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IBM Rational Build Forge 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 Rational Build Forge
Ranking in Build Automation
24th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Build Automation
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of IBM Rational Build Forge is 0.8%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

it_user1330545 - PeerSpot reviewer
Great reporting features and very functional
The solution could be more user friendly. Trying to train somebody on it can be difficult. If you're in this field, you kind of learn the tools, but trying to show a PM how to find report sheets to pull data was difficult. I had to show them how to write the queries and pull the data that they needed. It's not a layman's solution. If you're working with a programmer or with an architect, you won't have issues trying to relay how to utilize the tool. It was for those who cut the checks where there were problems enabling them to pull the data they required. I guess the answer is DevOps, but it depends on your environment. Just being able to sign into dashboards and get accurate results was my biggest thing with my PMs on my projects. They like charts and pie graphs, the ability to see things at a glance data where they could make decisions on the fly.
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

"Very good reporting features."
"All features are useful. Our customer doesn't have any complaints about the tool. It works pretty well for what they want and what they need to do."
"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."
"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."
"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."
"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."
"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"
"The most popular feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is its graphical user interface for describing network policies on the Service Mesh, which is highly integrable with other tools commonly used in supply chains such as security."
"We feel very good about these features."
"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."
 

Cons

"Not user friendly for the layman."
"Its logging can be improved. When something goes wrong, it is not always very easy to find the problem. It is hard to identify whether the problem is because of low memory in the server or some configuration in Rational Build Forge. The error logs are not very detailed, and they should provide more information. It should also have more integration with third-party tools. It would be great to have more integration with third-party tools."
"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."
"VMware Tanzu Service Mesh could add better integration with other cloud platforms, such as vRealize Automation or VMware vCloud Director for cloud providers."
"Another area of improvement is pricing."
"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."
"The implementation is not easy, it is very complex and can take a day or two to complete."
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"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."
"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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

Rational Build Forge
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cars.com
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Rational Build Forge vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.