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Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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

Red Hat OpenShift Container...
Ranking in Container Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Container Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (11th), PaaS Clouds (10th), Cloud Management (17th), Development Platforms (2nd), Service Mesh (4th), Agile and DevOps Services (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vlado Velkovski - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
DarshanChaudhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers seamless connectivity and integration through APIs while offering robust auto-scaling
I am involved in IT services and we provide a solution to customers. We work with VMware, Nutanix, OpenShift, and Microsoft Hyper-V The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible. It offers native services for autoscaling and integrations through APIs, allowing seamless…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The banking transactions, inquiries, and account opening have been the most valuable."
"I find the security features and use of operators in OpenShift Container Platform highly valuable."
"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."
"Red Hat's security throughout the stack and software supply chain is good. It is a lightweight operating system. You don't have to worry about the security patches on the system. You can update the entire environment with security patches, which is a nice feature."
"It’s user-friendly."
"It automates rolling out new features, packaging the code, conducting security scans, and deploying to OpenShift."
"Technical support is good; they are fast and reliable."
"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."
"A feature we find valuable is that other products can also be integrated with Mission Control. This means that we can see the status of specific clusters, as well as view the monitoring application logs all from one point."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"The valuable feature I have found to be the management of Kubernetes clusters in a private cloud or public clouds, such as Azure or Google Cloud Platform."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to check the flow of all the different variants within our applications."
"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."
 

Cons

"The price needs to be improved in OpenShift Container Platform. When I choose this, the product is the first factor that we have to make a long analysis to compare the real cost for the other services. However, price is high."
"The complexity of the installation could be reduced. While we got the necessary support, the instructions could be clearer."
"There should be a simplification of the overall cluster environment. It should require fewer resources. Just to run a simple Hello World app, it requires about seven servers, and that's just crazy. I understand that it is fully redundant, but it's prohibitively expensive to get something simple going."
"We've encountered challenges when transitioning applications between these environments."
"Quality of support may be improved."
"Metrics monitoring feature needs improvement."
"The interface has numerous UI bugs that need addressing."
"My impression is that this solution is pretty expensive so I think the pricing plan could improve."
"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"This product doesn't have a GUI. In order to use it properly, I need to connect it to a new GUI or build a GUI to manage it — it's pretty difficult."
"The solution's initial setup process was complex...The solution could benefit from improved customization and visibility for its users."
"Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity."
"The network control and security policies must be improved."
"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"
"VMware Tanzu Service Mesh could add better integration with other cloud platforms, such as vRealize Automation or VMware vCloud Director for cloud providers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm not familiar with pricing or financial aspects. In terms of effort versus benefit, it's worth it."
"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."
"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."
"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."
"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."
"The price is slightly on the higher side. It is something that can be worked on because most of the businesses now have margins."
"The pricing is expensive for licensing."
"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."
"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"I would recommend that businesses look into the full price for their requirements. The price is high, but there are some open-source add-ons that can be used for customization while keeping costs down, although these might not be suitable for everyone."
"Its pricing is very competitive. We get around 70% or 75%, sometimes even 80%, discount on the product. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."
"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"
"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
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.
What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Application Service?
The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good.
What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Application Service?
Since I have a developer team, they use the solution for testing purposes.
What advice do you have for others considering VMware Tanzu Application Service?
I would definitely recommend the solution to those planning to use it. I rate the overall solution an eight and a half out of ten.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,296 professionals have used our research since 2012.