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Docker vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

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

Docker
Ranking in Container Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (6th)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 2.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 22.6%, up from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rikin Parekh - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to create sandbox environments to run applications and makes it easy to test them
Overall, setting up the Docker environment is quite easy. Many methods exist, such as using Docker Compose and Docker networks to communicate between containers. The main challenge lies in designing the architecture and integrating different frameworks and microservices. I would rate the ease of setting up the tool at around nine out of ten. The time it takes to deploy depends on the scale of the system. For the early-stage startup I'm currently working with, it doesn't take much time. It's just me handling the deployment. In our early-stage startup, we have a couple of teams with around four to five backend APIs and two front-end services. Deploying these doesn't take much time. My focus is more on minimizing costs due to our lean startup structure.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Docker is easy to understand and follow. It provides good scalability to the application."
"The solution's customer service is good."
"The scalability of Docker is good."
"The most valuable feature is that it gives you the same environment as on a developer machine as well as a production machine relevant to specifications."
"It is a quite mature technology."
"The most valuable feature of Docker is its portability, ease of security management, and low resource usage."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its sandbox environment. It makes it very easy to run and test applications without needing configurations, which is the core advantage of containerization. Kubernetes and Helm are helpful as they provide high-level metrics, making tracking the status of all the containers and applications running easier."
"Docker's containerization property is its main selling point."
"The banking transactions, inquiries, and account opening have been the most valuable."
"OpenShift is a user-friendly container platform with a solid GUI that helps you follow what is going on and gives you an overview of all your clusters. It's more user-friendly than the Kubernetes itself. The interface helps you learn the platform and provides access to some features or specific comments."
"They have built on top of Kubernetes. Most of the Kubernetes latest technology is already supported by the solution."
"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."
"The architecture is the best. The solution is scalable if you are on a container-based solution."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability on demand, which allows for potentially lower costs, and Built-in resiliency."
"Some of the primary features we leverage in the platform have to do with how we manage the cluster configurations, the properties, and the auto-scalability. These are the features that definitely provide value in terms of reducing overhead for the developers."
"It is easy to expand."
 

Cons

"The learning curve with Docker is huge and extensive"
"I want to see if new architectures have been incorporated in Docker or if we have to wait for another release."
"Docker management is very difficult when we have a large number of nodes."
"We are facing multiple issues with the solution's stability."
"The product does not have an extensive documentation. The tool does not have good scenarios. We have to go through the GitHub repository and investigate similar scenarios. Also, if you are copying multiple things, then you can jeopardize the copy number. The copying aspect also lacks a UI part. We also need to limit the memory."
"The documentation could be improved."
"There may not be much room for improvement with Docker as it has greatly evolved. However, one area that could be improved upon is the documentation on their website which was once easy to follow but has become quite terrible with numerous versions being released. As an example, the installation process for Docker now requires more than just a one-line command, causing inconvenience. Additionally, based on my experience as a college instructor, teaching students to install Docker was a difficult task due to the lack of straightforward and easy-to-follow documentation. Docker should focus on improving their documentation to make it more user-friendly for all."
"Management can be improved with the necessary tools for orchestration."
"One area for improvement is that we can't currently run Docker inside a container, as it clashes with security consents. It would be good if we could change that."
"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."
"The product could benefit from additional operators and tools integrated with OpenShift."
"The price must be improved."
"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."
"The interface has numerous UI bugs that need addressing."
"The product's setup process could be easier."
"There is room for improvement with integration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is an open-source technology and not a commercial product. However, you will have to pay sometimes. The tool's pricing depends on the vendor."
"We are using the open-source version of the solution."
"The product is a free open-source tool."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Pricing is based on the number of users."
"The current cost for us is nothing as an open source."
"Docker is a free open-source solution."
"Regarding pricing, we primarily use AWS for our deployments since we have funding for it. We don't spend much on Docker-specific services, just the containerization product. Docker Hub isn't particularly expensive either, so overall, the pricing is pretty reasonable."
"The pricing and licensing are handled on an upper management level, and I'm not involved in that, but I understand the solution to be somewhat pricey."
"It largely depends on how much money they earn from the application being deployed; you don't normally deploy an app just for the purpose of having it. You must constantly look into your revenue and how much you spend every container, minute, or hour of how much it is working."
"The pricing is a bit more expensive than expected."
"I'm an architect, so I have no involvement in the pricing and licensing of the platform."
"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."
"The price is slightly on the higher side. It is something that can be worked on because most of the businesses now have margins."
"We have to pay for the license."
"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What needs improvement with Docker?
In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved.
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
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