Google Container Engine vs Rancher Labs comparison

Google and Rancher Labs are both solutions in the Container Management category. Google is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.0, while Rancher Labs is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.8. Google holds a 0.1% mindshare in CM, compared to Rancher Labs’s 7.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Rancher Labs users who would recommend it.

Google Container Engine

Read 1 Google Container Engine review

162 Views
113 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Rancher Labs

Read 14 Rancher Labs reviews

3,309 Views
3,144 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Container Engine

Rancher Labs

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Google Container Engine and Rancher Labs based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMware and others in Container Management.

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Container Management

July 2025

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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

Google Container Engine

Ranking in Container Management

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Containers as a Service (CaaS) (3rd)

Rancher Labs

Ranking in Container Management

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Storage for Kubernetes (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Container Engine is 0.1%, down from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rancher Labs is 7.2%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

Hoang Do

DevOps Engineer at The Digital Group Inc

Has autoscaling features that helps to save costs

We use the solution to deploy microservices. The tool is very powerful, scalable, and easy to manage. Its autoscaling features helped us save costs. Google Container Engine needs to be able to manage network products. I have been using the product for two years. I rate the product's…

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RyanVassallo

Head of Systems and Infrastructure at Booming Games

Offers an open-source version along with a good UI

The product has multiple good features. One of the solution's good features is that it is the GitOps functionality known as Rancher fleet, which is used for continuous delivery. The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or on-premises, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations. The tool also has a feature that is still kind of maturing, but I think it has very good potential. This new feature is named Harvester, which is allows users to have virtual machines managed by Kubernetes engine. This is very new technology in the market. I think that Harvester needs to mature as a product, and I think that in the future, it will be very powerful. You have one tool that does many things for you.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool is very powerful, scalable, and easy to manage. Its autoscaling features helped us save costs."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is an open-source solution that is easy to deploy."

"The scalability potential is very good."

"The solution has a lot of good features, such as you can access the console and edit through the GUI. The dashboard and the UI are designed well, user-friendly, and easy to manage, and access."

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

"The solution is stable."

"The product is simple to use for a beginner."

"This solution is not vendor-locked, which means that we we are able to use it across all of our resources; this feature is of great value to us."

"The most valuable feature is its comprehensive support, easy resource scaling, compatibility with various OEMs, and seamless service integration."

More Rancher Labs pros

Cons

"Google Container Engine needs to be able to manage network products."

"We're looking for something that is even easier to use. It's a bit complicated."

"There needs to be an improvement in observability and microservice monitoring tools in Rancher Labs."

"If you have poor infrastructure, you will have issues with the tool."

"I can't migrate to the newer version."

"While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust."

"Could be more intuitive."

"We have found that the auto-secure feature of this solution doesn't always work, and could be improved to be more reliable, particularly when working with business critical applications."

"The solution could improve by adding more features in the dashboard, such as monitoring, scanning, and security. This would be a great benefit."

More Rancher Labs cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is medium."

"The pricing of the solution sits in the mid range, not high and not low. It has a fixed price that you pay every month."

"The solution is free and open source but there is a fee for support."

"The cost is reasonable since it's open source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge."

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs involved."

"Although Rancher Labs is an open-source solution, they also offer a paid version, where you buy the support when needed."

"There is an annual subscription. The price of the solution should be cheaper and have better pricing flexibility."

"There are no hidden charges attached to the product unless a user opts for the premium support offered by the solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Manufacturing Company

39%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Container Engine?

The tool is very powerful, scalable, and easy to manage. Its autoscaling features helped us save costs.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Container Engine?

The tool's pricing is medium.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Container Engine?

Google Container Engine needs to be able to manage network products.

See all answers

What do you like most about Rancher Labs?

The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or the company, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rancher Labs?

The cost is reasonable since it's open-source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rancher Labs?

While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust. We found it to offer basic security features, which met some of our requirements, but we also relied on other op...

See all answers

Comparisons

No data available

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Rancher Labs

Compared 37% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

HashiCorp Nomad vs Rancher Labs

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Rancher Labs

Compared 7% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Rancher Labs

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Container Management

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Rancher Labs

July 2025

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Overview

Google Container Engine is a powerful cluster manager and orchestration system for running your Docker containers. Container Engine schedules your containers into the cluster and manages them automatically based on requirements you define (such as CPU and memory). It's built on the open source Kubernetes system, giving you the flexibility to take advantage of on-premises, hybrid, or public cloud infrastructure.

Google

Rancher Labs build innovative, open source software that makes it easy to deploy and manage containers in production on any infrastructure. We enable organizations to accelerate all aspects of their software development pipeline, from writing and testing code to running complex microservices-based applications.

Rancher, our flagship container management platform, allows users to easily manage all aspects of running containers in development and production environments, on any infrastructure. With well over four million downloads, Rancher has quickly become the tools of choice for teams serious about running containers in production. This includes large enterprises such as Sony, IBM, Tyco, Align Technologies and more.

Rancher Labs

Sample Customers

Tock

Albert Heijn, Bell, BMC, Samsung, WindStream, Johnson & Johnson

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