Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Container Platform [EOL] vs Kubernetes 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Container Platform [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kubernetes
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
80
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

CM
Cloud Architect, Feltus Lab at Clemson University
Enables the deployment/management of Kubernetes clusters from multiple resource providers at one location
One thing I have not really had the chance to explore too much is the Cisco Container Platform command-line interface. I've been told that exists and it's functional, but I'm not sure if it's really made for end-users. It might just be for admins or developers. One thing that is a little bit annoying about Cisco Container Platform is that for each cluster you create you have to go through the same web form each time. If you're creating two identical clusters, you still have to go through that web form twice. What's really nice about most platforms is that they have command-line interfaces where you can just copy a single command which has all the flags with all the configurations you want and put that in a text file. Then, when you want to create another cluster you can just paste that in and edit one or two flags if you want to. You don't have to go through a web form every time and that is a feature that I would like to see in the future with CCP. It would be nice, at the end, once you create a cluster using the web form, if it would give you a single command that you could copy and put somewhere and then paste it, in the future, to create an identical cluster or an almost identical cluster. I would like the ability to save cluster configurations to CCP. I've provided that feedback to the development team. There might even be a version that is out which already has that functionality integrated into it. I think it's safe to say that at some point in the future that feature will be provided.
RV
DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Automated deployments and self-healing have transformed how I run reliable chat services
For improvements, I would definitely suggest some enhancements to Kubernetes. While Kubernetes is very powerful, there are still a few areas where it could be improved. Our challenge is the learning curve and operational complexity. For new team members, concepts such as networking, RBAC, Ingress, and troubleshooting distributed systems can take time to understand. Better built-in onboarding tools or simplified abstractions would help. Another pain point is debugging and observability. While kubectl provides good basic visibility, deep debugging across multiple services, pods, and nodes often requires external tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, or centralized logging. Stronger native observability features would be very helpful. Networking and Ingress configuration can also be complex, especially when dealing with certificates, routing rules, and cloud-specific integrations. A more standardized experience across environments could reduce operational overhead. From a cost perspective, managing and optimizing resource usage at scale still requires careful monitoring and tuning. Better built-in cost visibility would be very helpful. For the needed improvements, I think that covers most of my main concerns. The biggest areas for improvement are still around simplifying operations, better native observability, and easier cost visibility. If I had to add one more point, it would be around standardization and developer experience. Sometimes different clusters, cloud providers, or tooling setups behave slightly differently, which increases maintenance efforts. More consistent defaults and opinionated best practices could help teams adopt Kubernetes faster and with fewer surprises. Overall, despite these challenges, Kubernetes is a very mature and reliable platform, and the benefits clearly outweigh the limitations for most production use cases. An additional area that could be improved is upgrade and version management. While managed services help coordinate Kubernetes version upgrades, API deprecations and compatibility with add-ons can still be time-consuming and risky for production environments. Better tooling and clearer migration automation would make upgrades safer and easier. Another improvement could be around documentation, consistency, and discoverability. Kubernetes documentation is very comprehensive, but for beginners, it can sometimes be overwhelming to navigate and identify best practice paths.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is definitely the fact that you can use a single platform to deploy to different resource providers. Right now, the version I'm using has vSphere and AWS, but I know in the future they're planning on adding more. The ability to deploy clusters on-prem or to any number of public cloud providers is really valuable because you don't need to relearn or switch platforms to switch resource providers."
"Kubernetes provides scalable clustering for containers and other means of deployment."
"I like the replication center and the configuration."
"We use it for various large microservice-based architectures and web services. That's the ideal use case, but it's suitable for any kind of service that can be decomposed and needs to be scaled. Of course, it's much easier to deploy services that are stateless. It"
"I like Kubernetes' scalability, built-in redundancy, and ease of deployment."
"The Desired State Configuration is a handy feature; we can deploy a certain number of pods, and the tool will ensure that the state is maintained in our desired configuration."
"We find the smooth, instant fail-safes in this solution to be very useful, as this allows for easy revival of dying quads or failing applications."
"Kubernetes has everything. Its design structure is quite advanced, and its offerings are extensive. The practical feature was the seamless failover."
"Kubernetes' most valuable features include scalability and deployment."
 

Cons

"One thing that is a little bit annoying about Cisco Container Platform is that for each cluster you create you have to go through the same web form each time. If you're creating two identical clusters, you still have to go through that web form twice."
"Kubernetes could improve by having better integration with VMware solutions."
"The lack of native support for billing and self-service capabilities is an area Kubernetes could improve. This requires the use of third-party integrations or managed services in order for customers to be able to deploy clusters on their own. It would be beneficial to have these features built-in into the Kubernetes platform."
"It's good for bigger organizations, but for smaller organizations or a few workloads, it may be too heavy, not easy to deploy, and the ROI may be less because it requires a control plane, worker nodes, and multiple VMs to run."
"Some Kubernetes technical support would be helpful."
"It would be nice if they could make it easier for developers and infrastructure staff to automate some of the pieces that they have to do manually at the moment."
"Kubernetes' VM functionality and security could be improved."
"The support could be faster at resolving issues."
"They should make documentation simpler for learning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Kubernetes is open-source."
"The management layer is free, which is perfect. You don't need to pay money for the management layer, but in AWS develop service, you need to pay. I think it is €75 per month for the management layer. It is free here, so you can have as many Kubernetes clusters as you need. You are paying just for the workload, that is, for the machine, CPU, memory, and everything."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"It's an affordable solution"
"There is a license to use Kubernetes."
"There is no licensing fee."
"I am using the solution's open-source version."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs associated with its use."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Management solutions are best for your needs.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise47
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Kubernetes?
There are many good features. I feel that the scale-out features, like replica sets, are very good. The number of running containers can be autoscaled.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?
I have had a good experience with pricing, but the setup costs are high.
What needs improvement with Kubernetes?
Kubernetes can be improved, though I cannot specify exactly how at this time.
 

Also Known As

Cisco CCP
K8
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Clemson University
China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes and others in Container Management. Updated: January 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.