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CircleCI vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

CircleCI
Ranking in Build Automation
4th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
AI Software Development (18th)
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Build Automation
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (12th), Cloud Management (33rd), Development Platforms (5th), Container Management (9th), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of CircleCI is 4.2%, up from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 2.6%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CircleCI4.2%
VMware Tanzu Platform2.6%
Other93.2%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Arka Sarkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Support Development Engineer at Ericsson Global
Automated pipelines have accelerated microservice delivery and improve release consistency
Debugging is an important point for improvement because when pipelines fail, debugging can sometimes be difficult, especially for the complex workflows which we have already faced in our organization in different projects. Logs are available, but root cause analysis can take time, so that can be improved. Also, configuration management challenges exist. Although YAML configuration is flexible, it can become complex and hard to maintain as pipelines grow in size and include multiple workflow conditions. The limited visibility for large pipelines is also a concern. For very large enterprise pipelines, the UI can feel less intuitive in terms of tracking dependencies and understanding the full workflow at a glance. Cost optimization is one important point for improvement. In cloud-based usage, costs can increase due to long-running jobs and inefficient pipelines. Proper optimization through caching and parallelism is required, otherwise it can become expensive, which we faced in one of our telecom projects last year. One thing CircleCI can improve is related to cloud runners, where any network or platform issues can impact pipeline execution. This can be a concern for critical telecom deployments.
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc
Has supported container-based deployments and improved infrastructure visibility through monitoring tools
Aria Operations, formerly known as VMware vRealize Operations, has been renamed to vROps. We are currently using this for monitoring purposes. For orchestration, we are using VCD to automate Telco Cloud. VCD is an automation tool, and we are also using VMware Tanzu Platform for the Kubernetes environment, alongside TKG, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These are also other solutions for the Tanzu Kubernetes environment. For Telco Cloud, we are using it to automate our company's operations, which is for a telecom company. We are familiar with these products, especially vCenter, ESXi, VCD, vCF, and vROps. It is very easy to integrate applications when we deploy vCenter and ESXi since we can enable vSphere with Tanzu feature. We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization. We can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications. We provide namespace labels for application developers, and we can manage their resources along with other aspects easily. Regarding security, we use many tools such as CDX and LDAP, AD for integrating our Kubernetes cluster with the developer teams. We can manage roles and permissions simply. It is very straightforward to integrate with EDX and other third-party tools, Active Directory, to the Kubernetes cluster, allowing easy access and management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Running parallel jobs where dev gets automatically updated every time has helped our team significantly."
"CircleCI has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to build quicker and do things quicker."
"Some of the most valuable features include container-based builds, integration with Bit Bucket and being able to store artifacts."
"CircleCI has positively impacted my organization by bringing in faster deployments, which means we can release faster, receive quicker feedback, and enhance collaboration and communication across the entire team."
"Since I am an automation developer, I use selenium a lot; it is quite easy to run the tests in CircleCI, which comes with pre-installed Chrome/chrome driver and Firefox, is fast to set up, and has a shorter learning curve than Jenkins and TeamCity."
"It's a stable product."
"The automation workflow in CircleCI related to third-party applications is very good and allows standardization of applications."
"The ability to automate the build process in a seamless way and run workflows effortlessly. It supports parallel builds so it can scale well. Also, it covers the basics of any build and integration tool, including email notifications (especially when tests are fixed), project insights, etc."
"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."
"It has provided us with one central point where we can easily track our product QA, and our project resources, across multiple projects and multiple business units."
"The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."
"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the documentation is too in-depth."
"Regarding flexibility, Azure pipelines has the ability to pass variables with greater flexibility than CircleCI offers."
"The pricing could be improved as it is pretty complex."
"For half year we have used circleCI, then we go back to jenkins."
"A return on investment with CircleCI has not been observed, and no relevant metrics such as time saved or fewer employees needed can be shared."
"I chose an 8.5 for my rating because there are still many areas that need to be increased and improved, such as leveraging orbs and replacing custom, complex scripts with pre-built, community-verified orbs to reduce maintenance overhead."
"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"CircleCI could be improved by enhancing the AI-generated pipeline, possibly with a self-optimizing CI/CD feature since it currently requires a lot of manual configuration."
"The infrastructure is quite challenging."
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."
"This product doesn't have a GUI. In order to use it properly, I need to connect it to a new GUI or build a GUI to manage it — it's pretty difficult."
"The solution's initial setup process was complex...The solution could benefit from improved customization and visibility for its users."
"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."
"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."
"The installation of VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is very complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of CircleCI could be less expensive."
"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"
"Its pricing is very competitive. We get around 70% or 75%, sometimes even 80%, discount on the product. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"I would recommend that businesses look into the full price for their requirements. The price is high, but there are some open-source add-ons that can be used for customization while keeping costs down, although these might not be suitable for everyone."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."
"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with CircleCI?
Debugging is an important point for improvement because when pipelines fail, debugging can sometimes be difficult, especially for the complex workflows which we have already faced in our organizati...
What advice do you have for others considering CircleCI?
I would advise organizations or individual developers who are trying to use CircleCI to begin with basic pipelines and gradually move to advanced workflows such as deployment automation, parallel j...
Which is better - OpenShift Container Platform or VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
Red Hat Openshift is ideal for organizations using microservices and cloud environments. I like that the platform is auto-scalable, which saves overhead time for developers. I think Openshift can b...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Concourse for VMware Tanzu?
The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core. Pricing varies based on commitment and volumetric, with discounts provided for long-term commitments. VMware sells directly or...
What needs improvement with Concourse for VMware Tanzu?
The price is very high compared to other Kubernetes environments because Kubernetes is open source. We can easily work with Docker, and when we compare it with OpenShift, the price is very high. We...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Shopify, Zenefits, Concur Technologies, CyberAgent
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about CircleCI vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,148 professionals have used our research since 2012.