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Kubernetes vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Kubernetes
Ranking in Container Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift Container...
Ranking in Container Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Kubernetes is 5.8%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 29.8%, up from 27.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Swayan Jeet Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 13, 2022
Container orchestrator that deploys our machine learning solutions
We're using it to deploy our machine learning solutions. Every public cloud has their own version of Kubernetes. For example, Google has its own version, which is known as the Google Kubernetes Engine. AWS has its own version, which is known as the Elastic Kubernetes Services, EKS. Our entire data…
Vlado Velkovski - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 23, 2022
Provides automation that speeds up our process by 30% and helps us achieve zero downtime
OpenShift has a pretty steep learning curve. It's not an easy tool to use. It's not only OpenShift but Kubernetes itself. The good thing is that Red Hat provides specific targeted training. There are five or six pieces of training where you can get certifications. The licenses for OpenShift are pretty expensive, so they could be cheaper because the competition isn't sleeping, and Red Hat must take that into account. There are a few versions of OpenShift. There is the normal OpenShift and an OpenShift Plus license. Red Hat could think of how to connect those two subscriptions because, with Red Hat Plus, you have one tool called ACM (Advanced Cluster Management), where you can manage multiple clusters from one place. We deployed this functionality by ourselves, but if you don't pay the license for Red Hat OpenShift Plus, you'll lack this functionality. If you have a multi-cloud environment and you have a lot of work to do, it would be a plus if the Red Had OpenShift Plus license came in a bundle with the regular solutions. This ACM tool should be available in the normal subscription, not just the Plus version. There are new versions on an almost weekly basis. I found myself that the upgrading of OpenShift clusters is not a task that will successfully finish every time. It's a simple and quick, but not reliable process. That's why we use multiple clusters. We use v4.10.3, but we want to move to v4.12.X. The upgrade process itself can fail, and we don't have backups of our OpenShift cluster because we have backups of all the Kubernetes manifests on GitHub. We destroy the cluster, bring up a new one quickly, and apply those scripts. The upgrade itself could be more resilient for us as administrators of OpenShift to be sure that it'll succeed and not occasionally fail. They can improve the reliability of their upgrade process. They also have implementations of some Red Hat-verified operators for a lot of products like Elasticsearch. They're good enough for development purposes, but some of the OpenShift operators still lack resilient production-grade configurations. Red Hat says that we have a few hundred operators, but I believe that only half of them are production-grade ready at this moment. They need to work much more on those operators to become more flexible because you can deploy all of them in development mode, but when we go to production grade and want to make specific changes to the operator and configuration, we lack those possibilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"If you don't have resources, you can certainly add another worker node and expand the cluster."
"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."
"I like that it has really boosted cloud-native development and stood the test of time. The underlying architecture allows one to scale as per the business KPIs much faster."
"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."
"The cloud-managed Kubernetes allow us to take care of a big system and deployment and container management without having a big operational team."
"The most valuable feature of the platform is the ability to load some of the containers that were previously managed by humans."
"The self-serving feature allows our developers to grab a container and complete testing."
"Autoscaling is an excellent feature that makes it very simple to scale our applications as required."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it has a lot to offer to developers, so they don't need to care about the infrastructure or basic setup of the containers, so you can just jump in and develop."
"The most valuable are security features, particularly when operating in the cloud."
"It is very lightweight and can be deployed very fast, especially when it comes to containers."
"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."
"Technical support is good; they are fast and reliable."
"OpenShift is a user-friendly container platform with a solid GUI that helps you follow what is going on and gives you an overview of all your clusters. It's more user-friendly than the Kubernetes itself. The interface helps you learn the platform and provides access to some features or specific comments."
"Integrating the product into our existing infrastructure was easy."
 

Cons

"There are features in Google Cloud or AWS that aren't in Azure. They need to implement a couple more tools in Azure."
"I think that the GUI dashboard in Kubernetes is very simple and that there are no great options."
"The tool needs to improve its UI. The tool is very complex and basic."
"The plugins could be better. That is one pain point we had, and we had to get in with many other open standards, like Calico networking and more."
"The configuration is a bit complicated."
"The support could be faster at resolving issues."
"The setup process could be improved as it's quite complex, especially for newbies."
"One feature I would actually like to see is the network monitoring part. When we talk about communities, it's mostly the computer side. But it does have some enhancements on the networking side which they have recently released. I would like to see more enhancement where we can monitor the networks of the Kubernetes cluster or the Kubernetes workloads."
"The support costs are too high."
"We've encountered challenges when transitioning applications between these environments."
"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."
"OpenShift needs to improve their container storage."
"Getting the solution quickly and troubleshooting quickly are both areas where I think it needs some work."
"There should be a simplification of the overall cluster environment. It should require fewer resources. Just to run a simple Hello World app, it requires about seven servers, and that's just crazy. I understand that it is fully redundant, but it's prohibitively expensive to get something simple going."
"My impression is that this solution is pretty expensive so I think the pricing plan could improve."
"The initial setup can be hard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's an affordable solution"
"Kubernetes is open-source. Kubernetes is free, but we're charged for AWS utilization."
"There is a license to use Kubernetes."
"The solution is affordable."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"Kubernetes is open source. But we have to manage Kubernetes as a team, and the overhead is a bit high. Compared with the platforms like Cloud Foundry, which has a much less operational overhead. Kubernetes, I have to manage the code, and I have to hire the developers. If someone has a product, a developer should know exactly what he's writing or high availability, and all those things may differ the costs."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs associated with its use."
"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."
"OpenShift with Red Hat support is pretty costly. We have done a comparison between AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Services) which provides fully managed services from AWS. It's built on open-source-based Kubernetes clusters and it is much cheaper compared to Red Hat, but it is a little expensive compared to ECS provided by AWS."
"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."
"Its price is a bit high because it's a premium product, but as long as the business is ready to pay for that, it's okay."
"If you buy the product for a year or three, you get a lot of discounts...I feel that the product is worth its cost, especially since setting it up can be done with just a few clicks."
"We have to pay for the license."
"We currently have an annual license renewal."
"It depends on who you're talking to. For a large corporation, it is acceptable, other than the significant infrastructure requirements. For a small organization, it is in no way suitable, and we'd go for Amazon's container solution."
"OpenShift Container Platform is highly-priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?
The pricing depends on the project. Ultimately, it's a business decision, and they need to assess the risks and potential consequences. If the benefits outweigh the costs, then it's a worthwhile in...
What needs improvement with Kubernetes?
Perhaps there are some aspects related to its operation that could be improved. One thing I noticed is when you have multiple deployments and your node count increases beyond eight or nine, the con...
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 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...
 

Also Known As

K8
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2024.
812,863 professionals have used our research since 2012.