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Amazon Elastic Container Service vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

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

Amazon Elastic Container Se...
Ranking in Container Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Containers as a Service (CaaS) (1st)
Red Hat OpenShift Container...
Ranking in Container Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Elastic Container Service is 1.4%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 22.6%, up from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

FABIO NAGAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Horizontal scaling is streamlined when deploying modern workloads
Currently, when scaling with Amazon Elastic Container Service, I have to choose between monitoring CPU or memory usage to scale up or scale out; there is no option to monitor both simultaneously. This limitation makes it challenging to define a balanced scale-out automation since a well-written software should balance between processing and memory.
Vlado Velkovski - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides automation that speeds up our process by 30% and helps us achieve zero downtime
OpenShift has a pretty steep learning curve. It's not an easy tool to use. It's not only OpenShift but Kubernetes itself. The good thing is that Red Hat provides specific targeted training. There are five or six pieces of training where you can get certifications. The licenses for OpenShift are pretty expensive, so they could be cheaper because the competition isn't sleeping, and Red Hat must take that into account. There are a few versions of OpenShift. There is the normal OpenShift and an OpenShift Plus license. Red Hat could think of how to connect those two subscriptions because, with Red Hat Plus, you have one tool called ACM (Advanced Cluster Management), where you can manage multiple clusters from one place. We deployed this functionality by ourselves, but if you don't pay the license for Red Hat OpenShift Plus, you'll lack this functionality. If you have a multi-cloud environment and you have a lot of work to do, it would be a plus if the Red Had OpenShift Plus license came in a bundle with the regular solutions. This ACM tool should be available in the normal subscription, not just the Plus version. There are new versions on an almost weekly basis. I found myself that the upgrading of OpenShift clusters is not a task that will successfully finish every time. It's a simple and quick, but not reliable process. That's why we use multiple clusters. We use v4.10.3, but we want to move to v4.12.X. The upgrade process itself can fail, and we don't have backups of our OpenShift cluster because we have backups of all the Kubernetes manifests on GitHub. We destroy the cluster, bring up a new one quickly, and apply those scripts. The upgrade itself could be more resilient for us as administrators of OpenShift to be sure that it'll succeed and not occasionally fail. They can improve the reliability of their upgrade process. They also have implementations of some Red Hat-verified operators for a lot of products like Elasticsearch. They're good enough for development purposes, but some of the OpenShift operators still lack resilient production-grade configurations. Red Hat says that we have a few hundred operators, but I believe that only half of them are production-grade ready at this moment. They need to work much more on those operators to become more flexible because you can deploy all of them in development mode, but when we go to production grade and want to make specific changes to the operator and configuration, we lack those possibilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's initial setup was very straightforward and not complex."
"We use the product for website and email database hosting."
"ECS is flexible and easy to use."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is a flexible product from Amazon. You can put it in the Auto Scaling group for high availability. There are also a lot of choices for pricing."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service is more stable."
"The solution is simple to access."
"The solution is quite scalable and allows you to launch multiple EC2s within minutes."
"They handle the backup process quite well. They automatically encapsulate it, including container backups, without relying heavily on the client's involvement. This is a significant advantage compared to other providers where clients often need to manage the process more independently. It's a feature that I find suitable and beneficial."
"The platform is easy to scale as it supports Windows worker node."
"The architecture is the best. The solution is scalable if you are on a container-based solution."
"Integrating the product into our existing infrastructure was easy."
"The operating system has a live update and is more secure than any other. It's made for Atomic OS, a lightweight OS new to the market. I also like the source-to-image capabilities. The customer can directly deploy their applications from the repository. It's a highly flexible and easy way to deploy into production."
"For us, the fully automated upgrades are valuable. We have to maintain the clusters in production. For us, it is very important that it does not take too much time to manage all the clusters and do life cycle management and upgrades."
"The initial setup process is easy."
"I find the security features and use of operators in OpenShift Container Platform highly valuable."
"It is very lightweight and can be deployed very fast, especially when it comes to containers."
 

Cons

"The tool initially required a significant amount of development time on the backend, but in terms of efficiency, it's a one-time effort."
"The solution needs to improve backup and pricing."
"The solution’s UI should be improved."
"Sometimes, the instances fail under the ECS container cluster, and we have to manually go and find out the black sheep in the ECS container instance. We had an issue earlier where one of the instances under the ECS container cluster went down, and we were not able to identify that instance. The instance got terminated, but a new instance did not come up. Therefore, I had to manually get that instance up. It could be optimized better. In production, we normally cannot sustain such things. It can be optimized in terms of instances, durability, and serving the requests of customers."
"I also believe there are limitations in terms of upgrading. The software has the concept of dedicated servers that you can manage. However, an issue arises when you can't match one operating system with another that you've already purchased. You can't simply merge them; instead, you have to buy a completely new one. This limitation has caused some challenges for us."
"It's a complex tool and should be simplified."
"Visualization is an important factor for me, and I don't think that the visuals within ECS are good enough because it doesn't show you all the details you might need to see at a glance."
"I rate the platform's stability an eight out of ten. It easily dies."
"We encounter difficulties while accessing the environment and managing the cluster. This particular area needs improvement."
"OpenShift Container Platform is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"The product's setup process could be easier."
"Getting the solution quickly and troubleshooting quickly are both areas where I think it needs some work."
"My impression is that this solution is pretty expensive so I think the pricing plan could improve."
"OpenShift Container Platform needs to work on integrations."
"The stability needs improvement."
"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

"Amazon ECS is expensive."
"The solution is pricey."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is priced high."
"The solution's cost could be reduced."
"Our client is paying between $400 and $500 USD per month for this service."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is an expensive solution."
"Licensing can be purchased directly from AWS or used with existing licenses, depending on the company's preference. The licensing structure is complex and depends on factors such as machine size, number of processors, and Container size. Companies have dedicated staff members managing license considerations full-time to find the most cost-effective options. Also, I have seen some companies opt for a combination of AWS and Azure, using more of Azure for Microsoft licenses due to potentially lower costs compared to AWS."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."
"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."
"It largely depends on how much money they earn from the application being deployed; you don't normally deploy an app just for the purpose of having it. You must constantly look into your revenue and how much you spend every container, minute, or hour of how much it is working."
"If you buy the product for a year or three, you get a lot of discounts...I feel that the product is worth its cost, especially since setting it up can be done with just a few clicks."
"Its licensing is completely incomprehensible. We have special people within our company. They discuss with Red Hat subscription managers. It is too complex, and I do not understand it. We are from the government, and we are trying to be as cheap as possible. Sometimes, I am just amazed at the amount of money that we have to pay. It is crazy."
"We have to pay for the license."
"OpenShift Container Platform is highly-priced."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Elastic Container Service?
Implementing the product has helped me monitor the parameters. I utilize tools like CloudWatch and AWS systems to track these parameters. If any issues arise, I alert our developer team to address ...
What needs improvement with Amazon Elastic Container Service?
The solution must improve backup and compatibility around OS like Windows and Mac.
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?
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.
 

Also Known As

Amazon ECS, Amazon EC2 Container Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ubisoft, GoPro, TIBCO, Remind
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Elastic Container Service vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.