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Google Kubernetes Engine vs Kubernetes 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

Google Kubernetes Engine
Ranking in Container Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
37
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
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.1%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.9%, down from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Abhilash Gopidas - PeerSpot reviewer
The auto-scaling feature helps during peak hours, but the support is not great
The product has no downtime. Automated scaling is a valuable feature. During peak hours, the datasets are on a higher volume. We need scaling in place. Otherwise, there's a degradation in the performance. We might sometimes miss data, or there will be no data sync between systems. Auto-scaling helps deal with performance needs during peak hours. There's no lag time for processing data.
Venu Boddu - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most beneficial feature is the ability to separate each project and manage permissions more effectively."
"Google Kubernetes Engine's most valuable feature is container deployment."
"I highly recommend it to others due to its comprehensive features and cost-effectiveness for various company sizes."
"Google Kubernetes Engine is used for orchestrating Docker containers. We have 30 or 40 customers working with this solution now. We'll probably see 10 to 15 percent growth in the number of customers using Google Kubernetes Engine in the future."
"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."
"GKE is easier to understand and use than Elastic Kubernetes Service."
"Its functionalities, such as computing the namespaces, clusters, pods, and restart logs, are easy to use."
"The most valuable features of Kubernetes have been autoscaling and its resilience mechanisms."
"One of the most valuable features is the thickness of the cloud platform or on-prem file, which makes the solution straightforward to shift and scale. It works well with different types of deployment strategies and networks."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Kubernetes is its support for load balancing."
"It is a stable and scalable product."
"Kubernetes is scalable and the elasticity is sustainable."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is that it's a container orchestrator. It has a huge user base and it is easily incorporated into all of the public clouds."
 

Cons

"The product’s visible allocation feature needs improvement."
"Google Kubernetes Engine's cost should be improved because it is high."
"Our critique is that we have to do too much work to get the cluster production-ready."
"The monitoring part requires some serious improvements in Google Kubernetes Engine, as it does not have very good monitoring consoles."
"The management UI could be improved."
"The management UI could be improved. When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved."
"The console for this solution could be improved because it is very limited."
"Log observability could be made easier so someone from high school can use it without having technological expertise."
"The security of the solution is in its infancy and needs a lot of work."
"The configuration is a bit complicated."
"Kubernetes can be used for most companies, but for some companies that may be too small, it may not be worth the investment, as it is expensive."
"I would rate the stability as five out of ten. If any containers take more space, sometimes the cluster goes down."
"There is not a large ecosystem surrounding Kubernetes, making it difficult to identify the right problem due to the vast number of solutions."
"The Kubernetes dashboard can be improved. It is currently a mess. We were using Rancher earlier, and everyone was happy with the dashboard. Right now, we are using Kubernetes, and it's not working with Microsoft workstations. We still have problems with the dashboard. It's terrible."
"This product should have a more advanced built-in scheduler that uses real application metrics in the scheduling strategy."
"The solution does not work with third-party tools, or alternative cloud providers, which limits the extent that we can utilize it to."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable."
"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"I would rate Kubernetes' pricing four out of five."
"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."
"The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."
"Initially, Google Kubernetes Engine was a little bit cheaper, but now its prices have been increased compared to the pricing model and the features that are made available by its competitors."
"The pricing for GKE is dependent on the type of machine or virtual machine (VM) that is selected for the nodes in the cluster. There is a degree of flexibility in choosing the specifications of the machine, such as the number of CPUs, GPUs, and so on. Google provides a variety of options, allowing the user to create the desired cluster composition. However, the cost can be quite steep when it comes to regional clusters, which are necessary for high availability and failover. This redundancy is crucial for businesses and is required to handle an increase in requests in case of any issues in one region, such as jumping to a different region in case of a failure in the Toronto region. While it may be tempting to choose the cheapest type of machines, this may result in a limited capacity and user numbers, requiring over-provisioning to handle additional requests, such as those for a web application."
"The solution is affordable."
"If you're using a public cloud, the cost depends on the number of nodes you are planning to deploy Kubernetes on."
"The solution requires a license to use it."
"Kubernetes is open-source."
"If you have a solid AKS and a solid DevOps process, you'll automatically get an ROI, not just in terms of cost but also in how quickly you can see your business application progress."
"I am using the solution's open-source version."
"Kubernetes is open-source. Kubernetes is free, but we're charged for AWS utilization."
"Kubernetes is open source. But we have to manage Kubernetes as a team, and the overhead is a bit high. Compared with the platforms like Cloud Foundry, which has a much less operational overhead. Kubernetes, I have to manage the code, and I have to hire the developers. If someone has a product, a developer should know exactly what he's writing or high availability, and all those things may differ the costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
The on-demand nodes are quite expensive, so we now use spot machines.
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
Gemini could be more integrated with Google Kubernetes Engine ( /products/google-kubernetes-engine-reviews ). For example, it would be helpful if I could easily find log information in a particular...
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...
 

Also Known As

GKE
K8
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Kubernetes and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.