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Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware vSphere Foundation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
Organizations using OpenShift gain ROI from increased productivity, scalability, reduced onboarding time, enhanced efficiency, and minimized resources.
Sentiment score
7.3
VMware vSphere Foundation enhances server consolidation, scalability, and manageability, though some users haven't fully explored its available features.
With OpenShift combined with IBM Cloud App integration, I can spin an integration server in a second as compared to traditional methods, which could take days or weeks.
Moving to OpenShift resulted in increased system stability and reduced downtime, which contributed to operational efficiency.
In an environment where the infrastructure has to be up for monitoring and controlling physical infrastructure like water plants, it has absolutely returned on its investment.
Server consolidation is one return on investment where we can use one server for multiple workloads.
While the return on investment is not clearly defined, the manageability of multiple servers without needing additional personnel or specialists is beneficial.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Red Hat OpenShift customer service is mixed, with some praising and others critiquing support responsiveness, documentation, and issue handling.
Sentiment score
7.1
VMware vSphere Foundation's customer service sees mixed reviews, praised for speed but criticized for language and response issues.
Red Hat's technical support is responsive and effective.
I have been pretty happy in the past with getting support from Red Hat.
Red Hat's technical support is good, and I would rate it a nine out of ten.
There is nonstop support available around the world, which allows issues to be resolved continuously without interruption, regardless of whether the problem occurs in the USA, India, or another location.
Now, with Broadcom's management, I would rate it a three out of ten.
Most of the time, VMware operates smoothly without requiring support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Red Hat OpenShift excels in scalable, flexible deployment, effectively managing demand surges, with some preferring enterprise edition for support.
Sentiment score
8.8
VMware vSphere Foundation is praised for efficient scalability, seamless integration, and maximizing server usage, with diverse scalability opinions.
The on-demand provisioning of pods and auto-scaling, whether horizontal or vertical, is the best part.
OpenShift's horizontal pod scaling is more effective and efficient than that used in Kubernetes, making it a superior choice for scalability.
Red Hat OpenShift scales excellently, with a rating of ten out of ten.
The return on investment is high because we can maximize the use of one server for multiple workloads.
It's straightforward to procure additional licenses, install them on the host and add them to the same cluster.
You can simply add more hosts to your VMware stack seamlessly, scaling up vertically or horizontally.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Red Hat OpenShift is highly stable, consistently performing well in production with users rating reliability between eight to ten.
Sentiment score
8.4
VMware vSphere Foundation is highly stable and efficient, consistently scoring high ratings with 90% user endorsement for performance.
It provides better performance yet requires more resources compared to vanilla Kubernetes.
I've had my cluster running for over four years.
It performs well under load, providing the desired output.
Stability is optimal.
Frequent updates are required due to constant security challenges and attacks.
It is a standard tool and is considered very stable.
 

Room For Improvement

Red Hat OpenShift needs better documentation, UI, cloud support, and improved performance in security, integration, and installation processes.
VMware vSphere Foundation faces challenges with pricing, procurement, and support, worsened by Broadcom acquisition and Oracle compatibility issues.
Learning OpenShift requires complex infrastructure, needing vCenter integration, more advanced answers, active directory, and more expensive hardware.
We should aim to include VMware-like capabilities to be competitive, especially considering cost factors.
The removal of Grafana and HPA from monitoring caused some issues.
VMware needs to improve cost efficiency, especially in Pakistan, as customers often seek more affordable solutions.
Recently, VMware shifted its licensing models, and they should streamline it.
It is not legally compliant to use an Oracle database on VMware, which does not support Oracle core-based licensing.
 

Setup Cost

Red Hat OpenShift's pricing is costly yet competitive for enterprises, with flexibility and negotiation opportunities available.
Enterprises find VMware vSphere Foundation costly post-Broadcom merger, prompting interest in cheaper alternatives and open-source solutions.
Initially, licensing was per CPU, with a memory cap, but the price has doubled, making it difficult to justify for clients with smaller compute needs.
Red Hat can improve on the pricing part by making it more flexible and possibly on the lower side.
The cost of OpenShift is very high, particularly with the OpenShift Plus package, which includes many products and services.
It's expensive, however, the stability it offers is optimal.
In Brazil, we are increasingly using open-source alternatives like Proxmox due to their lower prices in comparison.
vSphere Foundation is considered very expensive, especially when compared to competitive Chinese products.
 

Valuable Features

Red Hat OpenShift excels in security, automation, scalability, multi-cloud management, user-friendly interface, and Kubernetes compatibility.
VMware vSphere Foundation provides scalable, reliable infrastructure management with high availability, enhancing hardware visibility and IT efficiency.
The concept of containers and scaling on demand is a feature I appreciate the most about Red Hat OpenShift.
A valuable feature of Red Hat OpenShift is its ability to handle increased loads by automatically adding nodes.
It has features that enhance security, ease of deployment, and service exposure compared to Kubernetes.
vSphere Foundation is valuable due to its scalability, reliability, and ease of management.
VMware provides the tools needed to move environments between private and public clouds seamlessly.
The virtual stack of vCenter, its distributed resources system, high availability engines, and the ability to move VM workloads from one host to another are outstanding.
 

Categories and Ranking

Red Hat OpenShift
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (3rd), Container Management (12th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (1st)
VMware vSphere Foundation
Ranking in Server Virtualization Software
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Mikhael Ibrahim - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AshutoshKumar4 - PeerSpot reviewer
Licensing issues and lack of support but manageability is appreciated
I find the manageability and interface of vSphere Foundation to be very good, more understandable, and futuristic compared to open-source alternatives. It provides me with a lot of features that I am comfortable using for virtualization. I manage multiple servers with ease, which is a significant benefit for my organization's virtualization needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
No data available
 

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 ...
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...
What do you like most about OpenShift?
OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.
What needs improvement with VMware vSphere Foundation?
The licensing model is an area for improvement. Recently, VMware shifted its licensing models, and they should streamline it. Now they have time-based and core-based licensing, which may or may not...
What is your primary use case for VMware vSphere Foundation?
I work for a data center as a system administrator. I oversee production and analyze systems. We host our workloads on VMware and virtualized infrastructure.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat OpenShift vs. VMware vSphere Foundation and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.