usual use cases for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CoreOS Clair?

If you work with CoreOS or OpenShift, you don't need to pay for CoreOS separately. When you pay for OpenShift, you get CoreOS included, so you don't need to pay for the operating system separately....

See all answers

What needs improvement with CoreOS Clair?

It can be improved in its support response. They usually take up to seven days to resolve the issue.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CoreOS Clair?

We use the tool to manage and secure the event file system. CoreOS Clair is an operational system that is very similar to Linux and offers benefits to other Linux operating systems. One major advan...

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat OpenShift vs Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Compared 75% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Compared 10% of the time

Tenable.io Container Security vs Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Compared 4% of the time

SUSE Rancher vs Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Compared 4% of the time

Orca Security vs Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

Compared 3% of the time

More Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Competitors

JFrog Xray vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 23% of the time

Snyk vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 17% of the time

Trivy vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 17% of the time

Tenable.io Container Security vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 15% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 12% of the time

More CoreOS Clair Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

June 2025

Download Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) product report

Buyer's Guide

Container Security

June 2025

Download CoreOS Clair product report

Overview

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is a fully managed container orchestration service provided by Microsoft Azure. It simplifies the deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications using Kubernetes. With AKS, developers can focus on building applications while Azure takes care of the underlying infrastructure. It offers features like automatic scaling, monitoring, and security, ensuring high availability and reliability. AKS integrates seamlessly with other Azure services, enabling easy integration with existing workflows. It also provides a flexible and open-source environment, allowing developers to use their preferred tools and frameworks. With AKS, organizations can accelerate their application development and deployment processes, while reducing operational overheads.

Microsoft

Clair is an open source project for the static analysis of vulnerabilities in appc and docker containers.

Vulnerability data is continuously imported from a known set of sources and correlated with the indexed contents of container images in order to produce lists of vulnerabilities that threaten a container. When vulnerability data changes upstream, the previous state and new state of the vulnerability along with the images they affect can be sent via webhook to a configured endpoint. All major components can be customized programmatically at compile-time without forking the project.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

eBay, Veritas, Verizon, SalesForce

Buyer's Guide

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. CoreOS Clair

June 2025

Free Report: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. CoreOS Clair

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. CoreOS Clair and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

858,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. CoreOS Clair report.

See our list of best Container Security vendors.

We monitor all Container Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.