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Docker 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

Docker
Ranking in Container Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (8th)
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 March 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 3.0%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 23.7%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rikin Parekh - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to create sandbox environments to run applications and makes it easy to test them
Overall, setting up the Docker environment is quite easy. Many methods exist, such as using Docker Compose and Docker networks to communicate between containers. The main challenge lies in designing the architecture and integrating different frameworks and microservices. I would rate the ease of setting up the tool at around nine out of ten. The time it takes to deploy depends on the scale of the system. For the early-stage startup I'm currently working with, it doesn't take much time. It's just me handling the deployment. In our early-stage startup, we have a couple of teams with around four to five backend APIs and two front-end services. Deploying these doesn't take much time. My focus is more on minimizing costs due to our lean startup structure.
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

"There are ways of using Docker where you have absolutely no dependencies on the environment that you work in. This allows us to deploy Docker anywhere anytime and this has been most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Docker is that it revolutionized virtualization by providing a new approach with containers that completely nullified the time it used to take to deploy applications on virtual servers, resulting in deployment times that can be as quick as milliseconds, unless it is a heavy application, such as Java. Additionally, resource utilization has greatly improved with Docker, allowing for more resources to be allocated to other tasks. These are a few key features that make Docker a preferred choice."
"The initial setup was easy, and you are only required to run commands."
"The ability to use an image with the software built into it, rather than just the software, is beneficial."
"The most valuable feature is that it is cost-saving."
"When used in conjunction with Kubernetes, it is seamless because it integrates very well."
"The solution helps save costs."
"The most valuable feature is that it gives you the same environment as on a developer machine as well as a production machine relevant to specifications."
"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 for businesses. It also comes with features like OpenShift Virtualization."
"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."
"It has been a good solution to deploy all containerized applications."
"I find the security features and use of operators in OpenShift Container Platform highly valuable."
"I like the Flexibility of the solution."
"OpenShift's core-based licensing model provides significant benefits regarding enterprise support and scalability."
"More tools are available in OpenShift Container Platform to maintain and manage the clusters."
"The architecture is the best. The solution is scalable if you are on a container-based solution."
 

Cons

"The backup compatibility for legacy window stations is an area of concern where improvement is required, especially since my company has certain legacy tools that we are struggling to move."
"The command line interface could be more intuitive. I constantly struggle with it."
"Docker could improve by providing the ability to use the GPU for parallel processing. If there was the capability of using the GPU it would improve the machine learning that I want to use."
"Marketing of Docker is one area that needs to improve."
"Stability is an area with a shortcoming."
"It could be easier to create images and save them on reports. Just improved development workflow, just quicker, like some better user experience creating the images for the Docker containers."
"Docker could improve by having security vulnerability reports."
"I would like to see better management layers."
"The UI could be more user-friendly to drive tasks more effectively through the interface."
"We've encountered challenges when transitioning applications between these environments."
"The product could benefit from additional operators and tools integrated with OpenShift."
"Quality of support may be improved."
"From a networking perspective, the routing capability can be matured further. OpenShift doesn't handle restrictions on what kind of IPs are allowed, who can access them, and who cannot access them. So it is a simple matter of just using it with adequate network access, at the network level."
"OpenShift Container Platform is an expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"It is difficult to deploy the OpenShift cluster in a bare-metal environment."
"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Docker is open source. To use a Docker enterprise model, we would need to pay for it."
"The offering and service are quite free."
"Docker is a free open-source solution."
"The solution is an open-source technology and not a commercial product. However, you will have to pay sometimes. The tool's pricing depends on the vendor."
"Docker's price is good."
"Docker is a free-to-use solution. However, Docker Enterprise is not free."
"The pricing of the solution is fairly cheap."
"We use the open-source version."
"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."
"The pricing is a bit more expensive than expected."
"The pricing and licensing are handled on an upper management level, and I'm not involved in that, but I understand the solution to be somewhat pricey."
"The price is slightly on the higher side. It is something that can be worked on because most of the businesses now have margins."
"I'm an architect, so I have no involvement in the pricing and licensing of the platform."
"OpenShift Container Platform is highly-priced."
"The product is expensive."
"OpenShift with Red Hat support is pretty costly. We have done a comparison between AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Services) which provides fully managed services from AWS. It's built on open-source-based Kubernetes clusters and it is much cheaper compared to Red Hat, but it is a little expensive compared to ECS provided by AWS."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
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 Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What needs improvement with Docker?
In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved.
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Docker vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.