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Portainer vs Rancher Labs comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rancher Labs
Ranking in Container Management
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Storage for Kubernetes (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Portainer is 3.1%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rancher Labs is 8.4%, up from 8.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

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.
RyanVassallo - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Rancher Labs is a very user-friendly tool."
"The most valuable feature of Rancher Labs is its user interface, which makes it easier to work with containers and deployment."
"The most valuable feature is its comprehensive support, easy resource scaling, compatibility with various OEMs, and seamless service integration."
"The solution is stable."
"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."
"The scalability potential is very good."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"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."
 

Cons

"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
"I can't migrate to the newer version."
"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."
"Could be more intuitive."
"If you have poor infrastructure, you will have issues with the tool."
"One area for improvement in Rancher Labs is the development aspect."
"We'd like their monitoring tool to be integrated by default."
"There needs to be an improvement in observability and microservice monitoring tools in Rancher Labs."
"The biggest room for improvement in Rancher Labs would be to have a proper upgrading plan."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Although Rancher Labs is an open-source solution, they also offer a paid version, where you buy the support when needed."
"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."
"There is an annual subscription. The price of the solution should be cheaper and have better pricing flexibility."
"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 cost is reasonable since it's open source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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.
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...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Albert Heijn, Bell, BMC, Samsung, WindStream, Johnson & Johnson
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMware and others in Container Management. Updated: November 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.