Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Rancher Labs comparison

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Rancher Labs and Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) compete in the Kubernetes management solution category. Rancher Labs holds a strong position due to its comprehensive open-source capabilities and flexibility, notwithstanding Nutanix's advantage in ease of initial deployment and hypervisor integration.

Features: Rancher Labs is known for its flexibility as an open-source solution, offering user-friendly management of Kubernetes clusters, persistent storage integration, and rich multi-cloud environment support. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine simplifies Kubernetes management by embedding features in the hypervisor, providing high availability, automatic load management, and robust no-downtime capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Rancher Labs could improve in monitoring, automation, and simplifying Kubernetes commands to enhance usability. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine needs to advance scalability for larger environments and improve both management capabilities and disaster recovery, along with more comprehensive documentation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Rancher Labs offers deployment flexibility across public, hybrid, and on-premises environments, backed by an active open-source community and accessible technical support. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine focuses on on-premises deployment, requiring direct interaction with support services. Both solutions offer responsive customer service, with Rancher benefiting from extensive community input.

Pricing and ROI: Rancher Labs, being open-source, is cost-effective with optional paid support, offering reasonable pricing relative to its feature set. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine is included in the Nutanix license, providing a cost-effective solution for businesses utilizing Nutanix infrastructure, with users noting positive ROI through faster deployments and better resource management.

To learn more, read our detailed Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs. Rancher Labs Report (Updated: March 2025).

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs. Rancher Labs

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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

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE

Ranking in Container Management

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Monitoring (6th)

Rancher Labs

Ranking in Container Management

6th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Storage for Kubernetes (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE is 9.8%, up from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rancher Labs is 9.4%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

YogeshWagh

Technology Head of Delivery at SBICAP Securities Ltd.

Helps to avoid downtime by creating new ports

We did contact Nutanix support during implementation but not for server-level application implementation. It was for a network-based implementation when we had uplink issues, which Nutanix resolved. We also faced a migration issue related to an agent that needs to run on the Nutanix VM. This agent runs on a specific port, which other applications on the VMware instance might use. We changed that particular port, and it's working fine now. It just took a two or three minute call to resolve. Nutanix support responded quickly. We raised a call, and within half an hour to an hour, they joined on Webex. They checked our configuration and shared a document with changes that weren't persistent after the reboot. Later, they made process changes at the OS level, not on Nutanix. We needed to make some service-level changes on the OS, which were applied successfully. Now, after every reboot, we get the desired output.

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RyanVassallo

Head of Systems and Infrastructure at Booming Games

Offers an open-source version along with a good UI

The product has multiple good features. One of the solution's good features is that it is the GitOps functionality known as Rancher fleet, which is used for continuous delivery. The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or on-premises, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations. The tool also has a feature that is still kind of maturing, but I think it has very good potential. This new feature is named Harvester, which is allows users to have virtual machines managed by Kubernetes engine. This is very new technology in the market. I think that Harvester needs to mature as a product, and I think that in the future, it will be very powerful. You have one tool that does many things for you.

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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 solution provides no downtime features. If we face issues, we create a new port, deploy it there, and then drop the existing one. This way, we avoid NKE downtime on our website."

"Nutanix's support is really good."

"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."

"We can do a lot of provisioning."

"The product integrates well with our infrastructure."

"The platform is valuable due to its ease of use and quick deployment capabilities."

"The solution is easy to manage. You can get everything in a single platform. It is also easy to work with Terraform as a code."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE pros

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

"The most valuable feature is its comprehensive support, easy resource scaling, compatibility with various OEMs, and seamless service integration."

"Rancher Labs is a very user-friendly tool."

"The customized deployment process is the most valuable feature in Rancher Labs."

"The product is simple to use for a beginner."

"A great UI with very good integrations."

"The most valuable feature of Rancher Labs is its user interface, which makes it easier to work with containers and deployment."

"This solution is not vendor-locked, which means that we we are able to use it across all of our resources; this feature is of great value to us."

More Rancher Labs pros

Cons

"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."

"The product lacks some virtualization capabilities, making it an area for improvement where the solution can focus on providing users with more virtualization capabilities related to disk systems."

"We need a backup of production clusters."

"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."

"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) include upgrading management capabilities and enhancing the user interface for improved usability."

"One major issue we faced was that appliances couldn't migrate from VMware to the tool. However, this seems to be a common problem across platforms. We've seen the same issue when migrating from VMware to RHV or other solutions. It's not specifically a Nutanix problem but rather an issue migrating appliances from one VM infrastructure to another. Some kernel-level and storage-level issues impact this process."

"NKE could benefit from additional features that support more advanced Kubernetes functionalities and configurations."

"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE cons

"Could be more intuitive."

"The solution could improve by adding more features in the dashboard, such as monitoring, scanning, and security. This would be a great benefit."

"The biggest room for improvement in Rancher Labs would be to have a proper upgrading plan."

"We have found that the auto-secure feature of this solution doesn't always work, and could be improved to be more reliable, particularly when working with business critical applications."

"While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust."

"They should improve application visibility along with code visibility."

"One area for improvement in Rancher Labs is the development aspect."

"If you have poor infrastructure, you will have issues with the tool."

More Rancher Labs cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."

"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."

"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."

"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."

"Although Rancher Labs is an open-source solution, they also offer a paid version, where you buy the support when needed."

"There is an annual subscription. The price of the solution should be cheaper and have better pricing flexibility."

"The cost is reasonable since it's open source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge."

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs involved."

"There are no hidden charges attached to the product unless a user opts for the premium support offered by the solution."

"The pricing of the solution sits in the mid range, not high and not low. It has a fixed price that you pay every month."

"The solution is free and open source but there is a fee for support."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

10%

Manufacturing Company

25%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase.

What needs improvement with Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

One major issue we faced was that appliances couldn't migrate from VMware to the tool. However, this seems to be a common problem across platforms. We've seen the same issue when migrating from VMw...

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

We utilize NKE to create these clusters, configuring components to meet specific business requirements.

What do you like most about Rancher Labs?

The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or the company, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rancher Labs?

The cost is reasonable since it's open-source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge.

What needs improvement with Rancher Labs?

While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust. We found it to offer basic security features, which met some of our requirements, but we also relied on other op...

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Product Reports

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE

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Also Known As

Nutanix Karbon

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Overview

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) is an enterprise Kubernetes management solution that simplifies provisioning, operations, and lifecycle management of Kubernetes.

Nutanix

Rancher Labs build innovative, open source software that makes it easy to deploy and manage containers in production on any infrastructure. We enable organizations to accelerate all aspects of their software development pipeline, from writing and testing code to running complex microservices-based applications.

Rancher, our flagship container management platform, allows users to easily manage all aspects of running containers in development and production environments, on any infrastructure. With well over four million downloads, Rancher has quickly become the tools of choice for teams serious about running containers in production. This includes large enterprises such as Sony, IBM, Tyco, Align Technologies and more.

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen

Albert Heijn, Bell, BMC, Samsung, WindStream, Johnson & Johnson

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs. Rancher Labs