Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Red Hat and VMware are both solutions in the Agile and DevOps Services category. Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6, while VMware is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8. Additionally, 96% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Red Hat OpenShift

Read 61 Red Hat OpenShift reviews

389 Views
341 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 21 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

475 Views
349 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift

VMware Tanzu Platform

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Red Hat OpenShift and VMware Tanzu Platform compete in the container management and application development category. OpenShift appears to have the upper hand with its extensive out-of-the-box functionalities, strong security features, and user-friendly interface, whereas Tanzu requires more customization and has less comprehensive features without additional components.

Features: OpenShift is recognized for its rapid CI/CD integration, robust automated scaling, and strong security features. It offers seamless Kubernetes integration and powerful management tools. Tanzu is valued for its integration capabilities with VMware’s ESX and vSAN, as well as its infrastructure tie-ins, which are appreciated by users seeking a unified solution.

Room for Improvement: OpenShift users point to challenges with its documentation and complex configurations, indicating a need for improved templates and simplified scalability solutions. They also seek enhancements in its security model. Tanzu users experience issues with restrictive third-party integration, network control, and on-premises support, urging improved pricing and flexibility.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OpenShift provides effective hybrid and on-premises deployment solutions, though users express concerns about support document consistency and response times. Tanzu offers smoother initial hybrid deployments but presents challenges in lifecycle management. Despite limited on-premises support, its integration within the VMware ecosystem is appreciated.

Pricing and ROI: OpenShift's licensing is considered high but justified by strong integrations and improved resource management. Users report significant ROI from resource efficiencies. Tanzu’s pricing, often bundled with Cloud Foundry, is expensive and less attractive for startups, despite occasional competitive discounts, leading to affordability concerns for smaller enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 847,772 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

3rd

Ranking in Container Management

12th

Ranking in Agile and DevOps Services

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Virtualization Software (9th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (7th)

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

12th

Ranking in Container Management

3rd

Ranking in Agile and DevOps Services

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (13th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (7th)

Featured Reviews

Mikhael Ibrahim

Platform Engineer & Manager at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

Seamlessly monitor microservices with streamlined DevOps capabilities

Most benefit from it, however, I work with Kubernetes, and installing Vanilla Kubernetes is easy. That said, it introduces many tools that need to be set up individually. OpenShift comes ready out of the box, with all tools installed and configured. Red Hat certifies and confirms that all the components are compatible with each other. OpenShift's superior dashboard is a notable strength, especially when compared to Kubernetes. The integrated DevOps capabilities, such as pipelines and the container registry, are extremely beneficial. Additionally, its capability to monitor microservices and containers with integrated tools like Prometheus is a major advantage. The horizontal pod scaling exceeds the scalability features I found in Kubernetes.

Read full review

DarshanChaudhari

Solutions Architect Hybrid Cloud Practice US/Europe at Tech Mahindra Limited

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"OpenShift offers more stability than Kubernetes."

"We are currently dealing with both local support and Red Hat support, and they have been amazing."

"OpenShift's superior dashboard is a notable strength, especially when compared to Kubernetes."

"It's cloud agnostic and the containerization and security features are outstanding."

"Security is also an important part of this solution. By default, things are running with limited privileges and securely confined to their own resources. This way, different users and projects can all use the same infrastructure."

"Excellent GUI support, so one does not need to use the command line client for almost any tasks. Great support for building images directly from Git repositories with hooks."

"Key features are WildFly, because it standardizes infrastructure and the git repository and docker. Git is essential for source code and Docker for infrastructure."

"OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins."

More Red Hat OpenShift pros

"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."

"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."

"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."

"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."

"Defining security metrics has proven beneficial for customers in maintaining a safe environment."

"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."

"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."

"I have multiple Kubernetes environments within my environment. TMC gives me a single pane view, which is good for managing everything."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"OpenShift can improve monitoring. Sometimes there are issues. Additionally, the solution could benefit from protective tools if something was to happen in our network."

"The tool lacks some features to make it compliant with Kubernetes"

"One area for improvement is the documentation. They need to make it a little bit more user-friendly. Also, if you compare certain features and the installation process with Rancher, Rancher is simpler."

"The solution only offers support for one server."

"Credential not hidden, so people on the same group can view it."

"We experienced issues around desktop security, that stopped us implementing a new feature that had been developed."

"Autoscaling is a very unique feature, but it could be useful to have more options based on traffic statistics, for example, via Prometheus. So, there should be more ready solutions to autoscale based on specific applications."

"The speed of deploying new applications can be improved."

More Red Hat OpenShift cons

"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."

"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"

"Another area of improvement is pricing."

"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 product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"

"It is not easy to build a solution with containers. It has a graphical user interface, but you need to have a lot of knowledge of Linux and how to work in the command mode. Its support can also be improved. Currently, its biggest disadvantage is that it is a new product, and the clients prefer to go for a solution that has been in the market for a long time. There are not that many people who know this product."

"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."

"VMware Tanzu Service Mesh could add better integration with other cloud platforms, such as vRealize Automation or VMware vCloud Director for cloud providers."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently using the open version, OKD. We plan to get the enterprise version in the future."

"The price depends on the type and the nature of the organizations, along with the types of projects that are of considerable range."

"The product has reasonable pricing."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive."

"It's important to start small because the solution is scalable. We can build our cluster and look at the bundle option, not the external subscriptions. Talking to the people at Red Hat can save us money."

"The cost is quite high."

"My company makes payments towards the licensing costs attached to OpenShift."

More Red Hat OpenShift pricing and cost advice

"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."

"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."

"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."

"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."

"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."

"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."

"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."

"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Agile and DevOps Services solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

32%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?

Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...

See all answers

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...

See all answers

What do you like most about OpenShift?

OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.

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 VMware Tanzu Application Service?

The solution is integrated very well with a lot of other systems. Also, its GUI is very good.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Application Service?

Since I have a developer team, they use the solution for testing purposes.

See all answers

Comparisons

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 18% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 17% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 14% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 10% of the time

Proxmox VE vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 18% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 12% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon EKS vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift

March 2025

Download Red Hat OpenShift product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

March 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

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

Red Hat OpenShift offers a robust, scalable platform with strong security and automation, suitable for container orchestration, application deployment, and microservices architecture.

Designed to modernize applications by transitioning from legacy systems to cloud-native environments, Red Hat OpenShift provides powerful CI/CD integration and Kubernetes compatibility. Its security features, multi-cloud support, and source-to-image functionality enhance deployment flexibility. While the GUI offers user-friendly navigation, users benefit from its cloud-agnostic nature and efficient lifecycle management. However, improvements are needed in documentation, configuration complexity, and integration with third-party platforms. Pricing and high resource demands can also be challenging for wider adoption.

What are the key features of Red Hat OpenShift?

Security: Comprehensive security features ensure safe deployments and operations.
Scalability: Auto-scaling and monitoring capabilities cater to high-demand environments.
CI/CD Integration: Seamless integration for efficient continuous deployment processes.
Cloud Compatibility: Supports multi-cloud and on-premise solutions with ease.
GUI: Simplifies platform management and enhances usability.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined operations reduce time and resource investments.
Enhanced Flexibility: Adapt quickly to changing demands and environments.
Quick Deployment: Fast application deployment supports agile project timelines.
Robust Support: Access to dependable customer support services.

Red Hat OpenShift is strategically implemented for diverse industries focusing on container orchestration and application modernization. Organizations leverage it for migrating applications to cloud-native environments and managing CI/CD pipelines. Its functionality facilitates efficient resource management and microservices architecture adoption, supporting enterprise-level DevOps practices. Users employ it across cloud and on-premises platforms to drive performance improvements.

Red Hat

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

VMware

Sample Customers

UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware Tanzu Platform report.

See our list of best Agile and DevOps Services vendors, best PaaS Clouds vendors, and best Container Management vendors.

We monitor all Agile and DevOps Services reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.