Kubernetes vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] comparison

Kubernetes and Nutanix are both solutions in the Container Management category. Additionally, 98% of Kubernetes users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Kubernetes

Read 78 Kubernetes reviews

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98% willing to recommend

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...

Read 14 Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] reviews

100% willing to recommend

Kubernetes

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 2025

Kubernetes and Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE compete in the container orchestration category. Kubernetes seems to have the upper hand due to its open-source flexibility, scalability, and adoption across various cloud environments.

Features: Kubernetes highlights scalability, self-healing capabilities, and cross-platform flexibility, making it suitable for complex and diverse cloud environments. Its rich community support and integration with multiple platforms increase its versatility. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE provides simplicity in deployment, reliability, and straightforward management within its single console, complemented by integrated virtualization features.

Room for Improvement: Kubernetes could enhance management simplicity, strengthen its security integration, and offer more intuitive dashboards. The complexity requires better documentation and user interfaces. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE could expand its scalability features, improve disaster recovery options, and support high-performance applications better, with more automated processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kubernetes offers adaptability across hybrid, private, and public clouds, providing unmatched deployment flexibility. However, support might be inconsistent due to its community-driven nature. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE ensures reliable and consistent on-premises support, closely tied with its ecosystem, although restricted to on-premises deployments.

Pricing and ROI: Kubernetes, being open-source, has no licensing costs, appealing to those seeking cost-efficient solutions with notable ROI from reduced infrastructure expenses, though optional tools may add costs. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE presents competitive pricing when bundled in the Nutanix ecosystem, offering valuable features without additional charges but with limited flexibility compared to Kubernetes.

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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

Kubernetes

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Management (5th)

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

Venu Boddu

AWS DevOps Engineer at Hexaware Technologies Limited

Manage infrastructure automation and smooth application deployment with robust auto-scaling capabilities

Kubernetes is highly valuable for its node-based setup, which allows for the running of multiple pods. This feature is essential for infrastructure automation and application deployment. Kubernetes also offers rollback control and auto-scaling capabilities, which are crucial for maintaining an application's availability even if nodes or pods go down. Additionally, Kubernetes supports load balancing to distribute traffic efficiently across multiple pods.

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Prasanthraj PN

Sales Director at InnovationTQ

Offers efficient deployment and management with easy resource allocation, yet faces challenges in integration and compatibility

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE offers easy and fast deployment, management, stability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. The resource allocation is very simple. If we need to expand the memory, storage space, or processor core, it is very easy to manage through our central control. These features are what stand out the most.

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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

"Once you get it configured properly, it's a stable solution."

"I like that it gives you all the flexibility, for example, auto-scaling. Everything is figured out exactly right. It manages all your workloads without much intervention. It can scale in, scale out, and with security. Everything looks pretty good compared to the old legacy way of working."

"The Desired State Configuration is a handy feature; we can deploy a certain number of pods, and the tool will ensure that the state is maintained in our desired configuration."

"If you don't have resources, you can certainly add another worker node and expand the cluster."

"The most valuable features of Kubernetes have been autoscaling and its resilience mechanisms."

"Kubernetes' integration with AWS Lambda is great. I barely had to write any code to connect from EKS to Lambda, so Kubernetes is programmer friendly."

"The most valuable features of Kubernetes are the integration with Docker and there is plenty of documentation available. We work with Docker as a container, and it is more integrated with Docker than VMware Tanzu."

"Offers automated rollouts and storage orchestration"

More Kubernetes pros

"The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase."

"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."

"The solution is easy to manage. You can get everything in a single platform. It is also easy to work with Terraform as a code."

"We can do a lot of provisioning."

"The technical support is excellent."

"The solution is embedded in the hypervisor and there are no deployment costs."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"The product integrates well with our infrastructure."

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] pros

Cons

"Lacks some scalability and more user-friendly operability."

"Kubernetes should improve its consistency across different types of deployments. My customers tell me that they get much better performance when Kubernetes is deployed on VM versus PaaS services from Azure."

"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."

"We would to have additional features related to security within the API, instead of needing to install add-ons."

"Absence of a built-in feature for local API creation"

"Currently, in Kubernetes, all of the health deployments or monitoring, and the discrete tools need to be configured. Changing this would make it much easier. Otherwise, we have to rely on a external tool to implement the monitoring."

"One area where Kubernetes could improve is troubleshooting. The current process for troubleshooting and installation can be challenging, especially with a large ecosystem. Better tools and artificial intelligence capabilities developed to assist with troubleshooting, configuration, and support would be helpful. This improvement would be particularly beneficial for large enterprise customers."

"It increases developers' overhead."

More Kubernetes cons

"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) include upgrading management capabilities and enhancing the user interface for improved usability."

"One major issue we faced was that appliances couldn't migrate from VMware to the tool. However, this seems to be a common problem across platforms. We've seen the same issue when migrating from VMware to RHV or other solutions. It's not specifically a Nutanix problem but rather an issue migrating appliances from one VM infrastructure to another. Some kernel-level and storage-level issues impact this process."

"NKE could benefit from additional features that support more advanced Kubernetes functionalities and configurations."

"There have been challenges related to software bugs, especially regarding long-term licensing options and issues within our customer network."

"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."

"It's mostly for lab purposes; we haven't seen a lot of traction in the market from enterprise customers yet."

"Nutanix has limitations compared to VMware, particularly in testing and industry tie-ups with different OEMs. Deploying virtual machines, especially for industrial automation, can be challenging due to compatibility issues."

"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Kubernetes could be lower. However, it is less expensive than VMware Tanzu. Additionally, technical support is expensive. The overall cost of the solution is approximately $1,000 annually."

"The management layer is free, which is perfect. You don't need to pay money for the management layer, but in AWS develop service, you need to pay. I think it is €75 per month for the management layer. It is free here, so you can have as many Kubernetes clusters as you need. You are paying just for the workload, that is, for the machine, CPU, memory, and everything."

"Kubernetes is open-source."

"In addition to Kubernetes, you have to pay for support."

"I would say the solution is worth the money, but it depends on the required workloads, the type of workload, and the scaling requirements etc."

"We use the solution's open-source version."

"Google Kubernetes Engine is free in the simplest setup, AWS Kubernetes Engine costs about $50 (depending on the region), in a three master setup, so it's almost the same as the cost of the EC2 instances and it's totally fine from my point of view."

"The solution is affordable."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."

"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."

"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."

"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."

"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	25
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Kubernetes?

There are many good features. I feel that the scale-out features, like replica sets, are very good. The number of running containers can be autoscaled.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?

Since we use Kubernetes on-premises, the costs are related to our expertise and the personnel we hire.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kubernetes?

Although we face issues when migrating to new versions of Kubernetes, such as misunderstandings on using new features or integration with proxy services, these issues can be addressed with proper p...

See all answers

What do you like most about Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase.

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What needs improvement with Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

In terms of features, I cannot comment technically, but the real value is the consolidated out-of-the-box solution that Nutanix offers. Nutanix has built great branding and a lot of credibility and...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

I have experience with OpenShift, Kubernetes, and Nutanix, as we are one of the largest Nutanix resellers in the Middle East. We handle Kubernetes on the cloud as well, so we manage most of the Kub...

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Comparisons

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 29% of the time

Portainer vs Kubernetes

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Kubernetes

Compared 9% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 8% of the time

HashiCorp Nomad vs Kubernetes

Compared 6% of the time

More Kubernetes Competitors

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 26% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 24% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 17% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 5% of the time

Docker vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] Competitors

Product Reports

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Kubernetes

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

October 2025

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] report

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Also Known As

Nutanix Karbon

Overview

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community.

Kubernetes

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] offers easy deployment, efficient resource management, and seamless integration with existing infrastructure, supporting virtualization and configurable RBAC.

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] simplifies Kubernetes cluster deployment and management, offering robust features such as health checks and seamless upgrades. It integrates with existing systems, supports virtualization, and provides a unified console. Automatic load management and scalability contribute to its stability. Though migrating via VMware poses challenges and documentation updates are needed, potential enhancements include dynamic resource scaling, advanced backup options, and improved disaster recovery. NKE is ideal for microservices, container management, and application modernization, playing a vital role in DevOps settings.

What are the key features of Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]?

Easy Deployment: Simplifies cluster setup and management for quick ramp-up.
Resource Allocation: Efficiently allocates computing resources for optimized operations.
Seamless Upgrades: Handles updates without causing downtime.
Integration: Works with existing infrastructure, allowing virtualization support.
Console Management: Offers a single interface for robust management features.

What benefits should users look for in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides a reliable Kubernetes platform with reduced operational costs.
Scalability: Ensures stability and growth alongside increasing demands.
Support Features: Includes robust technical support for a seamless experience.
Efficiency: Enhances workload management in DevOps environments.
Configurable Options: Allows tailored RBAC and scalable virtualization benefits.

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] is deployed in industries focusing on microservices and application modernization, serving development to testing environments. It integrates with hardware and API tools, supporting DevOps workloads and infrastructure management. Primarily used on-premises, it supports large-scale application deployment leveraging network capabilities.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen

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