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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
6.8
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (1st)
 

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.
NM
Solaris UNIX Systems Engineer at Standard Bank South Africa
Consistent performance impresses users while technical support needs improvement
I definitely recommend Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to other organizations due to its high availability, security, ease of use, and all the built-in features it offers. We do no maintenance for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform since ROSA is fully managed, and that's why it is a bit more expensive than EKS. The fully managed service includes 24/7 support, scheduling, and upgrades; we only need to inform Red Hat support about upgrades, and they manage the process end to end. Overall, I rate Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform as a nine; although I would say ten, I think it's important to allow room for improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support is excellent."
"Nutanix's support is really good."
"My experience with Nutanix's technical support is excellent."
"The solution is embedded in the hypervisor and there are no deployment costs."
"Nutanix is very stable and reliable, based on my experience with many customers, including large banks and telcos."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The solution provides no downtime features. If we face issues, we create a new port, deploy it there, and then drop the existing one. This way, we avoid NKE downtime on our website."
"The platform is valuable due to its ease of use and quick deployment capabilities."
"It is very lightweight and can be deployed very fast, especially when it comes to containers."
"Centralized control of container resources is most valuable."
"I definitely recommend Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform to other organizations due to its high availability, security, ease of use, and all the built-in features it offers."
"Some of the primary features we leverage in the platform have to do with how we manage the cluster configurations, the properties, and the auto-scalability. These are the features that definitely provide value in terms of reducing overhead for the developers."
"I find the security features and use of operators in OpenShift Container Platform highly valuable."
"The auto scalability feature, which is based on smart agendas, determined from pre-prepared rules is the most valuable feature. You can also create different routes for deployment. Deployment types can be provided with an identifier, such as an ARB deployment. This really helped in rolling out releases without disrupting services for the end-users."
"More tools are available in OpenShift Container Platform to maintain and manage the clusters."
"Dashboards... give us all the details we need to see about the microservices."
 

Cons

"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."
"We need a backup of production clusters."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."
"There have been challenges related to software bugs, especially regarding long-term licensing options and issues within our customer network."
"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."
"I have issues with the product's interoperability."
"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 complexity of the installation could be reduced. While we got the necessary support, the instructions could be clearer."
"Getting the solution quickly and troubleshooting quickly are both areas where I think it needs some work."
"I believe that the documentation part is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"Container Platform could be improved if we could aggregate logs out of the box instead of having to do it through integrations with other products."
"It can take 10 to 15 minutes to deploy a microservice. The CI/CD process takes a long time, and if it's because of OCP, that is something that can be changed."
"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."
"Setting up OpenShift locally can be challenging, particularly because it requires RHL Linux and has specific restrictions."
"There is room for improvement with integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."
"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."
"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."
"The pricing is expensive for licensing."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it an eight out of ten. There is a subscription called OpenShift Plus, which offers additional features and products the vendor provides to complement the OpenShift Container Platform. These include ACM, Red Hat Quay, and Red Hat OpenShift Data Foundation."
"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."
"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 not familiar with pricing or financial aspects. In terms of effort versus benefit, it's worth 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."
"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."
"The product is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenShift Container Platform?
Regarding whether Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is expensive or if the price is reasonable for my customers, to me, the services it provides should incur some costs, but based on market feed...
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Karbon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes and others in Container Management. Updated: December 2025.
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