Tekton vs VMware Tanzu Platform comparison

Google and VMware are both solutions in the Build Automation category. Google is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.8, while VMware is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.7. Additionally, 88% of Google users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Tekton

Read 36 Tekton reviews

4,625 Views
3,126 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

VMware Tanzu Platform

Read 22 VMware Tanzu Platform reviews

356 Views
275 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Tekton

VMware Tanzu Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Tekton and VMware Tanzu Platform compete in the category of CI/CD platforms for Kubernetes environments. Tekton holds the upper hand in serverless architecture and seamless Kubernetes integration, while VMware Tanzu excels in comprehensive environment management and full-stack integration.

Features: Tekton is cloud-native and Kubernetes-driven, providing serverless architecture integrated with OpenShift. It offers flexible orchestration for CI/CD pipelines and allows robust task execution within pipelines. VMware Tanzu Platform integrates well with other VMware solutions like ESX and vSAN for comprehensive management, offers a rich feature set with multi-tenancy support, and provides a centralized platform for managing Kubernetes clusters.

Room for Improvement: Tekton has a steep learning curve due to complex YAML configurations and requires better documentation. Its user experience is still maturing. VMware Tanzu is cost-prohibitive and rigid when integrating third-party products, impacting flexibility. Its focus on VMware infrastructure can limit adaptability with other platforms.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Tekton benefits from community support and integration with OpenShift, but relies on self-service troubleshooting. VMware Tanzu offers strong support due to its integration in the VMware ecosystem, leading to more complex deployments but providing a comprehensive setup.

Pricing and ROI: Tekton is cost-effective as an open-source tool, reducing operational costs but may require resource duplication. VMware Tanzu, positioned as a premium product, carries higher licensing costs, offering value for enterprises using extensive VMware integrations, but is seen as expensive compared to competitors.

To learn more, read our detailed Tekton vs. VMware Tanzu Platform Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Tekton vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 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

Tekton

Ranking in Build Automation

2nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Tanzu Platform

Ranking in Build Automation

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

PaaS Clouds (12th), Cloud Management (24th), Development Platforms (3rd), Container Management (3rd), Service Mesh (7th), Agile and DevOps Services (2nd)

Featured Reviews

AjayKrishna

Senior Software Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

If you're dealing with many applications and need a reliable, scalable, and efficient system, I'd recommend this solution

Tekton's most important feature is its cloud-native nature. Unlike Jenkins, which may not scale as efficiently, Tekton's CI pipeline can automatically scale up to handle increased workload demands without needing manual adjustments. Another important aspect is the level of customization offered by Tekton. Each task in the CI pipeline can be customized independently, allowing developers to write code in various languages like shell scripting, Java, or Python and incorporate them into the pipeline as needed. This level of abstraction and customization greatly benefits developers in creating efficient CI pipelines. Also, it can be challenging to understand the logs and troubleshoot issues without clear guidance. It's not always easy to reach technical support and get immediate answers. In my opinion, improvement in this area would be beneficial.

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DarshanChaudhari

Solutions Architect Hybrid Cloud Practice US/Europe at Tech Mahindra Limited

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…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the branching and visualization tools for the pipeline."

"Its seamless integration with Kubernetes, being built on top of it and utilizing Custom Resource Definitions, ensures a smooth experience within Kubernetes environments exclusively."

"Tekton is a cloud-native solution. It offers optimal resource consumption, allowing tasks to be run more efficiently and at a lower cost."

"We can make a lot of customizations, and data sharing between tasks using workspaces is very convenient."

"You can isolate most Tekton assets in the Kubernetes namespace for your feature branch. This allows you to freely change Tekton assets and objects to adapt to your feature branch and requirements."

"The feature that I like most about Tekton is that it is built for Kubernetes, so we can utilize our resources effectively."

"It is an open-source tool, which makes it highly adaptable."

"The most valuable features of Tekton include the reusability of tasks, the clean UI interface, and the binding of services and secrets."

More Tekton pros

"We feel very good about these features."

"The multi-tenancy with the VCD is great."

"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 most valuable feature of the solution is the ability to check the flow of all the different variants within our applications."

"The most important thing about the solution is its flexibility."

"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."

"We never experienced any problems with scalability."

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pros

Cons

"One area for improvement is the number of CRDs created during installation. Tekton currently creates 10 to 11 CRDs, which can be overwhelming."

"Tekton should have more accessibility for some rare use cases so that we can have more references when applying some techniques to our pipeline."

"Tekton lacks integration capabilities compared to other CI/CD tools like Jenkins and Travis."

"Tekton is a good product with all the features I need. There isn't anything that needs improvement."

"Improvement is needed in the build step."

"RBAC is really needed for Tekton."

"It would be better if Tekton could show the YAML file while it is running, similar to GitHub pipelines, to provide more visibility on what's happening."

"The product's scalability can be challenging when multiple users access it simultaneously."

More Tekton cons

"The product should support integration with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)"

"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."

"The solution's initial setup process was complex...The solution could benefit from improved customization and visibility for its users."

"The infrastructure is quite challenging."

"Another area of improvement is pricing."

"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."

"We want to see a new feature that helps build more security architecture like Zero Trust Security or shifting left in Kubernetes."

"Tanzu could provide more granular control over whatever networking is being done on the containers. I would also like to see a slightly more detailed view of application-level tracing. I'm referring to the connections between different microservices. If they added a service-matching feature, that would be helpful for the customers to build or be more effective."

More VMware Tanzu Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Tekton is an open-source tool."

"The solution is open-source."

"It is entirely open source and free of charge."

"The tool is open-source and free to use."

"The product is free of cost."

"The product is free and open-source."

"The licensing cost is expensive."

"The solution is bundled in with Cloud Foundry so the pricing is not independent."

"One of our Spanish customers told us that VMware Tanzu Service Mesh is a very expensive product for their data center."

"It is not the most expensive option, and I believe the capabilities align well with the value it provides."

"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."

"There are different licenses available. You have to upgrade your license if you want to scale the solution more."

"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."

More VMware Tanzu Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Tekton compare with Jenkins?

When you are evaluating tools for automating your own GitOps-based CI/CD workflow, it is important to keep your requirements and use cases in mind. Tekton deployment is complex and it is not very e...

See all answers

What do you like most about Tekton?

Its seamless integration with Kubernetes, being built on top of it and utilizing Custom Resource Definitions, ensures a smooth experience within Kubernetes environments exclusively.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Tekton?

Regarding areas for improvement in Tekton, I have not encountered significant issues. It works well for our use case. However, incorporating AI could be a potential enhancement in the future.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

GitHub Actions vs Tekton

Compared 33% of the time

GitLab vs Tekton

Compared 25% of the time

Harness vs Tekton

Compared 8% of the time

Jenkins vs Tekton

Compared 7% of the time

More Tekton Competitors

Rancher Labs vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 17% of the time

Kubernetes vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 13% of the time

Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Red Hat OpenShift vs VMware Tanzu Platform

Compared 7% of the time

More VMware Tanzu Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Tekton

April 2025

Download Tekton product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

Download VMware Tanzu Platform product report

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

Tekton is a powerful yet flexible Kubernetes-native open-source framework for creating continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) systems. It lets you build, test, and deploy across multiple cloud providers or on-premises systems by abstracting away the underlying implementation details.

Google

VMware Tanzu Platform is designed for cloud-native development and management of Kubernetes, CI/CD processes, microservices, and containerized workloads. It supports deployments both on cloud and on-premises, providing centralized management via Mission Control.

VMware Tanzu Platform offers seamless integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN, supporting centralized cluster management and lifecycle management. The platform provides a GUI for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and network policies, enhancing multi-tenancy and Day 2 operations. Users can easily manage Kubernetes clusters, monitor applications, and integrate with tools such as GitHub, GitLab, Cloud Foundry, and Azure. It ensures compliance and security for service providers, financial institutions, and businesses.

What are the key features of VMware Tanzu Platform?

Integration with vSphere, ESX, and vSAN: Enhances compatibility and flexibility.
Seamless Cluster Management: Centralized control over Kubernetes clusters.
CI/CD Pipelines and Network Policies: Simplifies monitoring and management.
Multi-tenancy Support: Facilitates resource sharing among multiple users.
Comprehensive Lifecycle Management: Streamlines deployment and scalability.
Observability Platform: Provides enhanced visibility and control.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in VMware Tanzu Platform reviews?

Centralized Management: Simplifies operations and reduces manual effort.
Enhanced Compliance and Security: Meets regulatory requirements.
Flexibility in Deployment: Supports both cloud and on-premises options.
Seamless Integration: Works with multiple vendors and tools.
Developer-Friendly Environment: Improves productivity and innovation.

Industries such as financial institutions, service providers, and businesses requiring rigorous compliance and security deploy VMware Tanzu Platform. These entities benefit from centralized management, streamlined DevOps processes, and integrated tools, enhancing their capabilities in cloud-native developments and containerized workloads.

VMware

Sample Customers

The Home Depot, PayPal, Target, HSBC, McKesson, Oncology Venture

Verizon, Cerner, Zipcar, Avarteq

Buyer's Guide

Tekton vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

April 2025

Free Report: Tekton vs. VMware Tanzu Platform

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