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Google Kubernetes Engine vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

Google Kubernetes Engine
Ranking in Container Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Container Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (17th), PaaS Clouds (12th), Cloud Management (33rd), Development Platforms (5th), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 4.0%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 6.9%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Tanzu Platform6.9%
Google Kubernetes Engine4.0%
Other89.1%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

ParthasarathyT - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Infrastructure Engineer 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.
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

"The solution is available across AWS, GCP and Azure and is seamless."
"Before using this solution, it was a lot of manual tasks and a lot of people participated in the process."
"The initial setup was very easy because it's like a Google platform as a service. It's just one button to set it up. The deployment took only a few minutes."
"The product’s dashboard is very intuitive."
"This is a really good product for independent applications or microservices."
"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."
"The solution simplified deployment, making it more automated. Previously, Docker required manual configuration, often done by developers on their computers. However, with Google Kubernetes Engine, automation extends to configuration, deployment, scalability, and viability, primarily originating from Docker rather than Kubernetes. Its most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"We hardly have a breakdown. It's been very stable."
"We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization, and we can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications."
"We feel very good about these features."
"Tazu is a developer-friendly and highly mature product."
"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."
"With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider."
"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."
"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"
"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."
 

Cons

"The console for this solution could be improved because it is very limited."
"An area in which Google Kubernetes Engine could improve is configuration."
"The product's integration with third-party vendors needs improvement."
"The notifications are not informative."
"I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten."
"Their documentation is a little here and there. Sometimes, the information is not clear or updated. Their documentation should be a little bit better."
"The product could be cheaper."
"The product's stability is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."
"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."
"VMware Tanzu Service Mesh could add better integration with other cloud platforms, such as vRealize Automation or VMware vCloud Director for cloud providers."
"LYNX is a managed cluster solution that takes care of specific details within a cluster, such as sequences or services. I haven't seen this feature in Tanzu Mission Control."
"The biggest gap for me was just that the solution is relatively tied to Cloud Foundry. If you have anything you need to deploy outside of that, it becomes burdensome."
"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"
"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."
"The cost is a major factor in this solution; anything above the standard version comes at a high price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. The product is competitively priced."
"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."
"This is an open source solution, so there is no pricing or licensing."
"The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."
"Initially, Google Kubernetes Engine was a little bit cheaper, but now its prices have been increased compared to the pricing model and the features that are made available by its competitors."
"Currently, it costs around $1000 per month which sorted our deployment. So once we get more clients, having a huge suffix, costs can go up."
"I would rate Kubernetes' pricing four out of five."
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"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."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"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 license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
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 Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

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...
What is your primary use case for Google Kubernetes Engine?
I use Google Kubernetes Engine for many purposes, most notably for websites, but the websites are microservices. However, some mega projects have many machines that needed to be containerized, so w...
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...
 

Also Known As

GKE, Google Kubernetes
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.