Kubernetes vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

Kubernetes and Red Hat are both solutions in the Container Management category. Kubernetes is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.2, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Kubernetes holds a 5.5% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 20.8% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Kubernetes users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Kubernetes

Read 78 Kubernetes reviews

2,832 Views
2,804 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

Read 50 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform reviews

6,753 Views
6,685 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Kubernetes

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Kubernetes and OpenShift compete in the field of container orchestration platforms. OpenShift appears to have the upper hand in terms of security and enterprise support, while Kubernetes leads with cost-effectiveness and widespread community usage.

Features: Kubernetes offers impressive scalability, self-healing capabilities, and extensive automation like auto-repair and auto-scaling. It is geared towards users comfortable in diverse cloud environments. OpenShift, built on Kubernetes, stands out with enhanced security features, structured environments, and seamless integration with the Red Hat ecosystem, which provides built-in security measures and user-friendly elements.

Room for Improvement: Kubernetes could improve its dashboard interface, ease of use for non-Linux users, and the integration of networking components, along with enhanced scheduling and monitoring tools. OpenShift requires better documentation and improved integration, particularly with external platforms and some advanced security configurations. Users find its setup process to be complex, seeking more accessible interfaces and tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kubernetes is versatile across private, public, and hybrid clouds but often lacks direct support, leading users to turn to community forums or consultants. Red Hat OpenShift provides robust enterprise-level support within its package, appealing to large organizations requiring reliable assistance. OpenShift's deployment is streamlined by Red Hat's structured support offerings.

Pricing and ROI: Kubernetes, being open-source, is typically cost-effective, especially for businesses with the necessary infrastructure and expertise, only incurring support and storage-related costs. OpenShift's higher licensing fees reflect its advanced features and support services, catering to large enterprises needing comprehensive solutions. Both platforms offer significant ROI, with Kubernetes favored for lower operational costs and OpenShift for its enterprise-grade features and support.

To learn more, read our detailed Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

July 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

Kubernetes

Ranking in Container Management

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

Ranking in Container Management

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Kubernetes is 5.5%, down from 8.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 20.8%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

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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Prasad Gupta

Software Engineer at IBM Software Labs

Efficient deployment with resource optimization and multi-region stability

There are several areas where OpenShift could improve. The interface has numerous UI bugs that need addressing. Furthermore, the latest version has deprecated the deployment config, which has its own advantages compared to the deployment container. Lastly, there is no built-in auto-scaling plugin at the OpenShift level; this needs to be addressed as it's available at the cloud provider level, like IBM Cloud.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Provision of a managed platform as a service."

"Kubernetes' most valuable features include scalability and deployment."

"This solution provides a comprehensive way to scale up our ports and containers, without having to use multiple products."

"This product has a rich toolset from the community including CNI plug-ins, Helm packages, operators, dashboards, various integrations, etc."

"Kubernetes' most valuable features are scaling, deployment, and container management."

"The most valuable feature is the support for Docker containers."

"If you're switching from VMs to Kubernetes, you will see a return because you can pack more into the Kubernetes architecture using containers rather than VMs. You'll see some more savings on your infrastructure, as well."

"It is a very good solution for deploying microservices in an application. It has a lot of freedom in it, which makes it very interesting. It is also web-enabled. You can run services in other virtual applications and virtual machines."

More Kubernetes pros

"The most valuable feature is that the solution can be deployed in the cloud which removes the expense of a server."

"The operating system has a live update and is more secure than any other. It's made for Atomic OS, a lightweight OS new to the market. I also like the source-to-image capabilities. The customer can directly deploy their applications from the repository. It's a highly flexible and easy way to deploy into production."

"Technical support is good; they are fast and reliable."

"I have found the ability to scale up is most valuable."

"The architecture is the best. The solution is scalable if you are on a container-based solution."

"Red Hat's security throughout the stack and software supply chain is good. It is a lightweight operating system. You don't have to worry about the security patches on the system. You can update the entire environment with security patches, which is a nice feature."

"The tool's most valuable features include high availability, scalability, and security. Other features like advanced cluster management, advanced cluster security, and Red Hat Quay make it powerful for businesses. It also comes with features like OpenShift Virtualization."

"It has been a good solution to deploy all containerized applications."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform pros

Cons

"I'm expecting more improvement on the UI development side, which can be reflected in each object that is part of Kubernetes, like the Pod, deployment set, ReplicaSet, ConfigMap, Secrets, and PersistentVolume."

"We faced a challenge while migrating and upgrading versions of Kubernetes."

"We faced a challenge while migrating and upgrading versions of Kubernetes. After the upgrade, some pods were not up as expected, leading to downtime."

"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."

"There are several areas where Kubernetes could improve."

"The lack of native support for billing and self-service capabilities is an area Kubernetes could improve. This requires the use of third-party integrations or managed services in order for customers to be able to deploy clusters on their own. It would be beneficial to have these features built-in into the Kubernetes platform."

"It's good for bigger organizations, but for smaller organizations or a few workloads, it may be too heavy, not easy to deploy, and the ROI may be less because it requires a control plane, worker nodes, and multiple VMs to run."

"Kubernetes could adopt UI-based approach. A UI-based approach would be really useful in the CI/CD pipeline. They should make everything a little bit more user-friendly. For example, when I'm deploying, it would be nice to load my code and be able to see which components need to be connected."

More Kubernetes cons

"The monitoring and logging could be improved."

"We encounter difficulties while accessing the environment and managing the cluster. This particular area needs improvement."

"The stability needs improvement."

"With the recent trend of cloud-native, fully managed serverless services, I don't see much documentation about how a customer should move from on-prem to the cloud, or what is the best way to do a lift-and-shift. Even if you are on AWS OCP, which is self-managed infra services, and you want to use the ROSA managed services, what is the best way to achieve that migration? I don't see documentation for these kinds of use cases from Red Hat."

"One area for improvement is that we can't currently run Docker inside a container, as it clashes with security consents. It would be good if we could change that."

"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."

"I want to see more incorporation of native automation features; then, we could write a code, deploy it directly to OpenShift, and allow it to take care of the automated process. Using this method, we could write one application and have elements copy/pasted to other applications in the development process."

"In my experience, the issues are not always simply technical. They do stem from technical challenges, but they struggle with the topic of adoption. When you encounter all of the customer pull, there are normally several tiers of your client pop that can adopt either the fundamental features or a little more advanced ones. The majority of the time, the challenge is determining how to drive adoption, how to sell the product to the customer, and how much time they can spend to really utilize those advanced features. If we get into much more detail, but this is from my perspective as the platform engineer and not the end customer, the ability of the end user to be able to debug potential issues with their application That is arguably the most important, let's say, work throughput in my area."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing isn't a major concern for us. Since we resell Kubernetes services and focus on providing support, integration, and education, we don't usually have pricing issues. Our customers are more concerned with getting the right support and services than the cost. So, the value we provide is more important than the actual pricing. Pricing might change in the future, but it’s not a big issue for us right now."

"There is a license to use Kubernetes."

"Kubernetes is open source and is an orchestration platform. It is a cost effective solution and its pricing depends on your company and how you use it"

"You need to pay for a license if you buy branded products. For example, if you take the services from Azure, AWS, or Google, the price of the Kubernetes cluster is inclusive of the service that's being offered to us on a pay-and-use model."

"The solution is open source and has no fees."

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

"There is no licensing fee."

"If you have a solid AKS and a solid DevOps process, you'll automatically get an ROI, not just in terms of cost but also in how quickly you can see your business application progress."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is expensive for licensing."

"The pricing is a bit more expensive than expected."

"We currently have an annual license renewal."

"I'm an architect, so I have no involvement in the pricing and licensing of the platform."

"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."

"Its licensing is completely incomprehensible. We have special people within our company. They discuss with Red Hat subscription managers. It is too complex, and I do not understand it. We are from the government, and we are trying to be as cheap as possible. Sometimes, I am just amazed at the amount of money that we have to pay. It is crazy."

"It largely depends on how much money they earn from the application being deployed; you don't normally deploy an app just for the purpose of having it. You must constantly look into your revenue and how much you spend every container, minute, or hour of how much it is working."

"The product is expensive."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

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 OpenShift Container Platform?

The tool's most valuable features include high availability, scalability, and security. Other features like advanced cluster management, advanced cluster security, and Red Hat Quay make it powerful...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenShift Container Platform?

The current licensing cost for this solution is around $23,000 per year, per month. Regarding the current licensing cost, I would rate my satisfaction around seven or seven and a half; there's alwa...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Kubernetes

Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Kubernetes

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Kubernetes

Compared 3% of the time

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Compared 45% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 14% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 8% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Portainer vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 1% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Competitors

Product Reports

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Kubernetes

July 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

July 2025

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform report

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Also Known As

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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

Red Hat® OpenShift® offers a consistent hybrid cloud foundation for building and scaling containerized applications. Benefit from streamlined platform installation and upgrades from one of the enterprise Kubernetes leaders.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect

Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health

Buyer's Guide

Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

July 2025

Free Report: Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

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