Kubernetes vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

Kubernetes and Red Hat are both solutions in the Container Management category. Kubernetes is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.7, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Kubernetes holds a 4.7% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 31.5% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Kubernetes users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Kubernetes

Read 78 Kubernetes reviews

4,869 Views
3,258 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

Read 48 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform reviews

9,717 Views
8,012 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Kubernetes

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Kubernetes and OpenShift compete in the field of container orchestration platforms. OpenShift appears to have the upper hand in terms of security and enterprise support, while Kubernetes leads with cost-effectiveness and widespread community usage.

Features: Kubernetes offers impressive scalability, self-healing capabilities, and extensive automation like auto-repair and auto-scaling. It is geared towards users comfortable in diverse cloud environments. OpenShift, built on Kubernetes, stands out with enhanced security features, structured environments, and seamless integration with the Red Hat ecosystem, which provides built-in security measures and user-friendly elements.

Room for Improvement: Kubernetes could improve its dashboard interface, ease of use for non-Linux users, and the integration of networking components, along with enhanced scheduling and monitoring tools. OpenShift requires better documentation and improved integration, particularly with external platforms and some advanced security configurations. Users find its setup process to be complex, seeking more accessible interfaces and tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kubernetes is versatile across private, public, and hybrid clouds but often lacks direct support, leading users to turn to community forums or consultants. Red Hat OpenShift provides robust enterprise-level support within its package, appealing to large organizations requiring reliable assistance. OpenShift's deployment is streamlined by Red Hat's structured support offerings.

Pricing and ROI: Kubernetes, being open-source, is typically cost-effective, especially for businesses with the necessary infrastructure and expertise, only incurring support and storage-related costs. OpenShift's higher licensing fees reflect its advanced features and support services, catering to large enterprises needing comprehensive solutions. Both platforms offer significant ROI, with Kubernetes favored for lower operational costs and OpenShift for its enterprise-grade features and support.

To learn more, read our detailed Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

January 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

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

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

Ranking in Container Management

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.7%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 31.5%, up from 26.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

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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Vlado Velkovski

DevOps Architect at KIBS

Provides automation that speeds up our process by 30% and helps us achieve zero downtime

OpenShift has a pretty steep learning curve. It's not an easy tool to use. It's not only OpenShift but Kubernetes itself. The good thing is that Red Hat provides specific targeted training. There are five or six pieces of training where you can get certifications. The licenses for OpenShift are pretty expensive, so they could be cheaper because the competition isn't sleeping, and Red Hat must take that into account. There are a few versions of OpenShift. There is the normal OpenShift and an OpenShift Plus license. Red Hat could think of how to connect those two subscriptions because, with Red Hat Plus, you have one tool called ACM (Advanced Cluster Management), where you can manage multiple clusters from one place. We deployed this functionality by ourselves, but if you don't pay the license for Red Hat OpenShift Plus, you'll lack this functionality. If you have a multi-cloud environment and you have a lot of work to do, it would be a plus if the Red Had OpenShift Plus license came in a bundle with the regular solutions. This ACM tool should be available in the normal subscription, not just the Plus version. There are new versions on an almost weekly basis. I found myself that the upgrading of OpenShift clusters is not a task that will successfully finish every time. It's a simple and quick, but not reliable process. That's why we use multiple clusters. We use v4.10.3, but we want to move to v4.12.X. The upgrade process itself can fail, and we don't have backups of our OpenShift cluster because we have backups of all the Kubernetes manifests on GitHub. We destroy the cluster, bring up a new one quickly, and apply those scripts. The upgrade itself could be more resilient for us as administrators of OpenShift to be sure that it'll succeed and not occasionally fail. They can improve the reliability of their upgrade process. They also have implementations of some Red Hat-verified operators for a lot of products like Elasticsearch. They're good enough for development purposes, but some of the OpenShift operators still lack resilient production-grade configurations. Red Hat says that we have a few hundred operators, but I believe that only half of them are production-grade ready at this moment. They need to work much more on those operators to become more flexible because you can deploy all of them in development mode, but when we go to production grade and want to make specific changes to the operator and configuration, we lack those possibilities.

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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 most important feature is container orchestration."

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

"The product is highly scalable."

"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."

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

"I am impressed with the product's coupling of resources and flexibility."

"Kubernetes provides scalable clustering for containers and other means of deployment."

"The performance is good."

More Kubernetes pros

"The auto scalability feature, which is based on smart agendas, determined from pre-prepared rules is the most valuable feature. You can also create different routes for deployment. Deployment types can be provided with an identifier, such as an ARB deployment. This really helped in rolling out releases without disrupting services for the end-users."

"The console or the GUI of OpenShift is awesome. You can do a lot of things from there. You can perform administration tasks as well as development tasks."

"I have found the ability to scale up is most valuable."

"I like the Flexibility of the solution."

"It has been a good solution to deploy all containerized applications."

"The solution's security throughout the stack and the software supply chain is very reliable. When it was on-prem, it was by default secured by our company firewalls and security tools, and now it's in the cloud, which has its security and systems in place. This provides stability to our infrastructure."

"The best feature is the management for the port life cycle, which automatically recycles, pulls, and scales up and down based on needs and requests."

"Integrating the product into our existing infrastructure was easy."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform pros

Cons

"Management features could be simplified."

"The network policies and RBAC management across multi-clusters could be improved. This is an issue we're trying to solve in the market."

"The Kubernetes dashboard can be improved. It is currently a mess. We were using Rancher earlier, and everyone was happy with the dashboard. Right now, we are using Kubernetes, and it's not working with Microsoft workstations. We still have problems with the dashboard. It's terrible."

"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."

"Kubernetes is a complex solution. The product needs to be more manageable and user-friendly."

"It's good for bigger organizations, but for smaller organizations or a few workloads, it may be too heavy, not easy to deploy, and the ROI may be less because it requires a control plane, worker nodes, and multiple VMs to run."

"Absence of a built-in feature for local API creation"

"The security of the solution is in its infancy and needs a lot of work."

More Kubernetes cons

"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."

"Getting the solution quickly and troubleshooting quickly are both areas where I think it needs some work."

"OpenShift has certain restrictions in terms of managing the cluster when it's running on a public cloud. For example, identity and access management integration with the IM of AWS is quite difficult. It requires some open-source tools to integrate. This is one area where I always see room for improvement."

"The product's interface is a bit buggy."

"I want to see more incorporation of native automation features; then, we could write a code, deploy it directly to OpenShift, and allow it to take care of the automated process. Using this method, we could write one application and have elements copy/pasted to other applications in the development process."

"With the recent trend of cloud-native, fully managed serverless services, I don't see much documentation about how a customer should move from on-prem to the cloud, or what is the best way to do a lift-and-shift. Even if you are on AWS OCP, which is self-managed infra services, and you want to use the ROSA managed services, what is the best way to achieve that migration? I don't see documentation for these kinds of use cases from Red Hat."

"It is difficult to deploy the OpenShift cluster in a bare-metal environment."

"The solution needs to introduce open ID connect integration for role-based access control."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you have a solid AKS and a solid DevOps process, you'll automatically get an ROI, not just in terms of cost but also in how quickly you can see your business application progress."

"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."

"Kubernetes is open-source."

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

"There is a license to use Kubernetes."

"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."

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

"The solution itself is open-source, so there is no cost attached to it. However, it requires a virtual machine to operate, which does come at a cost; a choice of a pay as you go model, or a monthly charge via an enterprise agreement. There is a pricing calculator available, where organizations can determine the level and number of virtual machines required, and how much that will cost."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

"Its price is a bit high because it's a premium product, but as long as the business is ready to pay for that, it's okay."

"We paid for Cloud Pak for integration. It all depends on how many VMs or how many CPUs you are using. They do the licensing based on that."

"Its licensing is completely incomprehensible. We have special people within our company. They discuss with Red Hat subscription managers. It is too complex, and I do not understand it. We are from the government, and we are trying to be as cheap as possible. Sometimes, I am just amazed at the amount of money that we have to pay. It is crazy."

"I'm not familiar with pricing or financial aspects. In terms of effort versus benefit, it's worth it."

"The pricing is a bit more expensive than expected."

"It depends on who you're talking to. For a large corporation, it is acceptable, other than the significant infrastructure requirements. For a small organization, it is in no way suitable, and we'd go for Amazon's container solution."

"OpenShift with Red Hat support is pretty costly. We have done a comparison between AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Services) which provides fully managed services from AWS. It's built on open-source-based Kubernetes clusters and it is much cheaper compared to Red Hat, but it is a little expensive compared to ECS provided by AWS."

"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

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 OpenShift Container Platform?

The tool's most valuable features include high availability, scalability, and security. Other features like advanced cluster management, advanced cluster security, and Red Hat Quay make it powerful...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenShift Container Platform?

OpenShift pricing varies by region. For example, a simple cluster with three nodes in DAL-10 might cost around $560 to $580 per month, subject to specific configurations like memory and CPU cores.

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 41% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Kubernetes

Compared 23% of the time

Portainer vs Kubernetes

Compared 7% of the time

Google Kubernetes Engine vs Kubernetes

Compared 6% of the time

HPE Ezmeral Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 6% of the time

More Kubernetes Competitors

Amazon EKS vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 50% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 10% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 4% of the time

Portainer vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 1% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Competitors

Product Reports

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Kubernetes

January 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

January 2025

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform report

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Also Known As

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Kubernetes

Red Hat

Overview

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.

Red Hat® OpenShift® offers a consistent hybrid cloud foundation for building and scaling containerized applications. Benefit from streamlined platform installation and upgrades from one of the enterprise Kubernetes leaders.

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect

Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health

Buyer's Guide

Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

January 2025

Free Report: Kubernetes vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

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