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Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 NKE
Ranking in Container Management
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Container Monitoring (5th)
Red Hat OpenShift
Ranking in Container Management
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (3rd), Server Virtualization Software (9th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (6th), Agile and DevOps Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE is 9.0%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 1.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Prasanthraj PN - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers efficient deployment and management with easy resource allocation, yet faces challenges in integration and compatibility
Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE ( /products/nutanix-kubernetes-engine-nke-reviews ) offers easy and fast deployment, management, stability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. The resource allocation is very simple. If we need to expand the memory, storage space, or processor core, it is very easy to manage through our central control. These features are what stand out the most.
Pratul Shukla - PeerSpot reviewer
Adopting a flexible and efficient approach with noticeable improvements in operational costs and continued challenges in job management
Currently, one of the biggest challenges we face is with services and jobs. For spawning batches, although it has crons, it is not easy to integrate with enterprise systems such as Autosys. The entire company uses Autosys, but we are not able to integrate it effectively. We need intermediate servers to run OC utility commands and initiate the cron job. We have to do a lot of modifications to ensure our batches work properly. With physical or virtual servers, even in AWS, we are able to write and manage multiple jobs. Managing batches in Red Hat OpenShift has been a significant challenge. Integrating third parties is a challenge with Red Hat OpenShift. For example, with Elasticsearch, onboarding itself was difficult, running file beats and dealing with routing issues. It is not straightforward, especially since we have some components in AWS as. AWS has many capabilities that come out of the box and are easier to work with compared to Red Hat OpenShift. Red Hat OpenShift's biggest disadvantage is they do not provide any private cloud setup where we can host on our site using their services. The main reason we went with Red Hat OpenShift was because it is a private cloud, and we have regulatory requirements that prevent us from using public cloud.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Nutanix's support is really good."
"The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase."
"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."
"We can do a lot of provisioning."
"The platform is valuable due to its ease of use and quick deployment capabilities."
"The solution is embedded in the hypervisor and there are no deployment costs."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"We want to build a solution that can be deployable to any cloud because of client requirements and OpenShift allows us to do this."
"The most valuable feature is the high availability for the applications."
"OpenShift offers robust tools for monitoring application traffic, allowing us to analyze client requests and other business-related metrics."
"This solution helps us to account for peak seasons involving higher demand than usual. It also gives us confidence in the security of our overall systems."
"The initial setup is simple, and OpenShift is open-source, so it's easy to install on any cloud platform."
"We are currently dealing with both local support and Red Hat support, and they have been amazing."
"Key features are WildFly, because it standardizes infrastructure and the git repository and docker. Git is essential for source code and Docker for infrastructure."
"OpenShift's superior dashboard is a notable strength, especially when compared to Kubernetes."
 

Cons

"There have been challenges related to software bugs, especially regarding long-term licensing options and issues within our customer network."
"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."
"We need a backup of production clusters."
"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."
"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."
"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."
"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."
"I had to frequently upgrade my cluster due to OpenShift's rolling updates every six months, which I found to be excessive."
"OpenShift requires a very expensive and complex infrastructure. These demands can deter people from learning OpenShift."
"There are challenges related to additional security layers, connectivity compliance for endpoints, and integration."
"Documentation and technical support could be improved. The product is good, but when we raise a case with support—say we are having an image issue—the support is not really up to the mark. It is difficult to get support... When we raise a case, their support people will hesitate to get on a call or a screen-sharing session. That is a major drawback when it comes to OpenShift."
"Latency and performance are two areas of concern in OpenShift where improvements are required."
"Needs work on volume handling (although this is already better with GlusterFS). Security (SSSD) would also be an improvement."
"OpenShift's storage management could be better."
"Room for improvement is around the offerings that come as a bundle with the container platform. The packaging of the platform should be done such that customers do not have to purchase additional licenses."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."
"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."
"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."
"My company makes payments towards the licensing costs attached to OpenShift."
"The model of pricing and buying licences is quite rigid. We are in the process of negotiating on demand pricing which will help us take advantage of the cloud as a whole."
"This solution is fairly expensive but comes at an average cost compared to other solutions in the market."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"We are currently using the open version, OKD. We plan to get the enterprise version in the future."
"The cost is quite high."
"I don't deal with the cost part, but I know that the cost is very high when compared to other products. They charge for CPU and memory, but we don't worry about it."
"OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
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 du...
What is your primary use case for Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
We are using Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE ( /products/nutanix-kubernetes-engine-nke-reviews ) in our organization. It is implemented on Cisco M7 ( /products/oracle-supercluster-reviews ) Series ( ...
How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
What do you like most about OpenShift?
OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.
 

Also Known As

Nutanix Karbon
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs. Red Hat OpenShift and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.