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CircleCI vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

CircleCI
Ranking in Build Automation
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
AI Software Development (16th)
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Build Automation
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (33rd), Development Platforms (5th), Container Management (9th), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Build Automation category, the mindshare of CircleCI is 4.1%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 2.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Build Automation Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CircleCI4.1%
VMware Tanzu Platform2.7%
Other93.2%
Build Automation
 

Featured Reviews

Arka Sarkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Solution Support Development Engineer at Ericsson Global
Automated pipelines have accelerated microservice delivery and improve release consistency
Debugging is an important point for improvement because when pipelines fail, debugging can sometimes be difficult, especially for the complex workflows which we have already faced in our organization in different projects. Logs are available, but root cause analysis can take time, so that can be improved. Also, configuration management challenges exist. Although YAML configuration is flexible, it can become complex and hard to maintain as pipelines grow in size and include multiple workflow conditions. The limited visibility for large pipelines is also a concern. For very large enterprise pipelines, the UI can feel less intuitive in terms of tracking dependencies and understanding the full workflow at a glance. Cost optimization is one important point for improvement. In cloud-based usage, costs can increase due to long-running jobs and inefficient pipelines. Proper optimization through caching and parallelism is required, otherwise it can become expensive, which we faced in one of our telecom projects last year. One thing CircleCI can improve is related to cloud runners, where any network or platform issues can impact pipeline execution. This can be a concern for critical telecom deployments.
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc
Has supported container-based deployments and improved infrastructure visibility through monitoring tools
Aria Operations, formerly known as VMware vRealize Operations, has been renamed to vROps. We are currently using this for monitoring purposes. For orchestration, we are using VCD to automate Telco Cloud. VCD is an automation tool, and we are also using VMware Tanzu Platform for the Kubernetes environment, alongside TKG, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These are also other solutions for the Tanzu Kubernetes environment. For Telco Cloud, we are using it to automate our company's operations, which is for a telecom company. We are familiar with these products, especially vCenter, ESXi, VCD, vCF, and vROps. It is very easy to integrate applications when we deploy vCenter and ESXi since we can enable vSphere with Tanzu feature. We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization. We can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications. We provide namespace labels for application developers, and we can manage their resources along with other aspects easily. Regarding security, we use many tools such as CDX and LDAP, AD for integrating our Kubernetes cluster with the developer teams. We can manage roles and permissions simply. It is very straightforward to integrate with EDX and other third-party tools, Active Directory, to the Kubernetes cluster, allowing easy access and management.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CircleCI has positively impacted my organization by bringing in faster deployments, which means we can release faster, receive quicker feedback, and enhance collaboration and communication across the entire team."
"Since I am an automation developer, I use selenium a lot; it is quite easy to run the tests in CircleCI, which comes with pre-installed Chrome/chrome driver and Firefox, is fast to set up, and has a shorter learning curve than Jenkins and TeamCity."
"It's a stable product."
"The solution offers continuous integration and continuous delivery."
"CircleCI has positively impacted our organization by allowing us to improve our workflow and making parts of DevOps easier."
"The automation workflow in CircleCI related to third-party applications is very good and allows standardization of applications."
"CircleCI has positively impacted my organization significantly, as it generates a lot of code very fast, saving a lot of time in what was otherwise a long process of understanding requirements and manually writing the code and unit tests."
"Some of the most valuable features include container-based builds, integration with Bit Bucket and being able to store artifacts."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"
"There are a lot of services available in VMware Tanzu Application Service, such as databases and application servers. You have everything you need in one application and you do not need to search outside of the solution."
"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."
"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."
"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Tazu is a developer-friendly and highly mature product."
 

Cons

"In my experience, CircleCI is stable, but it can be improved."
"Integration with Microsoft Azure is one area for improvement. Azure is growing in its user base, and supports various cloud infrastructure components such as Service Fabric, App Service, etc. Some of Azure’s deployment models (like Kudu) require a steep learning curve, but if CircleCI would come up with such features (deployment to App Service) out of the box, it would be amazing."
"Regarding flexibility, Azure pipelines has the ability to pass variables with greater flexibility than CircleCI offers."
"The solution’s pricing could be better."
"Debugging is an important point for improvement because when pipelines fail, debugging can sometimes be difficult, especially for the complex workflows which we have already faced in our organization in different projects."
"I find that the plans for CircleCI become very expensive for large teams and pipelines, making it somewhat unaffordable for startup companies."
"Billing is a mess."
"I chose an 8.5 for my rating because there are still many areas that need to be increased and improved, such as leveraging orbs and replacing custom, complex scripts with pre-built, community-verified orbs to reduce maintenance overhead."
"The implementation is not easy, it is very complex and can take a day or two to complete."
"LYNX is a managed cluster solution that takes care of specific details within a cluster, such as sequences or services. I haven't seen this feature in Tanzu Mission Control."
"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."
"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 cost is a major factor in this solution; anything above the standard version comes at a high price."
"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions such as HPE."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of CircleCI could be less expensive."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."
"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."
"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."
"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Construction Company
14%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with CircleCI?
Debugging is an important point for improvement because when pipelines fail, debugging can sometimes be difficult, especially for the complex workflows which we have already faced in our organizati...
What advice do you have for others considering CircleCI?
I would advise organizations or individual developers who are trying to use CircleCI to begin with basic pipelines and gradually move to advanced workflows such as deployment automation, parallel j...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Concourse for VMware Tanzu?
The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core. Pricing varies based on commitment and volumetric, with discounts provided for long-term commitments. VMware sells directly or...
What needs improvement with Concourse for VMware Tanzu?
The price is very high compared to other Kubernetes environments because Kubernetes is open source. We can easily work with Docker, and when we compare it with OpenShift, the price is very high. We...
 

Comparisons

 

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

Shopify, Zenefits, Concur Technologies, CyberAgent
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about CircleCI vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.