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Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 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

Kubernetes
Ranking in Container Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Container Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (14th), PaaS Clouds (11th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Kubernetes is 6.1%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 9.2%, down from 15.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Kubernetes6.1%
VMware Tanzu Platform9.2%
Other84.7%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Leonardo Brito - PeerSpot reviewer
Site Reliability Engineer at Tiendanube
Migration to managed containers has accelerated microservice deployments and reduced downtime
I am using add-ons for EKS Kubernetes that stand out to me. The useful add-ons help with administrating multiple clusters and accounts in AWS. My company uses Kubernetes for microservices within the organization. I advise others to look into using Kubernetes and not to pursue other options. Kubernetes is something I want to emphasize before we wrap up. I have given this review an overall rating of 80.
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc
Has supported container-based deployments and improved infrastructure visibility through monitoring tools
Aria Operations, formerly known as VMware vRealize Operations, has been renamed to vROps. We are currently using this for monitoring purposes. For orchestration, we are using VCD to automate Telco Cloud. VCD is an automation tool, and we are also using VMware Tanzu Platform for the Kubernetes environment, alongside TKG, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These are also other solutions for the Tanzu Kubernetes environment. For Telco Cloud, we are using it to automate our company's operations, which is for a telecom company. We are familiar with these products, especially vCenter, ESXi, VCD, vCF, and vROps. It is very easy to integrate applications when we deploy vCenter and ESXi since we can enable vSphere with Tanzu feature. We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization. We can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications. We provide namespace labels for application developers, and we can manage their resources along with other aspects easily. Regarding security, we use many tools such as CDX and LDAP, AD for integrating our Kubernetes cluster with the developer teams. We can manage roles and permissions simply. It is very straightforward to integrate with EDX and other third-party tools, Active Directory, to the Kubernetes cluster, allowing easy access and management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution provides a comprehensive way to scale up our ports and containers, without having to use multiple products."
"The solution has many valuable features but the most impressive is the ability to scale an application and continuously monitor if all the components of the application are functioning correctly."
"The deployment is one of the most valuable feature."
"Offers a crucial feedback process"
"Kubernetes has positively impacted my organization as 99% of microservices are running."
"Provision of a managed platform as a service."
"The most important feature is container orchestration."
"The performance is good."
"The most popular feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is its graphical user interface for describing network policies on the Service Mesh, which is highly integrable with other tools commonly used in supply chains such as security."
"The valuable feature I have found to be the management of Kubernetes clusters in a private cloud or public clouds, such as Azure or Google Cloud Platform."
"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."
"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."
"The initial setup is easy."
"We feel very good about these features."
"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."
"The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good."
 

Cons

"This product should have a more advanced built-in scheduler that uses real application metrics in the scheduling strategy."
"The security of the solution is in its infancy and needs a lot of work."
"Kubernetes can improve pod escalation."
"It would be nice if they could make it easier for developers and infrastructure staff to automate some of the pieces that they have to do manually at the moment."
"Lacks some scalability and more user-friendly operability."
"This solution is not very easy to use."
"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 could improve security. The security is really hard to deploy with proxies and other elements. Additionally, We have had some issues downloading repos and libraries."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions such as HPE."
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"Another area of improvement is pricing."
"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."
"The price is very high compared to other Kubernetes environments because Kubernetes is open source."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no licensing fee."
"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."
"In addition to Kubernetes, you have to pay for support."
"Kubernetes is open-source. Kubernetes is free, but we're charged for AWS utilization."
"The solution is open source and has no fees."
"The solution is affordable."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs associated with its use."
"There is a license to use Kubernetes."
"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
"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."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"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."
"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise47
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
 

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?
I have had a good experience with pricing, but the setup costs are high.
What needs improvement with Kubernetes?
Kubernetes can be improved, though I cannot specify exactly how at this time.
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 Mission Control?
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 ap...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.
 

Also Known As

K8
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Kubernetes vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.