Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Red Hat and VMware are both solutions in the Agile and DevOps Services category. Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8. Additionally, 96% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Red Hat OpenShift

Read 61 Red Hat OpenShift reviews

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341 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 21 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

475 Views
349 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift

VMware Tanzu Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Red Hat OpenShift and VMware Tanzu Platform compete in the container management and application development category. OpenShift appears to have the upper hand with its extensive out-of-the-box functionalities, strong security features, and user-friendly interface, whereas Tanzu requires more customization and has less comprehensive features without additional components.

Features: OpenShift is recognized for its rapid CI/CD integration, robust automated scaling, and strong security features. It offers seamless Kubernetes integration and powerful management tools. Tanzu is valued for its integration capabilities with VMware’s ESX and vSAN, as well as its infrastructure tie-ins, which are appreciated by users seeking a unified solution.

Room for Improvement: OpenShift users point to challenges with its documentation and complex configurations, indicating a need for improved templates and simplified scalability solutions. They also seek enhancements in its security model. Tanzu users experience issues with restrictive third-party integration, network control, and on-premises support, urging improved pricing and flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpenShift provides effective hybrid and on-premises deployment solutions, though users express concerns about support document consistency and response times. Tanzu offers smoother initial hybrid deployments but presents challenges in lifecycle management. Despite limited on-premises support, its integration within the VMware ecosystem is appreciated.

Pricing and ROI: OpenShift's licensing is considered high but justified by strong integrations and improved resource management. Users report significant ROI from resource efficiencies. Tanzu’s pricing, often bundled with Cloud Foundry, is expensive and less attractive for startups, despite occasional competitive discounts, leading to affordability concerns for smaller enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 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

Red Hat OpenShift

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

3rd

Ranking in Container Management

12th

Ranking in Agile and DevOps Services

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Virtualization Software (9th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (7th)

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

12th

Ranking in Container Management

3rd

Ranking in Agile and DevOps Services

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (13th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (7th)

Featured Reviews

Mikhael Ibrahim

Platform Engineer & Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Seamlessly monitor microservices with streamlined DevOps capabilities

Most benefit from it, however, I work with Kubernetes, and installing Vanilla Kubernetes is easy. That said, it introduces many tools that need to be set up individually. OpenShift comes ready out of the box, with all tools installed and configured. Red Hat certifies and confirms that all the components are compatible with each other. OpenShift's superior dashboard is a notable strength, especially when compared to Kubernetes. The integrated DevOps capabilities, such as pipelines and the container registry, are extremely beneficial. Additionally, its capability to monitor microservices and containers with integrated tools like Prometheus is a major advantage. The horizontal pod scaling exceeds the scalability features I found in Kubernetes.

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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 initial setup is simple, and OpenShift is open-source, so it's easy to install on any cloud platform."

"It is a stable platform."

"We want to build a solution that can be deployable to any cloud because of client requirements and OpenShift allows us to do this."

"OpenShift offers robust tools for monitoring application traffic, allowing us to analyze client requests and other business-related metrics."

"Valuable features include auto-recreate of pod if pod fails; fast rollback, with one click, to previous version."

"In terms of implementation, OpenShift is very user-friendly, which is an advantage. We are using it along with GitLab for implementing CI/CD pipelines. That's a feature that other products also have, but in OpenShift, we find it good."

"The most valuable feature of OpenShift is the containers."

"We are able to operate client’s platform without downtime during security patch management each month and provide a good SLA (as scalability for applications is processed during heavy client website load, automatically)."

More Red Hat OpenShift pros

"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 Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"

"The initial setup is easy."

"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."

"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 observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."

"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."

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

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"There are challenges related to additional security layers, connectivity compliance for endpoints, and integration."

"Some of the storage services and integrations with third-party tools should be made possible."

"OpenShift's storage management could be better."

"The whole area around the hybrid cloud could be improved. I would like to deploy a Red Hat OpenShift cluster on-premise and on the cloud, then have Red Hat do the entire hybrid cloud management."

"We need some kind of a multi-cluster management solution from the Red Hat site."

"OpenShift could improve by providing the ability to integrate with public cloud platforms. This way we can easily use the services that these platforms offer. For instance, Amazon AWS. However, all the three major hyper-scalers solutions offer excellent DevOps and CI/CD tooling. If there was an easy way to integrate with them it would be beneficial. We need a way to easily integrate with the monitoring and dashboard services that they provide."

"The operators need a lot of improvement, with better integrations."

"I had to frequently upgrade my cluster due to OpenShift's rolling updates every six months, which I found to be excessive."

More Red Hat OpenShift cons

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

"LYNX is a managed cluster solution that takes care of specific details within a cluster, such as sequences or services. I haven't seen this feature in Tanzu Mission Control."

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

"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."

"VMware Tanzu Service Mesh could add better integration with other cloud platforms, such as vRealize Automation or VMware vCloud Director for cloud providers."

"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."

"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) license for all our servers' operating systems. By having multiple Red Hat products together, you can negotiate costs and leverage on having a sort of enterprise license agreement to reduce the overall outlay or TCO."

"Pricing of OpenShift depends on the number of nodes and who is hosting it."

"The model of pricing and buying licences is quite rigid. We are in the process of negotiating on demand pricing which will help us take advantage of the cloud as a whole."

"This solution is fairly expensive but comes at an average cost compared to other solutions in the market."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"The pricing is standard; the solution isn't particularly expensive or affordable."

"The product’s pricing is expensive."

"We use the license-free version of Red Hat Openshift but we pay for the support."

More Red Hat OpenShift pricing and cost advice

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

"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."

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

"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."

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

"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."

"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."

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

32%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?

Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...

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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...

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What do you like most about OpenShift?

OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.

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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 Application Service?

The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Application Service?

Since I have a developer team, they use the solution for testing purposes.

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 18% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 16% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 9% of the time

Proxmox VE vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 18% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon EKS vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift

April 2025

Download Red Hat OpenShift product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

April 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

Red Hat OpenShift offers a robust, scalable platform with strong security and automation, suitable for container orchestration, application deployment, and microservices architecture.

Designed to modernize applications by transitioning from legacy systems to cloud-native environments, Red Hat OpenShift provides powerful CI/CD integration and Kubernetes compatibility. Its security features, multi-cloud support, and source-to-image functionality enhance deployment flexibility. While the GUI offers user-friendly navigation, users benefit from its cloud-agnostic nature and efficient lifecycle management. However, improvements are needed in documentation, configuration complexity, and integration with third-party platforms. Pricing and high resource demands can also be challenging for wider adoption.

What are the key features of Red Hat OpenShift?

Security: Comprehensive security features ensure safe deployments and operations.
Scalability: Auto-scaling and monitoring capabilities cater to high-demand environments.
CI/CD Integration: Seamless integration for efficient continuous deployment processes.
Cloud Compatibility: Supports multi-cloud and on-premise solutions with ease.
GUI: Simplifies platform management and enhances usability.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined operations reduce time and resource investments.
Enhanced Flexibility: Adapt quickly to changing demands and environments.
Quick Deployment: Fast application deployment supports agile project timelines.
Robust Support: Access to dependable customer support services.

Red Hat OpenShift is strategically implemented for diverse industries focusing on container orchestration and application modernization. Organizations leverage it for migrating applications to cloud-native environments and managing CI/CD pipelines. Its functionality facilitates efficient resource management and microservices architecture adoption, supporting enterprise-level DevOps practices. Users employ it across cloud and on-premises platforms to drive performance improvements.

Red Hat

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

UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

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