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Google Kubernetes Engine vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.8
Google Kubernetes Engine offers cost efficiency and productivity, though additional service costs and competition may affect returns.
Sentiment score
4.6
Users experienced cost reductions, scalability, and faster deployment with Red Hat OpenShift, despite uncertainty in new sectors.
By migrating from AWS to Google Cloud Platform, we have saved a lot of time and money.
Director at Taotesting
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.3
User satisfaction with Google Kubernetes Engine support is mixed, with some praising efficiency and others noting delays and challenges.
Sentiment score
5.8
Users praise Red Hat OpenShift support for responsiveness but suggest improvements in prioritizing urgent issues and reducing delays.
They should prioritize skilled engineers for urgent issues.
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.0
Google Kubernetes Engine excels in scalability, supporting dynamic scaling for enterprises and cloud platforms, ideal for diverse applications.
Sentiment score
7.4
Red Hat OpenShift excels in scalable, flexible resource management for diverse business needs, despite some documentation gaps.
The autoscaling capabilities of Google Kubernetes Engine have significantly impacted our operations.
Director at Taotesting
I rate the scalability of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as a nine, as I haven't encountered any issues with scaling a cluster or applications.
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
Scalability is rated nine out of ten.
It Team Lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Google Kubernetes Engine is stable, with minimal downtime and consistent performance, appreciated for scalability and adaptability across environments.
Sentiment score
7.4
Red Hat OpenShift is highly stable post-4.8, handling upgrades smoothly, reliable for critical workloads with few minor bugs.
If I have 100 replicas of containers and the traffic suddenly pushes to 1,000 within a fraction of a second, the selected machine type must be fast.
Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient
There haven't been any issues so far; it remains stable with no downtime or crashes, and even the upgrades are handled seamlessly without issues.
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest improvements in pricing, upgrades, interface, security, support, integration, backup, and performance visibility for Google Kubernetes Engine.
Red Hat OpenShift struggles with networking, deployment, pricing, needing better integration, documentation, and automation while addressing cost concerns.
When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved.
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Log observability could be made easier so someone from high school can use it without having technological expertise.
Consultant at HSBC
It would be helpful if I could easily find log information in a particular namespace without needing to write certain labels.
Director at Taotesting
Notably, the platform plus is perceived as quite expensive and some features from an infrastructure perspective are lacking.
Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited
I would like to see advanced cluster management added in future releases, such as a single pane of glass to manage multiple clusters.
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
 

Setup Cost

Google Kubernetes Engine offers usage-based pricing with flexibility, but costs may rise with robust configurations and small deployments.
Enterprise users acknowledge high pricing of Red Hat OpenShift, considering it valuable, with discounts for long-term commitments despite licensing complexity.
Instead, we only pay for the hardware we use, which results in cost-cutting.
Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient
The on-demand nodes are quite expensive.
Director at Taotesting
Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost.
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
The current licensing cost for this solution is around $23,000 per year, per month.
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
Notably, the platform plus is quite expensive according to the market.
Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited
 

Valuable Features

Google Kubernetes Engine excels with auto-scaling, easy deployment, integration, security, and reduced complexity for seamless application management.
Red Hat OpenShift offers scalability, security, integration, and efficiency for fast application delivery and enterprise-level resource management.
The most valuable aspect of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is its managed nature, which significantly reduces the burden on our platform team.
Product Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
The best advantage of Google Kubernetes Engine is that it manages Kubernetes for you, making everything related to the master nodes managed for you with automatic updating and upgrading.
Solution Architect at Rutotech
GKE is easier to understand and use than Elastic Kubernetes Service.
Consultant at HSBC
The cluster scaling features, such as the auto-scaling of cluster nodes and application replicas using horizontal and vertical pod auto-scaling, significantly impact our operations.
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
In terms of features in Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, I find the orchestration itself quite useful for my customers because it integrates with lots of tools.
Infrastructure Architect & CEO at Tirzok Private Limited
It is important for critical systems.
It Team Lead at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine
Ranking in Container Management
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift Container...
Ranking in Container Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.3%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 18.9%, down from 23.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform18.9%
Google Kubernetes Engine2.3%
Other78.8%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient
Managed solutions enable efficient handling of web applications and migration projects
Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present where I can upgrade directly, and having more than 1,000 to 2,000 workloads in one node pool makes changing the node pool name difficult for all those workloads. I choose eight out of ten mainly because of the node pool upgrade challenge I mentioned, but also because of the existence of Anthos service mesh, which is the ingress controller available only for the enterprise Kubernetes Engine. It would be beneficial if it could be offered in the normal Kubernetes Engine with any limitations.
NM
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
Consistent performance impresses users while technical support needs improvement
I definitely recommend Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to other organizations due to its high availability, security, ease of use, and all the built-in features it offers. We do no maintenance for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform since ROSA is fully managed, and that's why it is a bit more expensive than EKS. The fully managed service includes 24/7 support, scheduling, and upgrades; we only need to inform Red Hat support about upgrades, and they manage the process end to end. Overall, I rate Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as a nine; although I would say ten, I think it's important to allow room for improvement.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Google Kubernetes Engine is straightforward, as I previously indicated. The need for humans is reduced with GCP since there is no need for ...
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
The price could be a bit cheaper. I don't see anything with Google Kubernetes Engine that needs to be improved. I think they are already implementing Kubernetes itself, so they are the owners. Howe...
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 do you like most about OpenShift Container Platform?
The tool's most valuable features include high availability, scalability, and security. Other features like advanced cluster management, advanced cluster security, and Red Hat Quay make it powerful...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenShift Container Platform?
Regarding whether Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is expensive or if the price is reasonable for my customers, to me, the services it provides should incur some costs, but based on market feed...
 

Also Known As

GKE
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,768 professionals have used our research since 2012.