Kong Mesh vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Kong and VMware are both solutions in the Service Mesh category. Kong is ranked #4 with an average rating of 6.0, while VMware is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.8. Additionally, 100% of VMware users are willing to recommend the solution.

Kong Mesh

Read 1 Kong Mesh review

1,393 Views
1,254 Comparison Views

0% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 21 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

569 Views
425 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kong Mesh

VMware Tanzu Platform

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kong Mesh and VMware Tanzu Platform based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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To learn more, read our detailed Service Mesh Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Service Mesh

April 2025

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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

Kong Mesh

Ranking in Service Mesh

4th

Average Rating

6.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in Service Mesh

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (13th), PaaS Clouds (12th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)

Featured Reviews

Arjun Pandey

Engineering Lead- Cloud and Platform Architecture at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Provides a unique advantage by offering a global view for all workloads and clusters within the mesh but lack of a robust community for open-source support

There are a number of areas where Kong Kuma can improve. One is in terms of product delivery, such as Helm charts. There are a lot of gaps in the Helm charts currently. Another is in terms of the default monitoring and logging setup. It is not as production-ready as it could be. By default, Kuma comes with Loki, Yagger, and Prometheus to monitor the control plane and data plane, but the unified dashboarding and logging solution should be closer to production-grade. It is good for trying out the product, but I would not recommend taking it to production without setting up your own monitoring and logging solution. Additionally, Kuma recently released Fivecarless Mesh, which was built on top of Envoy. The challenge with this is that it adds overhead. If you want to run 100 containers in production, you will actually need to run 200 containers because you need to run one sidecar container per pod. Overall, I think Kong Kuma is a moderate product, but I would not personally recommend it for production use.

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DarshanChaudhari

Solutions Architect Hybrid Cloud Practice US/Europe at Tech Mahindra Limited

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a scalable product."

"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."

"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."

"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."

"We never experienced any problems with scalability."

"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."

"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."

"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 Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"The initial setup is complicated. Although Kuma has its own CLI, CTL, and they say to use their CLI, if I have to build a generic solution, my personal preference would be to use Helm or another similar solution other than Kuma. If you have your own library CLI, it becomes hard for others to adopt it. For example, if I have to write some automation, infrastructure automation, I can't just use Kuma. I have to change my code to use Kuma's CTL, which is unfair because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't fit with my current automation structure. I have to do something extra, something additional, which I really don't like."

"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."

"Tanzu could provide more granular control over whatever networking is being done on the containers. I would also like to see a slightly more detailed view of application-level tracing. I'm referring to the connections between different microservices. If they added a service-matching feature, that would be helpful for the customers to build or be more effective."

"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."

"The network control and security policies must be improved."

"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."

"Another area of improvement is pricing."

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have tried for my personal research and all those things. I have tried only the open-source version. So, for me, it was always free."

"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."

"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."

"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."

"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"

"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."

"The licensing cost is expensive."

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

25%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Kong Mesh?

It is a scalable product.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kong Mesh?

I have tried for my personal research and all those things. I have tried only the open-source version. So, for me, it was always free.

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What needs improvement with Kong Mesh?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Application Service?

Since I have a developer team, they use the solution for testing purposes.

See all answers

Comparisons

Istio vs Kong Mesh

Compared 49% of the time

Envoy vs Kong Mesh

Compared 36% of the time

HashiCorp Consul vs Kong Mesh

Compared 9% of the time

Traefik Enterprise vs Kong Mesh

Compared 6% of the time

More Kong Mesh Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Service Mesh

April 2025

Download Kong Mesh product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

Also Known As

Kuma

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

Overview

Kong Mesh is the ultimate universal service mesh designed for enterprise organizations, offering simplicity and scalability with Kuma and Envoy technologies. This cloud-native solution is versatile, deployable on Kubernetes, VMware, and various environments. Kong Mesh excels in ease of installation, configuration, and management, making it a top choice for organizations seeking streamlined service mesh implementation. With robust features like fine-grained traffic control, observability tools for in-depth monitoring, and comprehensive security mechanisms such as authentication and encryption, Kong Mesh ensures that microservices are both secure and high-performing. Its multi-zone and multi-mesh support allow for distributed deployments, making it a flexible and powerful choice for those looking to enhance their service infrastructure.

Kong

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

VMware

Sample Customers

First AbuDhabi Bank, CISCO, Papa johns pizza, Samsung, Expedia

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Find out what your peers are saying about Isito, Envoy, HAProxy and others in Service Mesh. Updated: April 2025.

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