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Google Kubernetes Engine vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
6.1
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Container Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (16th), PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (31st), Development Platforms (5th), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 3.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 7.8%, down from 13.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
VMware Tanzu Platform7.8%
Google Kubernetes Engine3.1%
Other89.1%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Parthasarathy T - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Associate Dev Ops at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
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.
ErmiasGirma - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Infrastructure Engineer at Safaricom Ethiopia plc
Has supported container-based deployments and improved infrastructure visibility through monitoring tools
Aria Operations, formerly known as VMware vRealize Operations, has been renamed to vROps. We are currently using this for monitoring purposes. For orchestration, we are using VCD to automate Telco Cloud. VCD is an automation tool, and we are also using VMware Tanzu Platform for the Kubernetes environment, alongside TKG, Tanzu Kubernetes Grid. These are also other solutions for the Tanzu Kubernetes environment. For Telco Cloud, we are using it to automate our company's operations, which is for a telecom company. We are familiar with these products, especially vCenter, ESXi, VCD, vCF, and vROps. It is very easy to integrate applications when we deploy vCenter and ESXi since we can enable vSphere with Tanzu feature. We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization. We can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications. We provide namespace labels for application developers, and we can manage their resources along with other aspects easily. Regarding security, we use many tools such as CDX and LDAP, AD for integrating our Kubernetes cluster with the developer teams. We can manage roles and permissions simply. It is very straightforward to integrate with EDX and other third-party tools, Active Directory, to the Kubernetes cluster, allowing easy access and management.

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 helping tremendously to make the high availability of the service."
"The initial setup is very easy. We can create our cluster using the command line, or using our console."
"We used automation for the initial setup. It was okay. So it wasn't too complex."
"The deployment of the cluster is very easy, as you just click a button or run a simple command and it deploys itself, with Google managing the master, underlying infrastructure, and cluster versioning so updates are smooth and we don't have to handle that overhead ourselves."
"We appreciate that it is quite easy to set up a Kubernetes cluster in Google Cloud, using the managed services within this solution."
"I am impressed with the product's output scaling."
"It is easy to use and deploy."
"Regarding deployment in the cloud platform, it is simple because there are pre-configured configurations."
"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."
"The support from VMware is very good."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"Tanzu is easy to upgrade and scale, whether we're talking about horizontal or vertical scaling. It is as smooth as possible without any downtime. The platform maintenance, upgrading, and operations part is very smooth."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"The most popular feature of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is its graphical user interface for describing network policies on the Service Mesh, which is highly integrable with other tools commonly used in supply chains such as security."
"The Day 2 operations support is the most vital feature"
"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the cluster updates process. Specifically, when managing both non-production and production clusters, we need a sequential functionality."
"The price could be a bit cheaper."
"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."
"While the GKE cluster is secure, application-level security is an essential aspect that needs to be addressed. The security provided by GKE includes the security of communication between nodes within the cluster and the basic features of Kubernetes security. However, these features may not be sufficient for the security needs of an enterprise. Additional security measures must be added to ensure adequate protection. It has become a common practice to deploy security tools within a Kubernetes cluster. It would be ideal if these tools were included as part of the package, as this is a standard requirement in the industry. Thus, application-level security should be integrated into GKE for improved security measures."
"The support is not that great. I rate the support a three or four out of ten."
"The network configuration has to be simplified."
"I have created a couple of issues with Google tech support, and I am not satisfied with the assistance I received."
"The management UI could be improved. When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved."
"One potential area for expansion would be leveraging AI capabilities, which my customer might be interested in exploring as they grow."
"Customers have noticed a considerable price increase after VMware's acquisition by Broadcom."
"The price is very high compared to other Kubernetes environments because Kubernetes is open source."
"Addressing the high upfront costs could improve the product. Implementing a subscription-based model with tiered service options could make it more accessible to a broader range of customers."
"Tanzu is not yet a mature product, and it's not present in large environments."
"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."
"Having a unified dashboard to manage all infrastructure, whether it involves additional IT infrastructure or modern apps, would be highly advantageous"
"The cost is a major factor in this solution; anything above the standard version comes at a high price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."
"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"We are planning to use external support, and hire a commercial partner for it."
"This is an open source solution, so there is no pricing or licensing."
"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."
"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."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
"The product is not expensive, but it is not cheap."
"The least expensive licensing cost for VMware is around $350 per core."
"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
"Since we were at a large data center, the price might not have been a concern for us."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Google Kubernetes Engine is straightforward, as I previously indicated. The need for humans is reduced with GCP since there is no need for ...
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
The price could be a bit cheaper. I don't see anything with Google Kubernetes Engine that needs to be improved. I think they are already implementing Kubernetes itself, so they are the owners. Howe...
What is your primary use case for Google Kubernetes Engine?
I use Google Kubernetes Engine for many purposes, most notably for websites, but the websites are microservices. However, some mega projects have many machines that needed to be containerized, so w...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution. I would rate the pricing of VMware Tanzu Mission Control as four out of ten.
What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The tool's flexibility in onboarding different clusters needs to improve, it's presently limited to a few clusters on the li...
 

Also Known As

GKE, Google Kubernetes
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Kubernetes Engine vs. VMware Tanzu Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.