Google Kubernetes Engine vs Kubernetes comparison

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Google Kubernetes Engine

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Google Kubernetes Engine and Kubernetes compete in the container orchestration platform category. Google Kubernetes Engine appears to have the upper hand due to its managed services and ease of deployment, though Kubernetes offers notable flexibility and community support.

Features: Google Kubernetes Engine provides extensive managed services to ease deployment, support for autoscaling, and seamless integration with Google's ecosystem. Kubernetes, being open-source, offers flexibility across various platforms, scalability with microservices, and strong community support.

Room for Improvement: Google Kubernetes Engine could improve cost management, integrations for monitoring, and application-level security. Kubernetes could benefit from more built-in tools for security, simpler integration options, and reduced configuration complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Kubernetes Engine is predominantly deployed in public cloud environments, noted for easy integration but faces criticism in support services compared to AWS. Kubernetes offers flexible deployment across hybrid, private, and public clouds but requires expertise for effective management, with users often relying on community forums for support.

Pricing and ROI: Google Kubernetes Engine costs are based on cloud usage and machine specifications, offering a competitive pricing model, yet can be high for complex use cases. Kubernetes, being open-source, incurs no licensing costs but can have hidden management and support costs. Both can yield positive ROI, with GKE's managed services offering operational efficiency, while Kubernetes provides cost-effectiveness when managed effectively.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes Report (Updated: December 2024).

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes

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Categories and Ranking

Google Kubernetes Engine

Ranking in Container Management

8th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kubernetes

Ranking in Container Management

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.8%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

Abhilash Gopidas

Deployment Manager at HealthEdge Software, Inc.

The auto-scaling feature helps during peak hours, but the support is not great

The product has no downtime. Automated scaling is a valuable feature. During peak hours, the datasets are on a higher volume. We need scaling in place. Otherwise, there's a degradation in the performance. We might sometimes miss data, or there will be no data sync between systems. Auto-scaling helps deal with performance needs during peak hours. There's no lag time for processing data.

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Venu Boddu

AWS DevOps Engineer at Hexaware Technologies Limited

Manage infrastructure automation and smooth application deployment with robust auto-scaling capabilities

Kubernetes is highly valuable for its node-based setup, which allows for the running of multiple pods. This feature is essential for infrastructure automation and application deployment. Kubernetes also offers rollback control and auto-scaling capabilities, which are crucial for maintaining an application's availability even if nodes or pods go down. Additionally, Kubernetes supports load balancing to distribute traffic efficiently across multiple pods.

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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 main advantage of GKE is that it is a managed service. This means that Google is responsible for managing the master node in the Kubernetes cluster system. As a result, we can focus on deploying applications to the slaves, while Google handles any updates and security patches. The fact that GKE is fully integrated into the Google ecosystem, including solutions such as BigQuery and VertexAI. This makes it easier for us to integrate these tools into our process. This integration ultimately speeds up our time to market and reduces the time and effort spent on managing infrastructure. The managed aspect of GKE allows us to simply deploy and utilize it without having to worry about the technicalities of infrastructure management."

"The deployment of the cluster is very easy."

"It is easy to use and deploy."

"I am impressed with the product's output scaling."

"The logs are important for detecting problems in our clusters."

"The initial setup is very easy. We can create our cluster using the command line, or using our console."

"Google Kubernetes Engine is used for orchestrating Docker containers. We have 30 or 40 customers working with this solution now. We'll probably see 10 to 15 percent growth in the number of customers using Google Kubernetes Engine in the future."

"I am satisfied with the stability offered by the solution."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pros

"The product is highly scalable."

"Kubernetes' integration with AWS Lambda is great. I barely had to write any code to connect from EKS to Lambda, so Kubernetes is programmer friendly."

"The deployment is one of the most valuable feature."

"The solution has many valuable features but the most impressive is the ability to scale an application and continuously monitor if all the components of the application are functioning correctly."

"Auto-scaling and self-healing features are very good."

"Having fast storage classes is very important."

"The cluster is very stable with outward scalability and good performance."

"The Desired State Configuration is a handy feature; we can deploy a certain number of pods, and the tool will ensure that the state is maintained in our desired configuration."

More Kubernetes pros

Cons

"The solution does not have a visual interface."

"I would like the solution to integrate with another Kubernetes product. I would also like it to monitor other platforms. It needs to also include scale-up container in the tool's next release."

"The notifications are not informative."

"The management UI could be improved."

"One of the things I missed a bit is the visibility and availability of solutions. If I compare it to a different solution, it is a bit behind."

"I would like to see the ability to create multiple notebook configurations."

"There is room for improvement in this solution. For example, auto-scaling can be complex. We expect it to be easier to set up and manage, even for our customers."

"Google Kubernetes Engine is less stable in some highly complex deployments with many nodes."

More Google Kubernetes Engine cons

"Kubernetes should improve its consistency across different types of deployments. My customers tell me that they get much better performance when Kubernetes is deployed on VM versus PaaS services from Azure."

"Overall, it's very powerful, but there are also a lot of complexities to manage."

"It would be nice if they could make it easier for developers and infrastructure staff to automate some of the pieces that they have to do manually at the moment."

"The plugins could be better. That is one pain point we had, and we had to get in with many other open standards, like Calico networking and more."

"Honestly, there is not much I like about Kubernetes. It's very complicated to deal with. I just do it because I have to."

"It would be helpful if the UI were more graphical."

"Kubernetes can be complicated to understand. Improved documentation would help in gaining scalable knowledge and making it more understandable."

"This product should have a more advanced built-in scheduler that uses real application metrics in the scheduling strategy."

More Kubernetes cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is competitive, and it is not expensive. It is almost competitive with AWS and the rest of the cloud solutions. We are spending around 3K USD per month. There are four projects that are currently running, and each one is incurring a cost of around 3K USD."

"The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."

"We are planning to use external support, and hire a commercial partner for it."

"Currently, it costs around $1000 per month which sorted our deployment. So once we get more clients, having a huge suffix, costs can go up."

"I would rate Kubernetes' pricing four out of five."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"Pricing is a bit expensive compared to some other products, but it's acceptable."

"The pricing for GKE is dependent on the type of machine or virtual machine (VM) that is selected for the nodes in the cluster. There is a degree of flexibility in choosing the specifications of the machine, such as the number of CPUs, GPUs, and so on. Google provides a variety of options, allowing the user to create the desired cluster composition. However, the cost can be quite steep when it comes to regional clusters, which are necessary for high availability and failover. This redundancy is crucial for businesses and is required to handle an increase in requests in case of any issues in one region, such as jumping to a different region in case of a failure in the Toronto region. While it may be tempting to choose the cheapest type of machines, this may result in a limited capacity and user numbers, requiring over-provisioning to handle additional requests, such as those for a web application."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pricing and cost advice

"Pricing isn't a major concern for us. Since we resell Kubernetes services and focus on providing support, integration, and education, we don't usually have pricing issues. Our customers are more concerned with getting the right support and services than the cost. So, the value we provide is more important than the actual pricing. Pricing might change in the future, but it’s not a big issue for us right now."

"I would say the solution is worth the money, but it depends on the required workloads, the type of workload, and the scaling requirements etc."

"If you're using a public cloud, the cost depends on the number of nodes you are planning to deploy Kubernetes on."

"I am using the solution's open-source version."

"We use the solution's open-source version."

"Kubernetes is open source and is an orchestration platform. It is a cost effective solution and its pricing depends on your company and how you use it"

"There is a license to use Kubernetes."

"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Kubernetes Engine?

The product has no downtime.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?

For pricing, Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost. I would rate the cost around four out of ten, where ten is the higher ...

What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?

The management UI could be improved. When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved. The interface could definitely be faster.

What do you like most about Kubernetes?

There are many good features. I feel that the scale-out features, like replica sets, are very good. The number of running containers can be autoscaled.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?

Since we use Kubernetes on-premises, the costs are related to our expertise and the personnel we hire.

What needs improvement with Kubernetes?

Although we face issues when migrating to new versions of Kubernetes, such as misunderstandings on using new features or integration with proxy services, these issues can be addressed with proper p...

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Comparisons

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Compared 23% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 10% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 40% of the time

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Compared 22% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Ezmeral Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 6% of the time

Portainer vs Kubernetes

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Google Kubernetes Engine

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Also Known As

GKE

Learn More

Google

Overview

Kubernetes Engine is a managed, production-ready environment for deploying containerized applications. It brings our latest innovations in developer productivity, resource efficiency, automated operations, and open source flexibility to accelerate your time to market.

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community.

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes