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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
6.1
Google Kubernetes Engine delivers positive ROI by reducing costs and improving efficiency, despite being costly for some services.
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.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
3.7
Google Kubernetes Engine support varies; some users rely on forums, while others suggest improvements in response time and professionalism.
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.0
Google Kubernetes Engine is praised for its scalability, efficient for microservices, with dynamic auto-scaling adjusting to organizational needs.
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.
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.
Scalability is rated nine out of ten.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Google Kubernetes Engine is highly stable, effectively managing demands with regular updates and scalable architecture for reliable operations.
Sentiment score
7.4
Red Hat OpenShift is highly stable post-4.8, handling upgrades smoothly, reliable for critical workloads with few minor bugs.
A suitable option would be N2D or beyond, which can onboard all the workloads quickly.
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.
 

Room For Improvement

Google Kubernetes Engine needs enhancements in security, user interface, scalability, pricing, and third-party integration for optimal performance.
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.
Log observability could be made easier so someone from high school can use it without having technological expertise.
It would be helpful if I could easily find log information in a particular namespace without needing to write certain labels.
Notably, the platform plus is perceived as quite expensive and some features from an infrastructure perspective are lacking.
I would like to see advanced cluster management added in future releases, such as a single pane of glass to manage multiple clusters.
 

Setup Cost

Google Kubernetes Engine uses pay-as-you-go pricing, competitive with AWS, considering machine specs, compute resources, and optional GPUs.
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.
Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost.
The on-demand nodes are quite expensive.
The current licensing cost for this solution is around $23,000 per year, per month.
Notably, the platform plus is quite expensive according to the market.
 

Valuable Features

Google Kubernetes Engine offers seamless autoscaling, multi-cloud support, robust security, and easy cluster management for enhanced performance and reliability.
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.
GKE is easier to understand and use than Elastic Kubernetes Service.
What I find most valuable is the ability to focus solely on my product without worrying about the Kubernetes infrastructure itself.
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.
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.
It is important for critical systems.
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine
Ranking in Container Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
39
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 September 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 19.7%, down from 21.7% 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 Platform19.7%
Google Kubernetes Engine2.2%
Other78.1%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration and automation have transformed deployment and maintenance
Regarding the learning curve, the customers actually do not need the technical nitty-gritty details; they need to know about the containerization journey because they are not familiar with it. They know it as a theory, but they don't understand anything about its practical implications. That's the main challenge. The solution itself doesn't require a high learning curve; it is actually quite good to manage. However, application developers and managers have to understand the beauty of it, and that is the challenge. If Red Hat can execute some programs regarding that, it will help. Regarding Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, it is expensive according to market feedback. Notably, the platform plus is perceived as quite expensive and some features from an infrastructure perspective are lacking.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
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?
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...
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: July 2025.
867,299 professionals have used our research since 2012.