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Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

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

Pivotal Cloud Foundry
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is 9.8%, up from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Stephen  Hack - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to use, simple to sign-in, but lacking graphical interface
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is used as a cloud platform Pivotal Cloud Foundry has helped our organization by the way we've set it up, it's easy to sign in, bind services, push services, and create YAML files. The most valuable features of Pivotal Cloud Foundry are its ease of use and the command line…
Adrian Bilauca - PeerSpot reviewer
Handles security setups independently for a more secure environment
OpenShift does have more secure features. Azure also has equivalent services. For my client, it was good enough to switch to Azure. For development, there wasn't any significant change in effort, however, for the DevOps team, it was a relief since Azure has managed services. We used elasticity and scalability all over.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is stable and resilient. In our company, we do not even see any challenges with the solution."
"PCF is open, so the applications run really smoothly and with little downtime."
"It is a scalable product...We are not facing any particular issues since most of the applications in our company are written in Java and .NET."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is very easy to use compared to other cloud technologies. It has a very good performance."
"We find its stability and scalability valuable."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and the deployment is easier."
"The most valuable feature of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is the UI, it is easy to use."
"It provides a set of developer-friendly tools that simplify application deployment."
"The deployment mechanism has become more dynamic with the use of the product."
"In general, customers appreciate its ability to run different workloads, manage applications through CI/CD pipelines like Jenkins, and leverage tools like Helm charts and Kako."
"For the DevOps team, it was a relief since Azure has managed services."
"The portability, moving from one platform to another, is easy."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The solution offers the most robust Kubernetes orchestration available."
"Our pipeline integrates various monitoring tools like Fortify for security checks. Once the pipeline processes the code, the finished product is deployed on Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud. We ensure application setup and recovery by utilizing two separate clusters on OpenShift."
"I've used the elasticity and scalability all over."
 

Cons

"In the next release, they should offer additional applications for the databases, and improve the deployment experience."
"It should offer more security features."
"The Pivotal Cloud Foundry's initial setup has a learning curve for my team, but it was easy to use."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry doesn't have certain advanced features."
"Pivotal Cloud Foundry is not scalable, infinitely, because when you install it on a set of virtual machines it is very hard to scale. It's easy to scale on an application level, but not it is not similar to if you were using Amazon. Amazon you can scale thousands of applications."
"Regarding the setup phase, every step is a hurdle. With Pivotal Cloud Foundry, I won't get any proper resources for that. Even if I Google it, there is no proper solution for Pivotal Cloud Foundry."
"It is not straightforward to setup."
"In the next release, I would like to see easy integration with external tools."
"There is more work and effort needed for when many of the managed services are not accessible, especially in the security area. You have to do your own security setups as opposed to using a managed firewall."
"Many of the managed services are not accessible."
"Making it even more cost-effective could be explored."
"Technical support could be a bit better."
"The installation and configuration procedure should be simplified."
"The general purpose solution tries to cater to too many customers so it is heavy."
"There is room for improvement in cluster-based queue monitoring and autoscaling."
"The service mesh integrations could improve the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry is based on the customer's requirements. However, the price is comparable to other similar solutions."
"The price of Pivotal Cloud Foundry could improve. However, in this category of solutions, they are all expensive."
"The pricing is on the higher side and there are cheaper options available."
"You're paying for the number of virtual machines you want to install in the installation."
"We do pay for the licensing cost because we have opted for a private cloud setup. So, it is a cloud setup, and we have to make payments based on the cloud size. I do not consider it very costly when comparing it to the market."
"Licensing is on a monthly basis and right now we pay $24/month. There are no other costs over and above that."
"This product is not costly when compared to other vendors."
"The pricing is a little high in China."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
37%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
4%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 Pivotal Cloud Foundry?
I find the ease of deployment and management of microservices to be the most valuable features. The platform also has good auto-scaling capabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Pivotal Cloud Foundry?
I would say it is around a nine out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. Just short of Oracle. It's sort of Oracle cloud.
What do you like most about Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud?
Our pipeline integrates various monitoring tools like Fortify for security checks. Once the pipeline processes the code, the finished product is deployed on Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud. We ensu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud?
From a cost perspective, some cost-effective situations were more difficult to achieve in Azure than in OpenShift. Comparing them can be difficult since the financial services cloud had stripped ma...
What needs improvement with Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud?
There is more work and effort needed for when many of the managed services are not accessible, especially in the security area. You have to do your own security setups as opposed to using a managed...
 

Also Known As

PCF, Pivotal Application Service (PAS), Pivotal Container Service (PKS), Pivotal Function Service (PFS)
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Humana, Citibank, Mercedes Benz, Liberty Mutual, The Home Depot, GE, West Corp, Merrill Corporation, CoreLogic, Orange, Dish Network, Comcast, Bloomberg, Internal Revenue Service, Ford Motor Company, Garmin, Volkswagen, Solera, Allstate, US Air Force, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, ScotiaBank
edenor, Ford
Find out what your peers are saying about Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs. Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.