Kubernetes vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] comparison

Kubernetes and Nutanix are both solutions in the Container Management category. Additionally, 98% of Kubernetes users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Nutanix users who would recommend it.

Kubernetes

Read 80 Kubernetes reviews

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98% willing to recommend

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...

Read 14 Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] reviews

100% willing to recommend

Kubernetes

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 2025

Kubernetes and Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE compete in the container orchestration category. Kubernetes seems to have the upper hand due to its open-source flexibility, scalability, and adoption across various cloud environments.

Features: Kubernetes highlights scalability, self-healing capabilities, and cross-platform flexibility, making it suitable for complex and diverse cloud environments. Its rich community support and integration with multiple platforms increase its versatility. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE provides simplicity in deployment, reliability, and straightforward management within its single console, complemented by integrated virtualization features.

Room for Improvement: Kubernetes could enhance management simplicity, strengthen its security integration, and offer more intuitive dashboards. The complexity requires better documentation and user interfaces. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE could expand its scalability features, improve disaster recovery options, and support high-performance applications better, with more automated processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kubernetes offers adaptability across hybrid, private, and public clouds, providing unmatched deployment flexibility. However, support might be inconsistent due to its community-driven nature. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE ensures reliable and consistent on-premises support, closely tied with its ecosystem, although restricted to on-premises deployments.

Pricing and ROI: Kubernetes, being open-source, has no licensing costs, appealing to those seeking cost-efficient solutions with notable ROI from reduced infrastructure expenses, though optional tools may add costs. Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE presents competitive pricing when bundled in the Nutanix ecosystem, offering valuable features without additional charges but with limited flexibility compared to Kubernetes.

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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

Kubernetes

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Container Management (3rd)

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Featured Reviews

RohitVerma2

DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Automated deployments and self-healing have transformed how I run reliable chat services

For improvements, I would definitely suggest some enhancements to Kubernetes. While Kubernetes is very powerful, there are still a few areas where it could be improved. Our challenge is the learning curve and operational complexity. For new team members, concepts such as networking, RBAC, Ingress, and troubleshooting distributed systems can take time to understand. Better built-in onboarding tools or simplified abstractions would help. Another pain point is debugging and observability. While kubectl provides good basic visibility, deep debugging across multiple services, pods, and nodes often requires external tooling such as Prometheus, Grafana, or centralized logging. Stronger native observability features would be very helpful. Networking and Ingress configuration can also be complex, especially when dealing with certificates, routing rules, and cloud-specific integrations. A more standardized experience across environments could reduce operational overhead. From a cost perspective, managing and optimizing resource usage at scale still requires careful monitoring and tuning. Better built-in cost visibility would be very helpful. For the needed improvements, I think that covers most of my main concerns. The biggest areas for improvement are still around simplifying operations, better native observability, and easier cost visibility. If I had to add one more point, it would be around standardization and developer experience. Sometimes different clusters, cloud providers, or tooling setups behave slightly differently, which increases maintenance efforts. More consistent defaults and opinionated best practices could help teams adopt Kubernetes faster and with fewer surprises. Overall, despite these challenges, Kubernetes is a very mature and reliable platform, and the benefits clearly outweigh the limitations for most production use cases. An additional area that could be improved is upgrade and version management. While managed services help coordinate Kubernetes version upgrades, API deprecations and compatibility with add-ons can still be time-consuming and risky for production environments. Better tooling and clearer migration automation would make upgrades safer and easier. Another improvement could be around documentation, consistency, and discoverability. Kubernetes documentation is very comprehensive, but for beginners, it can sometimes be overwhelming to navigate and identify best practice paths.

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reviewer2741271

Nutanix Administrator at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Has provided seamless upgrade experiences and robust technical support

I have heard there are many features added in NKP that are not available in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE, such as load balancer features. The unified control plane feature is not being used in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE. We are currently using a third-party tool for load balancing, but going forward, NKP will include load balancer, ingress, and egress features, making infrastructure management much easier. There is no auto-scaling feature in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE; however, NKP offers it. In NKE, we created additional worker nodes and increased CPU and RAM capacity, but it required manual intervention. Concerning policy-driven governance in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE, we have the ability to implement RBAC at the cluster level, which helps maintain security by not granting full admin privileges to every end user, thus restricting access effectively.

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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

"The most valuable features of Kubernetes are the integration with Docker and there is plenty of documentation available. We work with Docker as a container, and it is more integrated with Docker than VMware Tanzu."

"Offers a crucial feedback process"

"With the use of our blueprint, my experience with the initial setup has been a ten out of ten where one is difficult and ten is easy."

"The most valuable feature of the platform is the ability to load some of the containers that were previously managed by humans."

"The cluster is very stable with outward scalability and good performance."

"The ease of use if the solution is a very valuable aspect for us."

"The self-serving feature allows our developers to grab a container and complete testing."

"The solution is easy to use."

More Kubernetes pros

"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."

"The platform is valuable due to its ease of use and quick deployment capabilities."

"The product integrates well with our infrastructure."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"My experience with Nutanix's technical support is excellent."

"The solution is embedded in the hypervisor and there are no deployment costs."

"The solution provides no downtime features. If we face issues, we create a new port, deploy it there, and then drop the existing one. This way, we avoid NKE downtime on our website."

"Nutanix's support is really good."

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] pros

Cons

"There is a feature called Terraform and, based on the reviews I have read, it could be improved."

"Kubernetes can improve by providing a service offering catalog that can be readily populated in Kubernetes."

"Kubernetes can be complicated to understand."

"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."

"Kubernetes can improve pod escalation."

"The setup process could be improved as it's quite complex, especially for newbies."

"Honestly, there is not much I like about Kubernetes. It's very complicated to deal with. I just do it because I have to."

"I'm expecting more improvement on the UI development side, which can be reflected in each object that is part of Kubernetes, like the Pod, deployment set, ReplicaSet, ConfigMap, Secrets, and PersistentVolume."

More Kubernetes cons

"One major issue we faced was that appliances couldn't migrate from VMware to the tool. However, this seems to be a common problem across platforms. We've seen the same issue when migrating from VMware to RHV or other solutions. It's not specifically a Nutanix problem but rather an issue migrating appliances from one VM infrastructure to another. Some kernel-level and storage-level issues impact this process."

"It's mostly for lab purposes; we haven't seen a lot of traction in the market from enterprise customers yet."

"I have issues with the product's interoperability."

"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) include upgrading management capabilities and enhancing the user interface for improved usability."

"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."

"There is no auto-scaling feature in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE; however, NKP offers it. In NKE, we created additional worker nodes and increased CPU and RAM capacity, but it required manual intervention."

"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."

"NKE could benefit from additional features that support more advanced Kubernetes functionalities and configurations."

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You need to pay for a license if you buy branded products. For example, if you take the services from Azure, AWS, or Google, the price of the Kubernetes cluster is inclusive of the service that's being offered to us on a pay-and-use model."

"I would say the solution is worth the money, but it depends on the required workloads, the type of workload, and the scaling requirements etc."

"Kubernetes is an open-source solution that can be free. We have some distribution with licenses, such OpenShift and Tucows in Amazon. They are billing services."

"Pricing isn't a major concern for us. Since we resell Kubernetes services and focus on providing support, integration, and education, we don't usually have pricing issues. Our customers are more concerned with getting the right support and services than the cost. So, the value we provide is more important than the actual pricing. Pricing might change in the future, but it’s not a big issue for us right now."

"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."

"Kubernetes is open-source."

"The solution is open source and has no fees."

"The solution requires a license to use it."

More Kubernetes pricing and cost advice

"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."

"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."

"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."

"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."

"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	47

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?

I have had a good experience with pricing, but the setup costs are high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kubernetes?

Kubernetes can be improved, though I cannot specify exactly how at this time.

See all answers

What do you like most about Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

In terms of features, I cannot comment technically, but the real value is the consolidated out-of-the-box solution that Nutanix offers. Nutanix has built great branding and a lot of credibility and...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?

I have experience with OpenShift, Kubernetes, and Nutanix, as we are one of the largest Nutanix resellers in the Middle East. We handle Kubernetes on the cloud as well, so we manage most of the Kub...

See all answers

Comparisons

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 17% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Kubernetes

Compared 12% of the time

Portainer vs Kubernetes

Compared 9% of the time

HashiCorp Nomad vs Kubernetes

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Kubernetes

Compared 7% of the time

More Kubernetes Competitors

Nutanix Kubernetes Platform (NKP) vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 25% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 18% of the time

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 4% of the time

Docker vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

Compared 4% of the time

More Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] Competitors

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Kubernetes

January 2026

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Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]

January 2026

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Also Known As

Nutanix Karbon

Overview

Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.
It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery. Kubernetes builds upon 15 years of experience of running production workloads at Google, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community.

Kubernetes

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] offers easy deployment, efficient resource management, and seamless integration with existing infrastructure, supporting virtualization and configurable RBAC.

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] simplifies Kubernetes cluster deployment and management, offering robust features such as health checks and seamless upgrades. It integrates with existing systems, supports virtualization, and provides a unified console. Automatic load management and scalability contribute to its stability. Though migrating via VMware poses challenges and documentation updates are needed, potential enhancements include dynamic resource scaling, advanced backup options, and improved disaster recovery. NKE is ideal for microservices, container management, and application modernization, playing a vital role in DevOps settings.

What are the key features of Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]?

Easy Deployment: Simplifies cluster setup and management for quick ramp-up.
Resource Allocation: Efficiently allocates computing resources for optimized operations.
Seamless Upgrades: Handles updates without causing downtime.
Integration: Works with existing infrastructure, allowing virtualization support.
Console Management: Offers a single interface for robust management features.

What benefits should users look for in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL]?

Cost-Effectiveness: Provides a reliable Kubernetes platform with reduced operational costs.
Scalability: Ensures stability and growth alongside increasing demands.
Support Features: Includes robust technical support for a seamless experience.
Efficiency: Enhances workload management in DevOps environments.
Configurable Options: Allows tailored RBAC and scalable virtualization benefits.

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] is deployed in industries focusing on microservices and application modernization, serving development to testing environments. It integrates with hardware and API tools, supporting DevOps workloads and infrastructure management. Primarily used on-premises, it supports large-scale application deployment leveraging network capabilities.

Nutanix

Sample Customers

China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen

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