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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
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 2.7%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 22.1%, 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

"The solution's customer service is good."
"It is neat and very flexible."
"The solution is stable."
"There are ways of using Docker where you have absolutely no dependencies on the environment that you work in. This allows us to deploy Docker anywhere anytime and this has been most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Docker is automation. When I deploy the solution I am confident it will work anywhere. It is reliable and easy to use."
"The solution is easy to deploy for clients so it saves a lot of hassle."
"I think the best feature is to replicate anything in our local machine using a simple command."
"The most valuable feature is Docker has a fast learning curve."
"It automates rolling out new features, packaging the code, conducting security scans, and deploying to OpenShift."
"The platform is easy to scale as it supports Windows worker node."
"The banking transactions, inquiries, and account opening have been the most valuable."
"The most valuable features are the monitoring and logging functionalities."
"The software is user-friendly and straightforward to use, which is favorable to a developer."
"The platform has significantly improved our organization by enhancing productivity and reducing the time required to deploy applications."
"Autoscaling is an excellent feature that makes it very simple to scale our applications as required."
"It has been a good solution to deploy all containerized applications."
 

Cons

"Docker volumes. When I integrated volumes, I faced challenges. I have not essentially used add volumes to the existing instances."
"The solution could offer better documentation."
"Marketing of Docker is one area that needs to improve."
"I would like to see a more UI-based tool so that students can easily understand it rather than memorizing all of the Docker commands."
"I want to see if new architectures have been incorporated in Docker or if we have to wait for another release."
"We are facing multiple issues with the solution's stability."
"Docker can improve the integration with Microsoft Windows. It does not support native installations."
"Docker could improve by having more advanced features."
"OpenShift needs to improve their container storage."
"I believe that the documentation part is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"OpenShift has certain restrictions in terms of managing the cluster when it's running on a public cloud. For example, identity and access management integration with the IM of AWS is quite difficult. It requires some open-source tools to integrate. This is one area where I always see room for improvement."
"The interface has numerous UI bugs that need addressing."
"The price needs to be improved in OpenShift Container Platform. When I choose this, the product is the first factor that we have to make a long analysis to compare the real cost for the other services. However, price is high."
"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."
"The initial setup can be hard."
"I believe OpenShift Container Platform can improve in networking, architecture, and cloud areas by reducing deployment time, lowering costs, and streamlining engineer resources"
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The offering and service are quite free."
"Docker is a free tool."
"Customers pay for the license through a yearly subscription model, where they pay per license. This means that the license is based on a subscription, and the customer pays annually for each license they use."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Docker is a free open-source solution. However, there is the Docker Enterprise which is a paid solution."
"For commercial use, it's about $30 per month. The license itself isn't expensive, but if there are many users, the price becomes high."
"I use the solution's open-source version."
"The product is not expensive."
"The product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."
"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."
"We have to pay for the license."
"If you buy the product for a year or three, you get a lot of discounts...I feel that the product is worth its cost, especially since setting it up can be done with just a few clicks."
"The price is slightly on the higher side. It is something that can be worked on because most of the businesses now have margins."
"It depends on who you're talking to. For a large corporation, it is acceptable, other than the significant infrastructure requirements. For a small organization, it is in no way suitable, and we'd go for Amazon's container solution."
"The pricing is expensive for licensing."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Insurance Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
10%
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Docker vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.