Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Rancher Labs and VMware are both solutions in the Container Management category. Rancher Labs is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.8, while VMware is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. Rancher Labs holds a 8.4% mindshare in CM, compared to VMware’s 13.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Rancher Labs users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Rancher Labs

Read 14 Rancher Labs reviews

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1,288 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 22 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

5,929 Views
4,041 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Rancher Labs

VMware Tanzu Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Rancher Labs and VMware Tanzu Platform compete in the realm of Kubernetes management solutions. Rancher Labs appears to have the upper hand in hybrid environment support without vendor lock, while VMware Tanzu shines in seamless integration within its ecosystem, appealing to enterprises requiring comprehensive VMware synergy.

Features: Rancher Labs is notable for its ease of deployment, management of multiple clusters, and persistent storage integration. Additionally, it supports hybrid environments and includes Rancher Fleet for continuous delivery. VMware Tanzu offers seamless integration with VMware products, provides robust management features, and supports multi-cloud environments with a focus on lifecycle management and CI/CD pipeline monitoring.

Room for Improvement: Rancher Labs could enhance stability, extend integration with tools like Longhorn, and improve observability. The upgrade process requires refinement, and advanced security features are needed. VMware Tanzu might benefit from better third-party integration, more intuitive networking controls, and reduced complexity, with pricing being a potential issue for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rancher Labs is straightforward to deploy on-premises and is supported by a robust community due to its open-source nature. VMware Tanzu is suitable for organizations firmly embedded in VMware ecosystems, offering comprehensive deployment resources and technical support across mixed cloud environments.

Pricing and ROI: Rancher Labs being open-source ensures significant ROI with minimal costs, charging only for premium support, making it ideal for smaller enterprises. VMware Tanzu is more costly, targeting larger businesses with bundled solutions like Cloud Foundry, offering substantial discounts for bulk purchases and ROI through enhanced deployment speed and operational efficiencies.

To learn more, read our detailed Rancher Labs vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Rancher Labs vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

June 2025

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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

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (13th), PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Rancher Labs is 8.4%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 13.5%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

RyanVassallo

Head of Systems and Infrastructure at Booming Games

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.

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DarshanChaudhari

Solutions Architect Hybrid Cloud Practice US/Europe at Tech Mahindra Limited

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is its comprehensive support, easy resource scaling, compatibility with various OEMs, and seamless service integration."

"A great UI with very good integrations."

"The solution is stable."

"This solution is not vendor-locked, which means that we we are able to use it across all of our resources; this feature is of great value to us."

"The scalability potential is very good."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that it is an open-source solution that is easy to deploy."

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

"Rancher Labs is a very user-friendly tool."

More Rancher Labs pros

"The most popular feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is its graphical user interface for describing network policies on the Service Mesh, which is highly integrable with other tools commonly used in supply chains such as security."

"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."

"The valuable feature I have found to be the management of Kubernetes clusters in a private cloud or public clouds, such as Azure or Google Cloud Platform."

"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"

"There are a lot of services available in VMware Tanzu Application Service, such as databases and application servers. You have everything you need in one application and you do not need to search outside of the solution."

"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."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to check the flow of all the different variants within our applications."

"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"We're looking for something that is even easier to use. It's a bit complicated."

"There needs to be an improvement in observability and microservice monitoring tools in Rancher Labs."

"One area for improvement in Rancher Labs is the development aspect."

"While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust."

"They should improve application visibility along with code visibility."

"The solution could improve by adding more features in the dashboard, such as monitoring, scanning, and security. This would be a great benefit."

"I can't migrate to the newer version."

"We'd like their monitoring tool to be integrated by default."

More Rancher Labs cons

"The implementation is not easy, it is very complex and can take a day or two to complete."

"One potential area for expansion would be leveraging AI capabilities, which my customer might be interested in exploring as they grow."

"The network control and security policies must be improved."

"Another area of improvement is pricing."

"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions such as HPE."

"Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity."

"The infrastructure is quite challenging."

"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is free and open source but there is a fee for support."

"There are no hidden charges attached to the product unless a user opts for the premium support offered by the solution."

"There is an annual subscription. The price of the solution should be cheaper and have better pricing flexibility."

"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."

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs involved."

"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."

"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."

"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"

"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."

"I would recommend that businesses look into the full price for their requirements. The price is high, but there are some open-source add-ons that can be used for customization while keeping costs down, although these might not be suitable for everyone."

"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."

"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."

"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

37%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Rancher Labs

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HashiCorp Nomad vs Rancher Labs

Compared 8% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Rancher Labs

Compared 6% of the time

Splunk Observability Cloud vs Rancher Labs

Compared 4% of the time

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Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 14% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Amazon EKS vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Rancher Labs

May 2025

Download Rancher Labs product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

May 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

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

Rancher Labs build innovative, open source software that makes it easy to deploy and manage containers in production on any infrastructure. We enable organizations to accelerate all aspects of their software development pipeline, from writing and testing code to running complex microservices-based applications.

Rancher, our flagship container management platform, allows users to easily manage all aspects of running containers in development and production environments, on any infrastructure. With well over four million downloads, Rancher has quickly become the tools of choice for teams serious about running containers in production. This includes large enterprises such as Sony, IBM, Tyco, Align Technologies and more.

Rancher Labs

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

VMware

Sample Customers

Albert Heijn, Bell, BMC, Samsung, WindStream, Johnson & Johnson

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Rancher Labs vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

June 2025

Free Report: Rancher Labs vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

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