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: March 2025).

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes

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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

Google Kubernetes Engine

Ranking in Container Management

10th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

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 March 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.2%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.9%, down from 10.1% 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

"Its functionalities, such as computing the namespaces, clusters, pods, and restart logs, are easy to use."

"The solution is more user-friendly than AWS or Azure. I can also easily scale out the service in the future when the number of customers grows. GKE is the leader of Kubernetes service and it can be easily updated. I love the tool's user interfaces."

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

"The solution is available across AWS, GCP and Azure and is seamless."

"Stability-wise, this solution is really good."

"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."

"Google Kubernetes Engine's most valuable features are microservices and its acquisition rate, which is very useful for scaling perspective."

"The most beneficial feature is the ability to separate each project and manage permissions more effectively."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pros

"It has a complete loading feature set for replica site deployment."

"This solution is cost effective and fast. We are able to use Kubernetes to orchestrate hundreds of container images which has been a major benefit."

"There's a lot of community support if you need to get help."

"One of the most valuable features is the thickness of the cloud platform or on-prem file, which makes the solution straightforward to shift and scale. It works well with different types of deployment strategies and networks."

"I rate Kubernetes nine out of ten."

"The most valuable feature of Kubernetes is its support for load balancing."

"It's scalable."

"The most valuable feature of Kubernetes is the integration with other solutions, such as Formative and Grafana."

More Kubernetes pros

Cons

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

"There is room for improvement in the cluster updates process. Specifically, when managing both non-production and production clusters, we need a sequential functionality."

"The console for this solution could be improved because it is very limited."

"I think that security is an important point, and there should be additional features for the evaluation of data in containers that will create a more secure environment for usage in multi-parent models."

"We would like to see some improvement in the ease of integration with this solution."

"The solution does not have a visual interface."

"t is not very stable."

"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."

More Google Kubernetes Engine cons

"It increases developers' overhead."

"Kubernetes can improve by providing a service offering catalog that can be readily populated in Kubernetes."

"The solution has some issues regarding availability during high loads. Worker nodes are sometimes unavailable, affecting the overall availability of the applications. This is a bug or underlying problem with the tool, and Azure and other providers are looking into improving this by releasing new versions of Kubernetes that fix some of the platform's issues."

"There is room for improvement in this area, as Kubernetes could benefit from having more integrations, such as for scanning vulnerabilities."

"There is a feature called Terraform and, based on the reviews I have read, it could be improved."

"It would be great if Kubernetes could handle a level of data backup."

"There are features in Google Cloud or AWS that aren't in Azure. They need to implement a couple more tools in Azure."

"They should update Kubernetes more regularly."

More Kubernetes cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten. The tool costs around 3000 dollars per month. There are no additional costs apart from these."

"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."

"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. The product is competitively priced."

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

"Initially, Google Kubernetes Engine was a little bit cheaper, but now its prices have been increased compared to the pricing model and the features that are made available by its competitors."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"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 product is a little bit expensive."

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."

"Kubernetes is open-source. Kubernetes is free, but we're charged for AWS utilization."

"Kubernetes is open-source."

"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"

"It's an affordable solution"

"Kubernetes is an open-source solution that can be free. We have some distribution with licenses, such OpenShift and Tucows in Amazon. They are billing services."

"In addition to Kubernetes, you have to pay for support."

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs associated with its use."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

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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Product Reports

Google Kubernetes Engine

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Also Known As

GKE

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.

Google

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