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Google Kubernetes Engine 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

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
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 Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.1%, down from 3.0% 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

Dinesh-Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
Good control plane management and seamless integration capabilities
There is room for improvement in the cluster updates process. Specifically, when managing both non-production and production clusters, we need a sequential functionality. This means being able to upgrade non-production clusters first and then the production clusters. Having this sequential upgrade capability would be beneficial. Therefore, I am looking for a sequential functionality for cluster upgrades.
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

"We used automation for the initial setup. It was okay. So it wasn't too complex."
"Stability is perfect for me."
"It is easy to use and deploy."
"On the tip of a command, you can scale in or scale out, and it offers every robust platform to implement DevOps processes for your automation solutions. The product fully supports the IaC concept."
"The product’s dashboard is very intuitive."
"The solution is more user-friendly than AWS or Azure. I can also easily scale out the service in the future when the number of customers grows. GKE is the leader of Kubernetes service and it can be easily updated. I love the tool's user interfaces."
"The initial setup is very easy. We can create our cluster using the command line, or using our console."
"Before using this solution, it was a lot of manual tasks and a lot of people participated in the process."
"The banking transactions, inquiries, and account opening have been the most valuable."
"The platform is easy to scale as it supports Windows worker node."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its scalability on demand, which allows for potentially lower costs, and Built-in resiliency."
"Integrating the product into our existing infrastructure was easy."
"The product is stable, reliable, and easy to use, from a well-known company, has a large volume handling capacity, and more and more organizations are moving to OpenShift."
"OpenShift's core-based licensing model provides significant benefits regarding enterprise support and scalability."
"The platform has significantly improved our organization by enhancing productivity and reducing the time required to deploy applications."
"The solution is stable. However, it depends on the integrations of the solution on how stable it will be, such as what tools you integrate with."
 

Cons

"The product's integration with third-party vendors needs improvement."
"The user interface is a bit confusing sometimes. You need to navigate between the various consoles we have. It's hard to figure out where things are. It's frustrating. The documentation could be a bit better."
"Our critique is that we have to do too much work to get the cluster production-ready."
"I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten."
"An area in which Google Kubernetes Engine could improve is configuration."
"I would like the solution to integrate with another Kubernetes product. I would also like it to monitor other platforms. It needs to also include scale-up container in the tool's next release."
"There is room for improvement in this solution. For example, auto-scaling can be complex. We expect it to be easier to set up and manage, even for our customers."
"I have created a couple of issues with Google tech support, and I am not satisfied with the assistance I received."
"The product's interface is a bit buggy."
"My impression is that this solution is pretty expensive so I think the pricing plan could improve."
"There are some occasions when support from Red Hat is not what we expect; in instances of outages, it sometimes takes a substantial amount of time to resolve issues."
"The support costs are too high."
"There is room for improvement with integration."
"OpenShift Container Platform could improve by having better integration."
"The product could benefit from additional operators and tools integrated with OpenShift."
"The complexity of the installation could be reduced. While we got the necessary support, the instructions could be clearer."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."
"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 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."
"This is an open source solution, so there is no pricing or licensing."
"We are planning to use external support, and hire a commercial partner for it."
"The product is expensive."
"The license to use the OpenShift Container Platform is free. If you are capable with Java you can modify it."
"The price is slightly on the higher side. It is something that can be worked on because most of the businesses now have margins."
"The pricing is expensive for licensing."
"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."
"We currently have an annual license renewal."
"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."
"OpenShift Container Platform is highly-priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Retailer
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
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 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...
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.
 

Also Known As

GKE
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Edenor, BMW, Ford, Argentine Ministry of Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.