Google Kubernetes Engine vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Google and Broadcom are both solutions in the Container Management category. Google is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.1, while Broadcom is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. Google holds a 2.2% mindshare in CM, compared to Broadcom’s 12.1% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Google Kubernetes Engine

Read 39 Google Kubernetes Engine reviews

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817 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 22 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

7,257 Views
4,935 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Google Kubernetes Engine

VMware Tanzu Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Google Kubernetes Engine and VMware Tanzu Platform compete in the cloud and container management domain. Google Kubernetes Engine has an edge with stronger integration with Google services and affordability, whereas VMware Tanzu appeals to enterprises using VMware infrastructures.

Features: Google Kubernetes Engine provides a seamless deployment experience and robust autoscaling beneficial for users in multi-cloud environments. It integrates easily with Google services like BigQuery and VertexAI, enhancing data processing efficiency. VMware Tanzu Platform offers strong integration with existing VMware products like vSphere, providing a comprehensive solution for infrastructure, networking, and storage. Notable features include advanced dashboard capabilities and efficient lifecycle management.

Room for Improvement: Google Kubernetes Engine could simplify network configurations and improve documentation clarity. Enhancing application-level security integration is another area requiring attention. Improving the response time of technical support has been noted. VMware Tanzu could enhance integration with third-party solutions and boost flexibility in handling diverse infrastructures. Pricing is a concern, particularly for smaller enterprises, as it is higher compared to other options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Kubernetes Engine facilitates efficient deployment, favoring public and hybrid cloud environments, coupled with a robust support system. However, there is mixed feedback regarding support responsiveness. VMware Tanzu is effective in hybrid cloud setups and integrates seamlessly with VMware's suite of products. Both platforms are known for good customer service, although Google could improve its technical support response times. VMware offers better integration with its solutions.

Pricing and ROI: Google Kubernetes Engine is viewed as affordable, benefiting from an open-source base, though resource costs like GPU-based applications may increase prices. It offers a cost-effective solution overall, although some find regional redundancy costs steep. VMware Tanzu is generally more expensive, catering mainly to large enterprises capable of leveraging bundle discounts. The higher pricing reflects its extensive capabilities within VMware environments. Both solutions deliver substantial ROI, with Google appealing to startups with its flexible integration, while VMware suits enterprises with existing VMware investments.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Kubernetes Engine vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

July 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

Google Kubernetes Engine

Ranking in Container Management

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in Container Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (13th), PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (24th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.2%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 12.1%, down from 17.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
VMware Tanzu Platform	12.1%
Google Kubernetes Engine	2.2%
Other	85.7%

Container Management

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T

Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient

Managed solutions enable efficient handling of web applications and migration projects

Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present where I can upgrade directly, and having more than 1,000 to 2,000 workloads in one node pool makes changing the node pool name difficult for all those workloads. I choose eight out of ten mainly because of the node pool upgrade challenge I mentioned, but also because of the existence of Anthos service mesh, which is the ingress controller available only for the enterprise Kubernetes Engine. It would be beneficial if it could be offered in the normal Kubernetes Engine with any limitations.

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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

"It's easy to manage and deploy. It's the best."

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

"We used automation for the initial setup. It was okay. So it wasn't too complex."

"The most valuable aspect of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is its managed nature, which significantly reduces the burden on our platform team."

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

"On the tip of a command, you can scale in or scale out, and it offers every robust platform to implement DevOps processes for your automation solutions. The product fully supports the IaC concept."

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

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

More Google Kubernetes Engine pros

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

"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."

"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"

"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 multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."

"The valuable feature I have found to be the management of Kubernetes clusters in a private cloud or public clouds, such as Azure or Google Cloud Platform."

"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"The tool's configuration features need improvement."

"t is not very stable."

"The network configuration has to be simplified."

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

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

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

"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."

"The user interface is a bit confusing sometimes. You need to navigate between the various consoles we have. It's hard to figure out where things are. It's frustrating. The documentation could be a bit better."

More Google Kubernetes Engine cons

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

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

"One potential area for expansion would be leveraging AI capabilities, which my customer might be interested in exploring as they grow."

"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."

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

"The solution's initial setup process was complex...The solution could benefit from improved customization and visibility for its users."

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

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."

"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."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"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."

"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 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."

"The product is a little bit expensive."

"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."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."

"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."

"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."

"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."

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

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	15

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	9

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Kubernetes Engine?

The product has no downtime.

See all answers

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

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Google Kubernetes Engine is straightforward, as I previously indicated. The need for humans is reduced with GCP since there is no need for ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?

See all answers

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 Mission Control?

It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native ap...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?

The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 25% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 16% of the time

Docker vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 15% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 13% of the time

Kubernetes vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 12% of the time

More Google Kubernetes Engine Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Docker vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 6% of the time

HashiCorp Consul vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 2% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Kubernetes Engine

September 2025

Download Google Kubernetes Engine product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

August 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

Also Known As

GKE

Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu

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

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.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

July 2025

Free Report: Google Kubernetes Engine vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

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