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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
8th
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 (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 - 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

"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."
"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."
 

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."
"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."
 

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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
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.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.