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Google Kubernetes Engine pros and cons

Vendor: Google

4.0 out of 5

39 reviews
95% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Google Kubernetes Engine offers impressive stability and seamless Google ecosystem integration with services like BigQuery and VertexAI. Users appreciate its automatic scaling, load balancing, ease of use, and managed nature, which reduce management efforts. Network configuration and documentation need improvement, and security measures require enhancement. Concerns arise in complex deployments, pricing, and auto-scaling. Despite high costs, it remains a cost-effective option for various company sizes, although further clarity and competitive pricing are desired.

Buyer's Guide

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Google Kubernetes Engine excels in scalability, allowing users to efficiently manage growth in demand.

Google Kubernetes Engine offers robust stability and minimal downtime, ensuring reliable performance.

Google Kubernetes Engine is appreciated for its ease of use and streamlined deployment processes, both through command line and console.

Google Kubernetes Engine provides a managed service, reducing infrastructure management burdens and allowing focus on applications.

Google Kubernetes Engine seamlessly integrates with other Google services like BigQuery and VertexAI, enhancing operational efficiency.

CONS

Security features in Google Kubernetes Engine need enhancements, especially in evaluating data within containers for multi-parent models.

The network configuration in Google Kubernetes Engine needs simplification.

Google Kubernetes Engine documentation is often unclear and outdated.

Additional security tools should be integrated into Google Kubernetes Engine for better application-level security.

Google Kubernetes Engine's cost is considered high and could be more competitive.

Google Kubernetes Engine Pros review quotes

CTO at Translucent Computing Inc

Feb 26, 2021

The deployment of the cluster is very easy.

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CTO at Translucent Computing Inc

Jan 28, 2023

The main advantage of GKE is that it is a managed service. This means that Google is responsible for managing the master node in the Kubernetes cluster system. As a result, we can focus on deploying applications to the slaves, while Google handles any updates and security patches. The fact that GKE is fully integrated into the Google ecosystem, including solutions such as BigQuery and VertexAI. This makes it easier for us to integrate these tools into our process. This integration ultimately speeds up our time to market and reduces the time and effort spent on managing infrastructure. The managed aspect of GKE allows us to simply deploy and utilize it without having to worry about the technicalities of infrastructure management.

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RM

Cloud Engineer at Freelancer

Oct 9, 2023

The initial setup is very easy. We can create our cluster using the command line, or using our console.

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Google Kubernetes Engine

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reviewer2313954

Principal Enterprise Architect at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Nov 23, 2023

On the tip of a command, you can scale in or scale out, and it offers every robust platform to implement DevOps processes for your automation solutions. The product fully supports the IaC concept.

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Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Jul 18, 2023

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) takes care of managing Kubernetes, including the main control plane. It also offers solutions for monitoring resources and handling external traffic, which is essential for us. Being a cloud-native solution, it relieves us from worrying about these operational aspects.

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Parthasarathy T

Cloud Associate DevOps at Publicis Sapient

Aug 4, 2025

Google Kubernetes Engine has positively impacted my organization in migration-based projects such as on-prem to GCP and AWS to GCP, as we migrated more than thousands, even 10,000s workload in Google Kubernetes Engine.

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VB

Vyacheslav Balvinskiy

Head of Infra and Applications support department at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

May 22, 2019

Before using this solution, it was a lot of manual tasks and a lot of people participated in the process.

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Cloud architect at Vodafone

Mar 1, 2024

Stability is perfect for me.

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Yossi Shmulevitch

Owner at SoftContact

Jun 19, 2023

We used automation for the initial setup. It was okay. So it wasn't too complex.

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reviewer2561130

DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Sep 26, 2024

The most beneficial feature is the ability to separate each project and manage permissions more effectively.

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Google Kubernetes Engine Cons review quotes

CTO at Translucent Computing Inc

Feb 26, 2021

Our critique is that we have to do too much work to get the cluster production-ready.

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CTO at Translucent Computing Inc

Jan 28, 2023

While the GKE cluster is secure, application-level security is an essential aspect that needs to be addressed. The security provided by GKE includes the security of communication between nodes within the cluster and the basic features of Kubernetes security. However, these features may not be sufficient for the security needs of an enterprise. Additional security measures must be added to ensure adequate protection. It has become a common practice to deploy security tools within a Kubernetes cluster. It would be ideal if these tools were included as part of the package, as this is a standard requirement in the industry. Thus, application-level security should be integrated into GKE for improved security measures.

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RM

Cloud Engineer at Freelancer

Oct 9, 2023

I would like to see the ability to create multiple notebook configurations.

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Google Kubernetes Engine

Free Report: Google Kubernetes Engine Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Google Kubernetes Engine. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: August 2025.

865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer2313954

Principal Enterprise Architect at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Nov 23, 2023

The product's stability is an area of concern where improvements are required.

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Consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Jul 18, 2023

There is room for improvement in the cluster updates process. Specifically, when managing both non-production and production clusters, we need a sequential functionality.

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VB

Vyacheslav Balvinskiy

Head of Infra and Applications support department at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

May 22, 2019

I think that security is an important point, and there should be additional features for the evaluation of data in containers that will create a more secure environment for usage in multi-parent models.

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Cloud architect at Vodafone

Mar 1, 2024

The pricing could be more competitive. It should be cheaper.

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Yossi Shmulevitch

Owner at SoftContact

Jun 19, 2023

One of the things I missed a bit is the visibility and availability of solutions. If I compare it to a different solution, it is a bit behind.

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reviewer2561130

DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees

Sep 26, 2024

The primary area for improvement would be the complexity involved when working with Google Kubernetes Engine, especially when using Terraform.

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GD

Girish Kumar Dandamudi

Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Aug 15, 2022

Their documentation is a little here and there. Sometimes, the information is not clear or updated. Their documentation should be a little bit better.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 36)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Container Management

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