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Portainer vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 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

Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat OpenShift Container...
Ranking in Container Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Portainer is 5.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 20.0%, down from 21.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform20.0%
Portainer5.7%
Other74.3%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

EB
A GUI solution that helps to administer a docker using a browser
The first time using Portainer involves a learning curve. It takes longer as you're unfamiliar with the processes and might be lazy to consult the manual. Initially, you may rely on intuition within the GUI. However, after repeating the same tasks three or four times, the process becomes much quicker.
Rifat Rahman - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration and automation have transformed deployment and maintenance
Regarding the learning curve, the customers actually do not need the technical nitty-gritty details; they need to know about the containerization journey because they are not familiar with it. They know it as a theory, but they don't understand anything about its practical implications. That's the main challenge. The solution itself doesn't require a high learning curve; it is actually quite good to manage. However, application developers and managers have to understand the beauty of it, and that is the challenge. If Red Hat can execute some programs regarding that, it will help. Regarding Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, it is expensive according to market feedback. Notably, the platform plus is perceived as quite expensive and some features from an infrastructure perspective are lacking.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visually generate volumes and working stacks."
"The stack in the software supply chain is one of the main reasons that we use OpenShift. When I came to this company, we bought hardware from IBM named Bluemix, and they used ICP, which stands for IBM Cloud Private."
"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."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and logging functionalities."
"I have found the ability to scale up 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."
"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."
"I find the security features and use of operators in OpenShift Container Platform highly valuable."
"The most valuable are security features, particularly when operating in the cloud."
 

Cons

"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
"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."
"The solution needs to introduce open ID connect integration for role-based access control."
"We encounter difficulties while accessing the environment and managing the cluster. This particular area needs improvement."
"One area for product improvement is the support limitations within the subscription models, particularly the restricted support hours for lower-tier subscriptions."
"The setup process is not great."
"The UI could be more user-friendly to drive tasks more effectively through the interface."
"OpenShift Container Platform is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"Setting up OpenShift isn't easy. I rate it three out of ten for ease of setup. We're deploying it in three phases. They're in the second phase now. The total deployment time will be five months. We expect to complete the deployment this March. There are 13 people on three teams working on this deployment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."
"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."
"We paid for Cloud Pak for integration. It all depends on how many VMs or how many CPUs you are using. They do the licensing based on that."
"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."
"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."
"I'm an architect, so I have no involvement in the pricing and licensing of the platform."
"I'm not familiar with pricing or financial aspects. In terms of effort versus benefit, it's worth it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise39
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Portainer?
Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visua...
What needs improvement with Portainer?
Portainer needs to be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Portainer?
The tool is a GUI that helps to administer a docker using a browser.
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?
The current licensing cost for this solution is around $23,000 per year, per month. Regarding the current licensing cost, I would rate my satisfaction around seven or seven and a half; there's alwa...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMware and others in Container Management. Updated: July 2025.
866,218 professionals have used our research since 2012.