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IBM Public Cloud vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 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

IBM Public Cloud
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IoT Platforms (2nd)
Red Hat OpenShift
Ranking in PaaS Clouds
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
76
Ranking in other categories
Server Virtualization Software (3rd), Container Management (4th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (2nd), Agile and DevOps Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Public Cloud is 3.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 6.5%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
PaaS Clouds Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Red Hat OpenShift6.5%
IBM Public Cloud3.6%
Other89.9%
PaaS Clouds
 

Featured Reviews

Premnath Jaganathan - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Uop Ipl
Affordability and security improve our cloud experience while learning new systems
I'm not working with any AI features in IBM Public Cloud, but they are in the process of building it.I am very satisfied with the security that IBM Public Cloud provides. I would rate IBM Public Cloud eight out of ten, where one is worst and ten is the best.
AA
Operation Director at Zaintech
Platform has transformed our cloud into a secure, unified home for diverse modern applications
One of the best features of Red Hat OpenShift is that it has the catalog, the application catalog, and the operator hub, which allows us to deploy things easily and straightforward without going into a lot of hassles. This is one of the main things, in addition to having integration with ACM and ACS, where we can have the ability to manage multiple clusters and to secure them, deploy them, manage them, run GitOps and day-two operations, as well as upgrades and other functionality which is made easy using these tools. Red Hat OpenShift also provides virtualization capabilities, and I am currently working with Zain to make a project where we will convert F5 appliances to virtual machines and to manage them through Red Hat virtualization, OVE. Red Hat OpenShift is a unique platform because it provides the features for both worlds, containerization, and VMs at the same time, requiring you to learn one skillset in order to manage all of this at the same time. In the beginning, our cloud depended only on virtual machines, so I introduced this to our management to start to work with microservices and with containerization. This was adapted in our cloud, providing us the capability to sell more of these features and to reduce the hardware requirement by about thirty percent, following the trends of using containerization for all modern applications. In addition, it reduced the time to develop and to deploy a new application; all we need is using Jenkins for CI/CD. Once we commit any code, it gets triggered, and it will implement the new container in a very flexible and easy way, within seconds. This decreased the time to market and increased agility, allowing us to capture new opportunities very fast.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The availability is second to none. Customer support is very good."
"The initial setup was very easy. It's quite straightforward. Deployment took about fifteen minutes. Everything is well organized."
"The beauty of cloud service providers, especially public cloud service providers, is that they are scalable every time when you need them because their payment model is pay-as-you-go."
"It is easy to deploy what you need for the initial setup"
"It is a scalable product. You can scale it up and down."
"We deploy all of our developments and production environments for deploying microservices and APIs on the IBM Public Cloud."
"What I like most in IBM Public Cloud is how easy it is to create serverless functions. They are called IBM functions, but in AWS, they are called Lambda functions. Those are pretty standard, and another thing I like the most is that you have fewer restrictions on the amount of data you can transfer across those functions. IBM Public Cloud is way more flexible than AWS. I also like that IBM Public Cloud is pretty straightforward to integrate. As long as you have all the tools IBM provides you, getting everything up and running is straightforward."
"The platform has everything that I need - or 99% of the requirements we need."
"Overall, Red Hat is a handy tool to have, like an electric screwdriver instead of a manual one, because we can use what they've already written to make us more productive."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the great customer service and the ability for our team to get assistance when we need it."
"The most valuable feature of OpenShift is the containers."
"A smaller cloud running on containers enables easy deployment with the ability to scale up and scale down, and it can host multiple services on the same platform."
"Has a better UI and is good as a CICD solution."
"OpenShift is the way of the future."
"The product has helped kick off applications for developers at speed, as new joiners can just start using the platform without bothering to set up an application stack and/or server stack on their local laptop."
"We have found the solution to be very scalable during our time using it, and we now have a large number of transactions passing through the product."
 

Cons

"This solution can be very slow, which was a big problem for us."
"It will be challenging to implement if you do not have any experience."
"They could improve on customizing reporting capabilities."
"The solution needs to be more autonomous. It should let the DL go to allow for more jobs on the cloud. It could have a better interface as well."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"It could be more secure."
"I would like to see a more user-friendly deployment process in the next release of this solution."
"They do not have a very good virtual network implemented, and the VPC is the most important feature that needs to be improved."
"The customer support for Red Hat OpenShift is bad because the support does not respond."
"At this particular point, I think it is very difficult for me to suggest how Red Hat OpenShift can be improved, as I need specific documentation outlining all features."
"Most of the configurations are command based. If we can have a GUI-based configuration with better flexibility then it will be great."
"An enhancement to consider for the future might involve incorporating a comprehensive solution for CI/CD tailored specifically for OpenShift."
"The first installations were tricky."
"They could provide a template for application deployment and building services and routes so it can all be promoted as a bundle if needed."
"With OpenShift, I can only manage a particular area. I can't manage other Kubernetes clusters."
"I find it quite challenging to maintain and manage everything without extensive experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten."
"We are using the trial version of this solution, so we have not paid anything."
"IBM has a lesser price compared to other cloud service providers like Azure and AWS."
"In order to be competitive, you have to commit to a contract for at least one year, but you pay a fixed monthly fee."
"The licensing fees are straightforward and predictable."
"IBM Public Cloud is pretty cheap. They have an ongoing free tier that basically won't expire, so as long as your solution is small enough, you can have a test set that you can use for demos, which will cost you almost nothing."
"It pretty much has a standard price. There is no hidden price with IBM Public Cloud."
"Pricing is not as fair as Amazon or Azure."
"I don't deal with the cost part, but I know that the cost is very high when compared to other products. They charge for CPU and memory, but we don't worry about it."
"My company makes payments towards the licensing costs attached to OpenShift."
"It's important to start small because the solution is scalable. We can build our cluster and look at the bundle option, not the external subscriptions. Talking to the people at Red Hat can save us money."
"We had a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) license for all our servers' operating systems. By having multiple Red Hat products together, you can negotiate costs and leverage on having a sort of enterprise license agreement to reduce the overall outlay or TCO."
"The model of pricing and buying licences is quite rigid. We are in the process of negotiating on demand pricing which will help us take advantage of the cloud as a whole."
"The cost is quite high."
"The pricing is standard; the solution isn't particularly expensive or affordable."
"The product’s pricing is expensive."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Construction Company
11%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise57
 

Questions from the Community

Which is preferable - IBM Public Cloud or Microsoft Azure?
IBM Public Cloud is IBM’s Platform-as-a-Service. It aims to provide organizations with a secure cloud environment to manage data and applications. One of the features we like is the cloud activity ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Public Cloud?
The prices are relatively lower compared to others. It is a good option for medium-sized businesses. However, businesses should also consider other vendors to ensure they meet their specific securi...
What needs improvement with IBM Public Cloud?
The connectivity and speed of IBM Public Cloud are much lower compared to the competition.
How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?
Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...
Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?
Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...
What needs improvement with OpenShift?
One area for improvement in Red Hat OpenShift is during upgrades, as there is currently no option to revert to a previous version if vulnerabilities or issues arise. I believe that providing such a...
 

Also Known As

IBM Bluemix
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Uvionics Tech, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Alpha Modus, Inventive, Web Business Consulting, FindBrok, SilverHook Powerboats, United Way of Allegheny County
UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Public Cloud vs. Red Hat OpenShift and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,402 professionals have used our research since 2012.