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IBM Public Cloud vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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

IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (6th)
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (14th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.2%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordability and security improve our cloud experience while learning new systems
I'm not working with any AI features in IBM Public Cloud, but they are in the process of building it.I am very satisfied with the security that IBM Public Cloud provides. I would rate IBM Public Cloud eight out of ten, where one is worst and ten is the best.
DarshanChaudhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers seamless connectivity and integration through APIs while offering robust auto-scaling
I am involved in IT services and we provide a solution to customers. We work with VMware, Nutanix, OpenShift, and Microsoft Hyper-V The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible. It offers native services for autoscaling and integrations through APIs, allowing seamless…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For non-complex applications, the IBM Cloud works fine and the price is much lower than the competitors."
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"This product is very good because it is accessible in remote locations, and anyone can deploy from any place."
"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."
"The price of IBM Cloud is most valuable for us. The service is personable and gives us a good rapport. I can't say it's the best, but it was enough for our needs."
"The availability is second to none. Customer support is very good."
"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."
"There is no installation for this product because it is a cloud product."
"We feel very good about these features."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is the management functionality of the cluster life cycle. Additionally, the solution integrates well with other vendors, such as Velero for backups and Sonobuoy for compliance. Additionally, it works well in multi-cluster environments."
"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."
"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."
"The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good."
"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."
 

Cons

"Support could be improved."
"There is not a lot of support for this solution, which is something that needs to be improved."
"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."
"An area for improvement in IBM Public Cloud is getting up-to-date information on how to set up everything. It's hard to find new documentation."
"The product should offer more computing, similar to Amazon."
"The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition."
"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"While they have about 99% of what we need, the only exception, perhaps, was the push notification feature that was discontinued. They delayed the replacement product."
"The disaster recovery feature could be improved to provide better tracking of issues. I would also like to see the introduction of a dashboard view, for even further integration of all the areas that Mission Control looks at."
"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"
"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."
"One potential area for expansion would be leveraging AI capabilities, which my customer might be interested in exploring as they grow."
"Another area of improvement is pricing."
"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"
"Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity."
"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"The price of IBM Cloud is very cheap compared to competitors AWS and Azure."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."
"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."
"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."
"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity ...
What needs improvement with IBM Cloud?
The front end is not pervasive, so it is very difficult get the status of your current services or account from a mobile device.
What do you like most about IBM Public Cloud?
The most valuable feature of IBM Public Cloud is the AI integrations.
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 VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native ap...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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