Google Kubernetes Engine vs Kubernetes comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Google Kubernetes Engine and Kubernetes based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Container Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes Report (Updated: May 2023).
708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The feature that I like the most is the ease of use as compared to AWS. Its ease of use is very high, and I can quickly deploy clusters with a simple template.""Google Kubernetes Engine's most valuable features are microservices and its acquisition rate, which is very useful for scaling perspective.""The main advantage of GKE is that it is a managed service. This means that Google is responsible for managing the master node in the Kubernetes cluster system. As a result, we can focus on deploying applications to the slaves, while Google handles any updates and security patches. The fact that GKE is fully integrated into the Google ecosystem, including solutions such as BigQuery and VertexAI. This makes it easier for us to integrate these tools into our process. This integration ultimately speeds up our time to market and reduces the time and effort spent on managing infrastructure. The managed aspect of GKE allows us to simply deploy and utilize it without having to worry about the technicalities of infrastructure management.""Google Kubernetes Engine's most valuable feature is container deployment.""It's easy to manage and deploy. It's the best.""We can scale it all the way from a single zone to multiple regions around the world.""We appreciate that it is quite easy to set up a Kubernetes cluster in Google Cloud, using the managed services within this solution.""The logs are important for detecting problems in our clusters."

More Google Kubernetes Engine Pros →

"This solution provides a comprehensive way to scale up our ports and containers, without having to use multiple products.""There are features that come out of the box with Kubernetes, with respect to scaling, reliability, etc. It's the leading container management platform. There are other competing ones, but this is the leading one. It has multiple instances of the application running. If one of them goes down, the other one automatically spins up.""The most valuable feature is that it's a container orchestrator. It has a huge user base and it is easily incorporated into all of the public clouds.""Auto-scaling and self-healing features are very good.""One of the most valuable features is the thickness of the cloud platform or on-prem file, which makes the solution straightforward to shift and scale. It works well with different types of deployment strategies and networks.""I like Kubernetes' scalability, built-in redundancy, and ease of deployment.""The best thing about Kubernetes is orchestration. It is very good. We will not see much downtime unless there are some human errors. We do not see much downtime or issues with the container or automation.""The most valuable features of Kubernetes are the integration with Docker and there is plenty of documentation available. We work with Docker as a container, and it is more integrated with Docker than VMware Tanzu."

More Kubernetes Pros →

Cons
"While the GKE cluster is secure, application-level security is an essential aspect that needs to be addressed. The security provided by GKE includes the security of communication between nodes within the cluster and the basic features of Kubernetes security. However, these features may not be sufficient for the security needs of an enterprise. Additional security measures must be added to ensure adequate protection. It has become a common practice to deploy security tools within a Kubernetes cluster. It would be ideal if these tools were included as part of the package, as this is a standard requirement in the industry. Thus, application-level security should be integrated into GKE for improved security measures.""We would like to see some improvement in the ease of integration with this solution.""The user interface could be improved.""The console for this solution could be improved because it is very limited.""The solution does not have a visual interface.""There is a limitation for our infrastructure. It's very complex to see in one dashboard all the components and all the behavior on performance. I am looking for some additional tools for that. If I want to check the disk or file storage, it gets complex. There should be an integrated dashboard so that we can manage everything through a single pane.""The user interface is a bit confusing sometimes. You need to navigate between the various consoles we have. It's hard to figure out where things are. It's frustrating. The documentation could be a bit better.""Their documentation is a little here and there. Sometimes, the information is not clear or updated. Their documentation should be a little bit better."

More Google Kubernetes Engine Cons →

"The initial setup of Kubernetes is difficult. However, if you are used to the flow then it is easier. The length of time it takes for the implementation depends on the project.""Setup was not straightforward.""The front end is very rudimentary.""Kubernetes can improve by providing a service offering catalog that can be readily populated in Kubernetes.""We would to have additional features related to security within the API, instead of needing to install add-ons.""The setup process could be improved as it's quite complex, especially for newbies.""It would be nice if they could make it easier for developers and infrastructure staff to automate some of the pieces that they have to do manually at the moment.""Kubernetes could improve security. The security is really hard to deploy with proxies and other elements. Additionally, We have had some issues downloading repos and libraries."

More Kubernetes Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "I would rate Kubernetes' pricing four out of five."
  • "The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."
  • "It is competitive, and it is not expensive. It is almost competitive with AWS and the rest of the cloud solutions. We are spending around 3K USD per month. There are four projects that are currently running, and each one is incurring a cost of around 3K USD."
  • "The pricing for GKE is dependent on the type of machine or virtual machine (VM) that is selected for the nodes in the cluster. There is a degree of flexibility in choosing the specifications of the machine, such as the number of CPUs, GPUs, and so on. Google provides a variety of options, allowing the user to create the desired cluster composition. However, the cost can be quite steep when it comes to regional clusters, which are necessary for high availability and failover. This redundancy is crucial for businesses and is required to handle an increase in requests in case of any issues in one region, such as jumping to a different region in case of a failure in the Toronto region. While it may be tempting to choose the cheapest type of machines, this may result in a limited capacity and user numbers, requiring over-provisioning to handle additional requests, such as those for a web application."
  • "Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."
  • "The product is a little bit expensive."
  • More Google Kubernetes Engine Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "There are no licensing fees."
  • "There is no licensing fee."
  • "In addition to Kubernetes, you have to pay for support."
  • "The solution requires a license to use it."
  • "You need to pay for a license if you buy branded products. For example, if you take the services from Azure, AWS, or Google, the price of the Kubernetes cluster is inclusive of the service that's being offered to us on a pay-and-use model."
  • "Google Kubernetes Engine is free in the simplest setup, AWS Kubernetes Engine costs about $50 (depending on the region), in a three master setup, so it's almost the same as the cost of the EC2 instances and it's totally fine from my point of view."
  • "Kubernetes is an open-source solution that can be free. We have some distribution with licenses, such OpenShift and Tucows in Amazon. They are billing services."
  • "The price of Kubernetes could be lower. However, it is less expensive than VMware Tanzu. Additionally, technical support is expensive. The overall cost of the solution is approximately $1,000 annually."
  • More Kubernetes Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Management solutions are best for your needs.
    708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The logs are important for detecting problems in our clusters.
    Top Answer:The pricing is average. For example, Tanzu Build Service is very expensive, but generally, it's okay. However, I understand that the on-to service is very expensive.
    Top Answer:The current version is quite good. However, a new version, 1.26, is not yet stable. GKE offers regular, stable, and rapid versions, but this one is being used for the rapid version and hasn't been… more »
    Top Answer:The best thing about Kubernetes is that most of the containerized applications are centralized.
    Top Answer:It's free and open-source; anyone can use it. So there are no hidden fees or anything regarding Kubernetes.
    Top Answer:There are several areas where Kubernetes could improve. For example, in one of our database projects, we needed a storage layer that would work on safer sites. Our application is a permanent one that… more »
    Ranking
    7th
    Views
    2,034
    Comparisons
    1,586
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    470
    Rating
    7.9
    2nd
    Views
    6,570
    Comparisons
    4,372
    Reviews
    48
    Average Words per Review
    465
    Rating
    8.7
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    GKE
    K8
    Learn More
    Overview

    Kubernetes Engine is a managed, production-ready environment for deploying containerized applications. It brings our latest innovations in developer productivity, resource efficiency, automated operations, and open source flexibility to accelerate your time to market.

    Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
    It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community.

    Offer
    Learn more about Google Kubernetes Engine
    Learn more about Kubernetes
    Sample Customers
    Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
    China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
    Top Industries
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company25%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Retailer13%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business56%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise33%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise56%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes
    May 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes and other solutions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,544 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Google Kubernetes Engine is ranked 7th in Container Management with 12 reviews while Kubernetes is ranked 2nd in Container Management with 50 reviews. Google Kubernetes Engine is rated 8.0, while Kubernetes is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Google Kubernetes Engine writes "Fully Google ecosystem integrated, saves valuable time, and rapid deployment". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Kubernetes writes "Offers security, scalability, and high availability". Google Kubernetes Engine is most compared with Linode, VMware Tanzu Mission Control, OpenShift Container Platform, Rancher Labs and Amazon Elastic Container Service, whereas Kubernetes is most compared with VMware Tanzu Mission Control, Amazon EKS, OpenShift Container Platform, Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE and Portainer. See our Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes report.

    See our list of best Container Management vendors.

    We monitor all Container Management 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.