Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Kubernetes vs Portainer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Kubernetes
Ranking in Container Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.9%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portainer is 4.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Venu Boddu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
EB
A GUI solution that helps to administer a docker using a browser
The first time using Portainer involves a learning curve. It takes longer as you're unfamiliar with the processes and might be lazy to consult the manual. Initially, you may rely on intuition within the GUI. However, after repeating the same tasks three or four times, the process becomes much quicker.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is highly scalable."
"Kubernetes has everything. Its design structure is quite advanced, and its offerings are extensive. The practical feature was the seamless failover."
"The auto-repair function in Kubernetes is perfect. When something breaks, the auto-repair function automatically repairs it. If you are running the content in Kubernetes, you have a good set up. You do not need to do anything for the management of this. So, the automation of Kubernetes is number one."
"We find the smooth, instant fail-safes in this solution to be very useful, as this allows for easy revival of dying quads or failing applications."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the auto-scaling feature. However, Kubernetes is not used alone; it is part of a complete deployment pipeline integrated with DevOps. This pipeline includes automation and deployment capabilities."
"It is a stable and scalable product."
"With the use of our blueprint, my experience with the initial setup has been a ten out of ten where one is difficult and ten is easy."
"Kubernetes provides scalable clustering for containers and other means of deployment."
"Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visually generate volumes and working stacks."
 

Cons

"Kubernetes can be complicated to understand. Improved documentation would help in gaining scalable knowledge and making it more understandable."
"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."
"Kubernetes can be complicated to understand."
"The user-interface in regards to the other solution can be improved."
"Having a thread dump and memory dump, and seeing how many objects were created would be useful."
"Kubernetes could improve security. The security is really hard to deploy with proxies and other elements. Additionally, We have had some issues downloading repos and libraries."
"There is room for improvement in this area, as Kubernetes could benefit from having more integrations, such as for scanning vulnerabilities."
"One thing I noticed is when you have multiple deployments and your node count increases beyond eight or nine, the container creation process doesn't copy properties correctly."
"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kubernetes is open-source. Kubernetes is free, but we're charged for AWS utilization."
"There are no licensing fees."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"I am using the solution's open-source version."
"The price of Kubernetes could be lower. However, it is less expensive than VMware Tanzu. Additionally, technical support is expensive. The overall cost of the solution is approximately $1,000 annually."
"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."
"Kubernetes is open source. But we have to manage Kubernetes as a team, and the overhead is a bit high. Compared with the platforms like Cloud Foundry, which has a much less operational overhead. Kubernetes, I have to manage the code, and I have to hire the developers. If someone has a product, a developer should know exactly what he's writing or high availability, and all those things may differ the costs."
"The solution is open source and has no fees."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Management solutions are best for your needs.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Portainer?
Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visua...
What needs improvement with Portainer?
Portainer needs to be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Portainer?
The tool is a GUI that helps to administer a docker using a browser.
 

Also Known As

K8
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMware and others in Container Management. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.