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Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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

Rancher Labs
Ranking in Container Management
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Storage for Kubernetes (2nd)
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Container Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (13th), PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Rancher Labs is 7.9%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 13.2%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

RyanVassallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers an open-source version along with a good UI
The product has multiple good features. One of the solution's good features is that it is the GitOps functionality known as Rancher fleet, which is used for continuous delivery. The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or on-premises, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations. The tool also has a feature that is still kind of maturing, but I think it has very good potential. This new feature is named Harvester, which is allows users to have virtual machines managed by Kubernetes engine. This is very new technology in the market. I think that Harvester needs to mature as a product, and I think that in the future, it will be very powerful. You have one tool that does many things for you.
DarshanChaudhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers seamless connectivity and integration through APIs while offering robust auto-scaling
I am involved in IT services and we provide a solution to customers. We work with VMware, Nutanix, OpenShift, and Microsoft Hyper-V The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible. It offers native services for autoscaling and integrations through APIs, allowing seamless…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"A great UI with very good integrations."
"The product is simple to use for a beginner."
"The customized deployment process is the most valuable feature in Rancher Labs."
"The most valuable feature of Rancher Labs is its user interface, which makes it easier to work with containers and deployment."
"Rancher Labs is a very user-friendly tool."
"The solution has a lot of good features, such as you can access the console and edit through the GUI. The dashboard and the UI are designed well, user-friendly, and easy to manage, and access."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"The solution is stable."
"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."
"The most valuable feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is the management functionality of the cluster life cycle. Additionally, the solution integrates well with other vendors, such as Velero for backups and Sonobuoy for compliance. Additionally, it works well in multi-cluster environments."
"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."
"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."
"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."
"A feature we find valuable is that other products can also be integrated with Mission Control. This means that we can see the status of specific clusters, as well as view the monitoring application logs all from one point."
 

Cons

"While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust."
"We'd like their monitoring tool to be integrated by default."
"If you have poor infrastructure, you will have issues with the tool."
"We're looking for something that is even easier to use. It's a bit complicated."
"The biggest room for improvement in Rancher Labs would be to have a proper upgrading plan."
"I can't migrate to the newer version."
"There needs to be an improvement in observability and microservice monitoring tools in Rancher Labs."
"They should improve application visibility along with code visibility."
"The infrastructure is quite challenging."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions such as HPE."
"The network control and security policies must be improved."
"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"
"The implementation is not easy, it is very complex and can take a day or two to complete."
"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."
"This product doesn't have a GUI. In order to use it properly, I need to connect it to a new GUI or build a GUI to manage it — it's pretty difficult."
"Another area of improvement is pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There are no hidden charges attached to the product unless a user opts for the premium support offered by the solution."
"The pricing of the solution sits in the mid range, not high and not low. It has a fixed price that you pay every month."
"Although Rancher Labs is an open-source solution, they also offer a paid version, where you buy the support when needed."
"The cost is reasonable since it's open source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge."
"The solution is free and open source but there is a fee for support."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs involved."
"There is an annual subscription. The price of the solution should be cheaper and have better pricing flexibility."
"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."
"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"
"Its pricing is very competitive. We get around 70% or 75%, sometimes even 80%, discount on the product. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
38%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Rancher Labs?
The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or the company, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rancher Labs?
The cost is reasonable since it's open-source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge.
What needs improvement with Rancher Labs?
While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust. We found it to offer basic security features, which met some of our requirements, but we also relied on other op...
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 VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native ap...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Albert Heijn, Bell, BMC, Samsung, WindStream, Johnson & Johnson
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Rancher Labs vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.