Google Kubernetes Engine vs Kubernetes comparison

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Google Kubernetes Engine

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Google Kubernetes Engine and Kubernetes compete in the container orchestration platform category. Google Kubernetes Engine appears to have the upper hand due to its managed services and ease of deployment, though Kubernetes offers notable flexibility and community support.

Features: Google Kubernetes Engine provides extensive managed services to ease deployment, support for autoscaling, and seamless integration with Google's ecosystem. Kubernetes, being open-source, offers flexibility across various platforms, scalability with microservices, and strong community support.

Room for Improvement: Google Kubernetes Engine could improve cost management, integrations for monitoring, and application-level security. Kubernetes could benefit from more built-in tools for security, simpler integration options, and reduced configuration complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Google Kubernetes Engine is predominantly deployed in public cloud environments, noted for easy integration but faces criticism in support services compared to AWS. Kubernetes offers flexible deployment across hybrid, private, and public clouds but requires expertise for effective management, with users often relying on community forums for support.

Pricing and ROI: Google Kubernetes Engine costs are based on cloud usage and machine specifications, offering a competitive pricing model, yet can be high for complex use cases. Kubernetes, being open-source, incurs no licensing costs but can have hidden management and support costs. Both can yield positive ROI, with GKE's managed services offering operational efficiency, while Kubernetes provides cost-effectiveness when managed effectively.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes Report (Updated: July 2025).

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes

July 2025

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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

Google Kubernetes Engine

Ranking in Container Management

11th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kubernetes

Ranking in Container Management

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 6.3%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T

Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient

Managed solutions enable efficient handling of web applications and migration projects

Google Kubernetes Engine can be improved by enabling the in-place upgrade of the machine type of an existing node pool since I currently need to destroy and recreate it. There is no feature present where I can upgrade directly, and having more than 1,000 to 2,000 workloads in one node pool makes changing the node pool name difficult for all those workloads. I choose eight out of ten mainly because of the node pool upgrade challenge I mentioned, but also because of the existence of Anthos service mesh, which is the ingress controller available only for the enterprise Kubernetes Engine. It would be beneficial if it could be offered in the normal Kubernetes Engine with any limitations.

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Venu Boddu

AWS DevOps Engineer at Hexaware Technologies Limited

Manage infrastructure automation and smooth application deployment with robust auto-scaling capabilities

Kubernetes is highly valuable for its node-based setup, which allows for the running of multiple pods. This feature is essential for infrastructure automation and application deployment. Kubernetes also offers rollback control and auto-scaling capabilities, which are crucial for maintaining an application's availability even if nodes or pods go down. Additionally, Kubernetes supports load balancing to distribute traffic efficiently across multiple pods.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We appreciate that it is quite easy to set up a Kubernetes cluster in Google Cloud, using the managed services within this solution."

"Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) takes care of managing Kubernetes, including the main control plane. It also offers solutions for monitoring resources and handling external traffic, which is essential for us. Being a cloud-native solution, it relieves us from worrying about these operational aspects."

"Google Kubernetes Engine's most valuable features are microservices and its acquisition rate, which is very useful for scaling perspective."

"The most valuable feature of Google Kubernetes Engine is how you can automatically scale and load balance."

"I rate Google Kubernetes Engine a ten out of ten."

"The feature that I like the most is the ease of use as compared to AWS. Its ease of use is very high, and I can quickly deploy clusters with a simple template."

"The product has valuable security features. It can connect with multiple DevOps tools."

"It is easy to use and deploy."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pros

"The most valuable feature of Kubernetes is its support for load balancing."

"A good interface, better than comparable solutions."

"If you don't have resources, you can certainly add another worker node and expand the cluster."

"I am impressed with the product's coupling of resources and flexibility."

"It is a stable and scalable product."

"The deployment is one of the most valuable feature."

"This solution provides a comprehensive way to scale up our ports and containers, without having to use multiple products."

"Kubernetes provides scalable clustering for containers and other means of deployment."

More Kubernetes pros

Cons

"We would like to see some improvement in the ease of integration with this solution."

"I have created a couple of issues with Google tech support, and I am not satisfied with the assistance I received."

"The network configuration has to be simplified."

"The pricing could be more competitive. It should be cheaper."

"The console for this solution could be improved because it is very limited."

"I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten."

"There are some security issues, but it might just be because we are not up to speed yet as much as we should be and so we haven't found it in the documentation yet. That's why I don't want to confuse this. Still, it could be a little bit easier to understand and implement."

"The product's integration with third-party vendors needs improvement."

More Google Kubernetes Engine cons

"It would be useful to have a basic and stable interface for monitoring and quick deployment purposes, especially when the deployments are big like a proof of concept or proof of technology. Currently, you need to use the Kubernetes console for all functionalities. It is not a quick-to-learn product if you are not from a Linux background. You need to be very skilled at Linux to learn it quickly. It took me two to three months because I mostly work with Microsoft products. For people who are not from a Linux background, the learning curve is a little bit longer."

"The front end is very rudimentary."

"They should update Kubernetes more regularly."

"Kubernetes can improve pod escalation."

"It would be helpful if the UI were more graphical."

"One thing I noticed is when you have multiple deployments and your node count increases beyond eight or nine, the container creation process doesn't copy properties correctly."

"The solution lacks some flexibility."

"Kubernetes can improve by providing a service offering catalog that can be readily populated in Kubernetes."

More Kubernetes cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."

"It is competitive, and it is not expensive. It is almost competitive with AWS and the rest of the cloud solutions. We are spending around 3K USD per month. There are four projects that are currently running, and each one is incurring a cost of around 3K USD."

"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten. The tool costs around 3000 dollars per month. There are no additional costs apart from these."

"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."

"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"Pricing is a bit expensive compared to some other products, but it's acceptable."

"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. The product is competitively priced."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pricing and cost advice

"Kubernetes is open-source. Kubernetes is free, but we're charged for AWS utilization."

"I am using the solution's open-source version."

"There is a license to use Kubernetes."

"It's an affordable solution"

"The price of Kubernetes could be lower. However, it is less expensive than VMware Tanzu. Additionally, technical support is expensive. The overall cost of the solution is approximately $1,000 annually."

"There is no licensing fee."

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs associated with its use."

"Google Kubernetes Engine is free in the simplest setup, AWS Kubernetes Engine costs about $50 (depending on the region), in a three master setup, so it's almost the same as the cost of the EC2 instances and it's totally fine from my point of view."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

10%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Kubernetes Engine?

The product has no downtime.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?

Google Kubernetes Engine solution is expensive, as are all cloud solutions in general. On a scale of one to ten for pricing, I would rate it between seven and eight.

What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?

I have no comment about the learning curve of Google Kubernetes Engine. Regarding AI integration and features in Google Kubernetes Engine, there are currently none available. I would appreciate see...

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?

Since we use Kubernetes on-premises, the costs are related to our expertise and the personnel we hire.

What needs improvement with Kubernetes?

Although we face issues when migrating to new versions of Kubernetes, such as misunderstandings on using new features or integration with proxy services, these issues can be addressed with proper p...

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Comparisons

Compared 24% of the time

Akamai Connected Cloud (Linode) vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 17% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 13% of the time

Docker vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 8% of the time

More Google Kubernetes Engine Competitors

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 33% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Kubernetes

Compared 12% of the time

Portainer vs Kubernetes

Compared 10% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 7% of the time

HPE Ezmeral Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

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Google Kubernetes Engine

August 2025

Download Kubernetes product report

August 2025

Also Known As

GKE

Overview

Kubernetes Engine is a managed, production-ready environment for deploying containerized applications. It brings our latest innovations in developer productivity, resource efficiency, automated operations, and open source flexibility to accelerate your time to market.

Google

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community.

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect