Google Kubernetes Engine vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform comparison

Google and Red Hat are both solutions in the Container Management category. Google is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.1, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.3. Google holds a 2.3% mindshare in CM, compared to Red Hat’s 20.0% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Google Kubernetes Engine

Read 39 Google Kubernetes Engine reviews

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840 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

Read 51 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform reviews

6,602 Views
6,536 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Google Kubernetes Engine

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Google Kubernetes Engine and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform compete in container management systems. GKE seems to have the upper hand with its integration and ease of use, while OpenShift excels in security and advanced management features.

Features: GKE is renowned for its seamless integration with Google Cloud, offering strong machine learning capabilities, automatic updates, and excellent microservices support. Its autoscaling features allow efficient resource management. OpenShift emphasizes security, offers extensive DevOps tools, and advanced cluster management. It supports complex deployments and provides detailed control over deployments along with strong security and compliance features.

Room for Improvement: GKE needs improvement in backup systems, configuration simplicity, and enhanced application-level security. Users have called for better application security and a reliable backup system. OpenShift could improve in documentation, platform integration, and pricing. Its setup complexity and resource demands have been seen as a barrier to simple applications.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GKE is noted for ease of deployment on public clouds, fitting for environments leveraging Google's infrastructure. It eases hybrid and multi-cloud deployments but could offer better technical support. OpenShift offers deployment flexibility across on-premises and cloud environments, supports hybrid models, but its customer service and complex setup can be challenging.

Pricing and ROI: GKE provides competitive pricing but can be expensive when addressing high availability. It uses a pay-as-you-go model with no initial licensing cost, suitable for startups and businesses. OpenShift’s premium pricing reflects its enterprise-ready capabilities, which can be costly for smaller organizations. Yet, it offers considerable value for larger enterprises due to its comprehensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

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

Red Hat OpenShift Container...

Ranking in Container Management

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

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 Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is 20.0%, down from 21.3% 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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Prasad Gupta

Software Engineer at IBM Software Labs

Efficient deployment with resource optimization and multi-region stability

There are several areas where OpenShift could improve. The interface has numerous UI bugs that need addressing. Furthermore, the latest version has deprecated the deployment config, which has its own advantages compared to the deployment container. Lastly, there is no built-in auto-scaling plugin at the OpenShift level; this needs to be addressed as it's available at the cloud provider level, like IBM Cloud.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"The solution simplified deployment, making it more automated. Previously, Docker required manual configuration, often done by developers on their computers. However, with Google Kubernetes Engine, automation extends to configuration, deployment, scalability, and viability, primarily originating from Docker rather than Kubernetes. Its most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."

"I am impressed with the product's output scaling."

"Regarding deployment in the cloud platform, it is simple because there are pre-configured configurations."

"The main advantage of GKE is that it is a managed service. This means that Google is responsible for managing the master node in the Kubernetes cluster system. As a result, we can focus on deploying applications to the slaves, while Google handles any updates and security patches. The fact that GKE is fully integrated into the Google ecosystem, including solutions such as BigQuery and VertexAI. This makes it easier for us to integrate these tools into our process. This integration ultimately speeds up our time to market and reduces the time and effort spent on managing infrastructure. The managed aspect of GKE allows us to simply deploy and utilize it without having to worry about the technicalities of infrastructure management."

"Google Kubernetes Engine has positively impacted my organization in migration-based projects such as on-prem to GCP and AWS to GCP, as we migrated more than thousands, even 10,000s workload in Google Kubernetes Engine."

"Its functionalities, such as computing the namespaces, clusters, pods, and restart logs, are easy to use."

"The most valuable aspect of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is its managed nature, which significantly reduces the burden on our platform team."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pros

"The platform is easy to scale as it supports Windows worker node."

"The initial setup process is easy."

"It automates rolling out new features, packaging the code, conducting security scans, and deploying to OpenShift."

"The usability and the developer experience. The platform has a centralized consultant that is easy to use for our development, operations and security teams."

"The solution's security throughout the stack and the software supply chain is very reliable. When it was on-prem, it was by default secured by our company firewalls and security tools, and now it's in the cloud, which has its security and systems in place. This provides stability to our infrastructure."

"The architecture is the best. The solution is scalable if you are on a container-based solution."

"The most valuable feature is that the solution can be deployed in the cloud which removes the expense of a server."

"More tools are available in OpenShift Container Platform to maintain and manage the clusters."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform pros

Cons

"Our critique is that we have to do too much work to get the cluster production-ready."

"Google Kubernetes Engine is less stable in some highly complex deployments with many nodes."

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

"The solution does not have a visual interface."

"The monitoring part requires some serious improvements in Google Kubernetes Engine, as it does not have very good monitoring consoles."

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

"An area in which Google Kubernetes Engine could improve is configuration."

"The management UI could be improved."

More Google Kubernetes Engine cons

"One challenge is that sometimes it may be difficult to find the answers to your questions if you are not a Red Hat customer."

"The solution does not work on a route-wise NFS."

"It is difficult to deploy the OpenShift cluster in a bare-metal environment."

"The stability needs improvement."

"The product monitoring tool does not work for us."

"One area for product improvement is the support limitations within the subscription models, particularly the restricted support hours for lower-tier subscriptions."

"The product's interface is a bit buggy."

"It can take 10 to 15 minutes to deploy a microservice. The CI/CD process takes a long time, and if it's because of OCP, that is something that can be changed."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is reasonable."

"The product is a little bit expensive."

"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."

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

"This is an open source solution, so there is no pricing or licensing."

"I would rate Kubernetes' pricing four out of five."

"Currently, it costs around $1000 per month which sorted our deployment. So once we get more clients, having a huge suffix, costs can go up."

"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."

More Google Kubernetes Engine pricing and cost advice

"We currently have an annual license renewal."

"Its price is a bit high because it's a premium product, but as long as the business is ready to pay for that, it's okay."

"Its licensing is completely incomprehensible. We have special people within our company. They discuss with Red Hat subscription managers. It is too complex, and I do not understand it. We are from the government, and we are trying to be as cheap as possible. Sometimes, I am just amazed at the amount of money that we have to pay. It is crazy."

"The product is expensive."

"OpenShift with Red Hat support is pretty costly. We have done a comparison between AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Services) which provides fully managed services from AWS. It's built on open-source-based Kubernetes clusters and it is much cheaper compared to Red Hat, but it is a little expensive compared to ECS provided by AWS."

"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."

"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 product pricing is competitive and structured around vCPU subscriptions, aligning with our application requirements."

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 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

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

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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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenShift Container Platform?

The current licensing cost for this solution is around $23,000 per year, per month. Regarding the current licensing cost, I would rate my satisfaction around seven or seven and a half; there's alwa...

See all answers

Comparisons

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

Rancher Labs vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 11% of the time

Kubernetes vs Google Kubernetes Engine

Compared 10% of the time

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Amazon EKS vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 47% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 9% of the time

HashiCorp Nomad vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Google Kubernetes Engine

August 2025

Download Google Kubernetes Engine product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

August 2025

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform report

Download Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform product report

Also Known As

GKE

No data available

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

Red Hat® OpenShift® offers a consistent hybrid cloud foundation for building and scaling containerized applications. Benefit from streamlined platform installation and upgrades from one of the enterprise Kubernetes leaders.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ

Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health

Buyer's Guide

Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

July 2025

Free Report: Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform

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