IBM Cloud Private vs Red Hat OpenShift comparison

IBM and Red Hat are both solutions in the PaaS Clouds category. IBM is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.0, while Red Hat is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3. IBM holds a 1.3% mindshare in PSP, compared to Red Hat’s 9.5% mindshare. Additionally, 60% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

IBM Cloud Private

Read 5 IBM Cloud Private reviews

622 Views
616 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

Red Hat OpenShift

Read 64 Red Hat OpenShift reviews

10,704 Views
6,101 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM Cloud Private

Red Hat OpenShift

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 15, 2024

Red Hat OpenShift and IBM Cloud Private compete in containerized application management. Data indicates Red Hat OpenShift has an advantage in flexibility and scalability, while IBM Cloud Private excels in integration capabilities and performance.

Features: Red Hat OpenShift includes automation capabilities, comprehensive orchestration tools, and seamless scalability. IBM Cloud Private features robust data integration, high-performance analytics, and powerful security protocols.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Red Hat OpenShift is known for rapid deployment and simplified processes with supportive customer service. IBM Cloud Private, despite a steeper learning curve, offers sophisticated configuration options for complex needs.

Pricing and ROI: Red Hat OpenShift is competitively priced, offering clear ROI with lower setup costs. IBM Cloud Private requires higher initial investment but compensates through advanced functionalities that provide significant returns.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Cloud Private vs. Red Hat OpenShift Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Private vs. Red Hat OpenShift

December 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

IBM Cloud Private

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

18th

Average Rating

6.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Red Hat OpenShift

Ranking in PaaS Clouds

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Server Virtualization Software (11th), Container Management (10th), Hybrid Cloud Computing Platforms (5th), Agile and DevOps Services (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the PaaS Clouds category, the mindshare of IBM Cloud Private is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat OpenShift is 9.5%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

PaaS Clouds Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat OpenShift	9.5%
IBM Cloud Private	1.3%
Other	89.2%

PaaS Clouds

Featured Reviews

Vaseem Mohamed

Executive Manager - Strategy & Enterprise Architecture Office at Al Rajhi Bank

Helps in microservices environment but satellite layer needs to improve

We opted for the IBM Private Cloud due to the prevalence of IBM applications in our ecosystem, including IBM IIB, IBM API Connect, DataPower, IBM ESB, and IBM FileNet. The seamless integration with our middle layer, the IBM Integration Hub, was a key factor in our decision. Leveraging API Connect simplified the integration process, aligning well with our overall architecture.

Read full review

Pratul Shukla

Vice President at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Adopting a flexible and efficient approach with noticeable improvements in operational costs and continued challenges in job management

Currently, one of the biggest challenges we face is with services and jobs. For spawning batches, although it has crons, it is not easy to integrate with enterprise systems such as Autosys. The entire company uses Autosys, but we are not able to integrate it effectively. We need intermediate servers to run OC utility commands and initiate the cron job. We have to do a lot of modifications to ensure our batches work properly. With physical or virtual servers, even in AWS, we are able to write and manage multiple jobs. Managing batches in Red Hat OpenShift has been a significant challenge. Integrating third parties is a challenge with Red Hat OpenShift. For example, with Elasticsearch, onboarding itself was difficult, running file beats and dealing with routing issues. It is not straightforward, especially since we have some components in AWS as. AWS has many capabilities that come out of the box and are easier to work with compared to Red Hat OpenShift. Red Hat OpenShift's biggest disadvantage is they do not provide any private cloud setup where we can host on our site using their services. The main reason we went with Red Hat OpenShift was because it is a private cloud, and we have regulatory requirements that prevent us from using public cloud.

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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 have control of the ESXi."

"Our core banking process was monolithic. To address this, we transitioned to a microservices-based architecture. Leveraging Microsoft technologies, including Terminals version 23, we’ve revamped our banking operations. Not all services are microservices; some remain monolithic for simplicity. Containerization is pivotal, with OpenShift (based on Kubernetes and Docker) managing our microservices."

"Excellent technical support."

"The product's framework is good, it integrates well with API Connect, and the private cloud allows for use in any location."

"The most valuable attribute is the platform's ability to consistently deliver high reliability."

"The developers seem to like the source-to-image feature. That makes it easy for them to deploy an application from code into containers, so they don't have to think about things. They take it straight from their code into a containerized application. If you don't have OpenShift, you have to build the container and then deploy the container to, say, EKS or something like that."

"OpenShift is based on Kubernetes and we try to use all the Kubernetes objects of OpenShift. We don't use features that are specific to OpenShift, except internal certificates for the services. The one feature that is missing from Kubernetes and that is really useful in OpenShift is the lifecycle of the cluster and the ease of installation. We use VMware and VMware integration internally with the OpenShift installer, which is very good. With OpenShift it's easy to spin up or scale out a cluster."

"We have found the cluster management function to be very good with this product."

"Two stand-out features are the security model and value-add features that don't exist in Upstream Kubernetes."

"The solution offers ease with which we can define how to run applications and configure them. It's much more convenient than creating a virtual machine and configuring application servers, making the process faster and simpler."

"Great integration with Jenkins for constant integration and development. Supports all the major languages and environments - PHP, Java, Node.js, Ruby, etc."

"We are currently dealing with both local support and Red Hat support, and they have been amazing."

"The concept of containers and scaling on demand is a feature I appreciate the most about Red Hat OpenShift."

More Red Hat OpenShift pros

Cons

"lacking in multi-cloud management."

"One issue with the solution is latency because there is lag time when we connect."

"The support and pricing need to improve."

"Auto-scaling and managing pod scaling in the microservices architecture, a core feature of IBM Cloud Private, can pose challenges, especially when dealing with larger volumes of traffic."

"I've noticed that the satellite services layer requires some improvement compared to platforms like Azure or Microsoft. While it's in development, I believe the satellite layer has room for enhancement. Additionally, the DevOps layer could benefit from closer integrations, especially for using external applications like Jenkins."

"This is a fairly expensive solution."

"We experienced issues around desktop security, that stopped us implementing a new feature that had been developed."

"The solution only offers support for one server."

"We need some kind of a multi-cluster management solution from the Red Hat site."

"Latency and performance are two areas of concern in OpenShift where improvements are required."

"The monitoring part could be better to monitor the performance."

"My team has found some bugs in OpenShift due to continuous integration, and this is an area for improvement in the platform. RedHat should fix the bugs. Another area for improvement in OpenShift is that upgrading clusters can be challenging, resulting in downtime. Application support also needs improvement in OpenShift because the platform doesn't support all applications in the cloud. I'd like upgraded storage in the next release of OpenShift, especially when I need to do a DR exercise. It would also be good if the platform allows mirroring with another cluster, or more portability in terms of moving applications to another cluster."

"The area for improvement is mostly in support for legacy applications."

More Red Hat OpenShift cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

"In general, the cost is on the higher side."

"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."

"We pay annual licensing fees."

"The price depends on the type and the nature of the organizations, along with the types of projects that are of considerable range."

"We use the license-free version of Red Hat Openshift but we pay for the support."

"The cost is quite high."

"The pricing for OpenShift includes support and licensing, which costs approximately $400."

"OpenShift is really good when we need to start, but once we get to a certain scale, it becomes too expensive."

"It's expensive. It may be cheaper to invest in building Vanilla Kubernetes, especially if security is not the number one motivation or requirement. Of course, that's difficult, and in some business areas, such as banking, that's not something you can put as a second priority. In other situations, a Vanilla Kubernetes with a sufficiently strong team can be cheaper and almost as effective."

"Pricing of OpenShift depends on the number of nodes and who is hosting it."

"I don't deal with the cost part, but I know that the cost is very high when compared to other products. They charge for CPU and memory, but we don't worry about it."

More Red Hat OpenShift pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

25%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	43

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Cloud Private?

Our core banking process was monolithic. To address this, we transitioned to a microservices-based architecture. Leveraging Microsoft technologies, including Terminals version 23, we’ve revamped ou...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Private?

I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Private?

I've noticed that the satellite services layer requires some improvement compared to platforms like Azure or Microsoft. While it's in development, I believe the satellite layer has room for enhance...

See all answers

How does OpenShift compare with Amazon AWS?

Open Shift makes managing infrastructure easy because of self-healing and automatic scaling. There is also a wonderful dashboard mechanism to alert us in case the application is over-committing or ...

See all answers

Which would you recommend - Pivotal Cloud Foundry or OpenShift?

Pivotal Cloud Foundry is a cloud-native application platform to simplify app delivery. It is efficient and effective. The best feature is how easy it is to handle external services such as database...

See all answers

What do you like most about OpenShift?

OpenShift facilitates DevOps practices and improves CI/CD workflows in terms of stability compared to Jenkins.

See all answers

Comparisons

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs IBM Cloud Private

Compared 13% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs IBM Cloud Private

Compared 12% of the time

Microsoft Azure vs IBM Cloud Private

Compared 11% of the time

Amazon AWS vs IBM Cloud Private

Compared 10% of the time

IBM Public Cloud vs IBM Cloud Private

Compared 9% of the time

More IBM Cloud Private Competitors

Microsoft Azure vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon AWS vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 8% of the time

Pivotal Cloud Foundry vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 7% of the time

Proxmox VE vs Red Hat OpenShift

Compared 6% of the time

More Red Hat OpenShift Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

PaaS Clouds

January 2026

Download IBM Cloud Private product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat OpenShift

January 2026

Download Red Hat OpenShift product report

Also Known As

ICP

No data available

Overview

IBM Cloud Private is a private cloud platform for developing and running workloads locally. It is an integrated environment that enables you to design, develop, deploy and manage on-premises, containerized cloud applications behind your firewall. It includes the container orchestrator Kubernetes, a private image repository, a management console and monitoring frameworks.

IBM

Red Hat OpenShift offers a robust, scalable platform with strong security and automation, suitable for container orchestration, application deployment, and microservices architecture.

Designed to modernize applications by transitioning from legacy systems to cloud-native environments, Red Hat OpenShift provides powerful CI/CD integration and Kubernetes compatibility. Its security features, multi-cloud support, and source-to-image functionality enhance deployment flexibility. While the GUI offers user-friendly navigation, users benefit from its cloud-agnostic nature and efficient lifecycle management. However, improvements are needed in documentation, configuration complexity, and integration with third-party platforms. Pricing and high resource demands can also be challenging for wider adoption.

What are the key features of Red Hat OpenShift?

Security: Comprehensive security features ensure safe deployments and operations.
Scalability: Auto-scaling and monitoring capabilities cater to high-demand environments.
CI/CD Integration: Seamless integration for efficient continuous deployment processes.
Cloud Compatibility: Supports multi-cloud and on-premise solutions with ease.
GUI: Simplifies platform management and enhances usability.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined operations reduce time and resource investments.
Enhanced Flexibility: Adapt quickly to changing demands and environments.
Quick Deployment: Fast application deployment supports agile project timelines.
Robust Support: Access to dependable customer support services.

Red Hat OpenShift is strategically implemented for diverse industries focusing on container orchestration and application modernization. Organizations leverage it for migrating applications to cloud-native environments and managing CI/CD pipelines. Its functionality facilitates efficient resource management and microservices architecture adoption, supporting enterprise-level DevOps practices. Users employ it across cloud and on-premises platforms to drive performance improvements.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company

UPS, Cathay Pacific, Hilton

Buyer's Guide

IBM Cloud Private vs. Red Hat OpenShift

December 2025

Free Report: IBM Cloud Private vs. Red Hat OpenShift

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