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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 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

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift Container...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2741271 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nutanix Administrator at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Has provided seamless upgrade experiences and robust technical support
I have heard there are many features added in NKP that are not available in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE, such as load balancer features. The unified control plane feature is not being used in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE. We are currently using a third-party tool for load balancing, but going forward, NKP will include load balancer, ingress, and egress features, making infrastructure management much easier. There is no auto-scaling feature in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE; however, NKP offers it. In NKE, we created additional worker nodes and increased CPU and RAM capacity, but it required manual intervention. Concerning policy-driven governance in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE, we have the ability to implement RBAC at the cluster level, which helps maintain security by not granting full admin privileges to every end user, thus restricting access effectively.
Marouane - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at MISSASERVICE
Integrated pipelines have accelerated continuous deployment and improved incident response
The powerful thing about Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is for deploying how to install our application, how to deploy it, and it is easy to work with this platform to do DevOps or CI/CD. It is easy to do CI/CD with this platform and to add functionality in our application. We can add functionality in our application easily with this platform. We can go quickly from dev testing, integrating, and deploying quickly with this platform. The integrated CI/CD pipelines of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform have a time-saving impact on our development process. When we use the CI/CD functionality, the main saving is really important compared to combining many other tools to have the same result. In Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, you have everything integrated, but in other platforms, you have to set up many tools to have the same output. In Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, it is ready to set up, or almost set up; you only have to configure it. Time-saving is one of the important things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."
"Karbon is embedded in the hypervisor, there are no deployment costs and the administration is via Prism Central."
"The product integrates well with our infrastructure."
"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."
"My experience with Nutanix's technical support is excellent."
"The technical support is excellent."
"The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase."
"Nutanix's support is really good."
"The platform has significantly improved our organization by enhancing productivity and reducing the time required to deploy applications."
"OpenShift eliminates distractions so that we can focus on innovation and other things."
"The benefits I have seen from using Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform include that it provides a seamless application business, and the business is never going to be impacted because deployments and upgrades can be completed without impacting the real business."
"The console or the GUI of OpenShift is awesome. You can do a lot of things from there. You can perform administration tasks as well as development tasks."
"The best feature is the management for the port life cycle, which automatically recycles, pulls, and scales up and down based on needs and requests."
"I think it's a pretty scalable tool...The solution's technical support has been pretty good."
"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."
"The usability and the developer experience. The platform has a centralized consultant that is easy to use for our development, operations and security teams."
 

Cons

"There have been cases where we've deployed with Karbon and haven't seen that it includes errors."
"There is no auto-scaling feature in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE; however, NKP offers it. In NKE, we created additional worker nodes and increased CPU and RAM capacity, but it required manual intervention."
"It's mostly for lab purposes; we haven't seen a lot of traction in the market from enterprise customers yet."
"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) include upgrading management capabilities and enhancing the user interface for improved usability."
"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."
"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."
"The product lacks some virtualization capabilities, making it an area for improvement where the solution can focus on providing users with more virtualization capabilities related to disk systems."
"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."
"The UI could be more user-friendly to drive tasks more effectively through the interface."
"The product's interface is a bit buggy."
"We've encountered challenges when transitioning applications between these environments."
"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."
"It has an option to install OpenShift without connecting it to the Internet. We tried this, but it was very hard. We couldn't manage to use that option. We wanted to use it offline for installations, updates, upgrades, etc., but we didn't find the offline installation and updates easy. This could be better."
"One challenge is that sometimes it may be difficult to find the answers to your questions if you are not a Red Hat customer."
"The stability needs improvement."
"OpenShift Container Platform could improve by having better integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"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."
"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."
"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."
"The pricing is a bit more expensive than expected."
"OpenShift pricing varies by region. For example, a simple cluster with three nodes in DAL-10 might cost around $560 to $580 per month, subject to specific configurations like memory and CPU cores."
"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."
"The product is expensive."
"The price is slightly on the higher side. It is something that can be worked on because most of the businesses now have margins."
"We have to pay for the license."
"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."
"I'm an architect, so I have no involvement in the pricing and licensing of the platform."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise43
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
I don't have a technical role, but we are a system integrator, so we sell solutions such as OpenShift and Kubernetes as part of the sales team. We are a reseller called eSky IT, and I serve as the ...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenShift Container Platform?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that the pricing is not that much due to the pay-as-you-go model of AWS. However, I am not aware of the setup cost as I have only worked on ...
What needs improvement with OpenShift Container Platform?
I have something regarding Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform. It is a little bit complicated to set up Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform on a local server. You have to buy or have many resour...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Karbon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
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