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Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 2025

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

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
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), Container Management (10th), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2741271 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
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

"The product integrates well with our infrastructure."
"The platform is valuable due to its ease of use and quick deployment capabilities."
"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."
"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."
"Nutanix is very stable and reliable, based on my experience with many customers, including large banks and telcos."
"The solution is easy to manage. You can get everything in a single platform. It is also easy to work with Terraform as a code."
"We can do a lot of provisioning."
"The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"We never experienced any problems with scalability."
"Tanzu Mission Control has quite a set of rich features when compared to OpenShift."
"We can build namespaces and provide application developers the platform to deploy their applications on pods within containerization, and we can easily manage, pull results, and create containers efficiently, making it a simple way to handle applications."
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control has many valuable features, such as ease of use and customization."
"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."
"It definitely gives the end customer a good overview and perspective of running applications in terms of overall workload footprint. TMC provides a very detailed description of your cloud-native application in the form of graphical visualization."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to check the flow of all the different variants within our applications."
 

Cons

"There have been cases where we've deployed with Karbon and haven't seen that it includes errors."
"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."
"It's mostly for lab purposes; we haven't seen a lot of traction in the market from enterprise customers yet."
"The product lacks some virtualization capabilities, making it an area for improvement where the solution can focus on providing users with more virtualization capabilities related to disk systems."
"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."
"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."
"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."
"We need a backup of production clusters."
"It is not easy to build a solution with containers. It has a graphical user interface, but you need to have a lot of knowledge of Linux and how to work in the command mode. Its support can also be improved. Currently, its biggest disadvantage is that it is a new product, and the clients prefer to go for a solution that has been in the market for a long time. There are not that many people who know this product."
"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."
"Tanzu is not yet a mature product, and it's not present in large environments."
"This product doesn't have a GUI. In order to use it properly, I need to connect it to a new GUI or build a GUI to manage it — it's pretty difficult."
"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."
"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"
"The disaster recovery feature could be improved to provide better tracking of issues. I would also like to see the introduction of a dashboard view, for even further integration of all the areas that Mission Control looks at."
"The solution is currently focused on VMware infrastructure and I would like to see more options made available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."
"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."
"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four 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."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."
"Its pricing is very competitive. We get around 70% or 75%, sometimes even 80%, discount on the product. I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."
"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."
"The price of VMware Tanzu Mission Control is greater than that of Red Hat's competitor solution"
"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 bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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...
What advice do you have for others considering Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
I don't have a technical role, but we are a system integrator, so we sell solutions such as OpenShift and Kubernetes as part of the sales team. We are a reseller called eSky IT, and I serve as the ...
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

Nutanix Karbon
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes and others in Container Management. Updated: June 2026.
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