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IBM Rational Build Forge vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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
23rd
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
21
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (12th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

AD
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

"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."
"Very good reporting features."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to check the flow of all the different variants within our applications."
"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."
"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 application in the form of graphical visualization."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We never experienced any problems with scalability."
"The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good."
 

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."
"This product doesn't have a GUI. In order to use it properly, I need to connect it to a new GUI or build a GUI to manage it — it's pretty difficult."
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"It is not easy to build a solution with containers. It has a graphical user interface, but you need to have a lot of knowledge of Linux and how to work in the command mode. Its support can also be improved. Currently, its biggest disadvantage is that it is a new product, and the clients prefer to go for a solution that has been in the market for a long time. There are not that many people who know this product."
"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."
"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."
"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"
"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."
"The infrastructure is quite challenging."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"I would recommend that businesses look into the full price for their requirements. The price is high, but there are some open-source add-ons that can be used for customization while keeping costs down, although these might not be suitable for everyone."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
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 Application Service?
The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good.
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Application Service?
Since I have a developer team, they use the solution for testing purposes.
 

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: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.