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Portainer vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Tanzu Platform
Ranking in Container Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (14th), PaaS Clouds (13th), Cloud Management (25th), Development Platforms (3rd), Service Mesh (8th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Portainer is 5.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Tanzu Platform is 12.5%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

EB
A GUI solution that helps to administer a docker using a browser
The first time using Portainer involves a learning curve. It takes longer as you're unfamiliar with the processes and might be lazy to consult the manual. Initially, you may rely on intuition within the GUI. However, after repeating the same tasks three or four times, the process becomes much quicker.
DarshanChaudhari - PeerSpot reviewer
Empowers seamless connectivity and integration through APIs while offering robust auto-scaling
I am involved in IT services and we provide a solution to customers. We work with VMware, Nutanix, OpenShift, and Microsoft Hyper-V The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible. It offers native services for autoscaling and integrations through APIs, allowing seamless…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visually generate volumes and working stacks."
"The initial setup is easy."
"A feature we find valuable is that other products can also be integrated with Mission Control. This means that we can see the status of specific clusters, as well as view the monitoring application logs all from one point."
"The observability platform and end-to-end service portal provided by Tanzu are the most valuable features."
"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."
"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."
"The valuable feature I have found to be the management of Kubernetes clusters in a private cloud or public clouds, such as Azure or Google Cloud Platform."
"The most important feature of Tanzu Mission Control is its integration with the other products, especially with ESX and vSAN. This is a strong part of Tanzu Mission Control. In other solutions, such as OpenShift or Kubernetes, you can find similar features, but they don't have similar integration. With Tanzu Mission Control, you get a total solution with only one provider. You have the integration with the infrastructure, virtualization of networking, and virtualization of storage. You have a natural integration, and you don't have the problem of integrating it with different products or providers. Sometimes, different companies have good integration, but it is not always guaranteed. For example, many years ago, Cisco and VMware were good partners in networking, but when VMware started to sell ESX, the relationship was broken. This is the problem that you can face when you are using solutions from two different companies."
"The Tanzu platform is highly available, scalable, and flexible."
 

Cons

"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
"The solution could improve by having better integration with other solutions such as HPE."
"The implementation is not easy, it is very complex and can take a day or two to complete."
"VMware Tanzu Service Mesh could add better integration with other cloud platforms, such as vRealize Automation or VMware vCloud Director for cloud providers."
"Tanzu provides better manageability as compared to OCP, but when it comes to tagging it with other products, it's a bit rigid. If I have to bring in any new product or something out of the box from a different vendor, working with Tanzu becomes a little difficult. For example, if I want to use the F5 services, I have to add one more layer of Avi, but I don't want to do that. If I have a list of the products that I want to use, such as for firewall services, with Tanzu, I will have to go through another layer, which creates complexity."
"Cost is always a concern. Smaller companies might find the price a bigger issue."
"The network control and security policies must be improved."
"I would like to see additional support for things outside of Cloud Foundry."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"VMware Tanzu Mission Control is cheaper than Red Hat OpenShift."
"I would recommend that businesses look into the full price for their requirements. The price is high, but there are some open-source add-ons that can be used for customization while keeping costs down, although these might not be suitable for everyone."
"The licensing cost is expensive."
"The license for VMware Tanzu Application Service is expensive. The license should be cheaper."
"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 solution is only for large or medium size enterprises because it is expensive."
"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Portainer?
Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visua...
What needs improvement with Portainer?
Portainer needs to be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Portainer?
The tool is a GUI that helps to administer a docker using a browser.
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 VMware Tanzu Mission Control?
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 ap...
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Tanzu Application Catalog, Application Platform, Application Service, Hub, Mission Control, Service Mesh, Build Service, Concourse for VMware Tanzu
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMware and others in Container Management. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.