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Markos Sellis - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Feb 15, 2023
Helpful for quick deployments and has good interface, security, and support
Pros and Cons
  • "Its security is most valuable. It's by default secure, which is very important."
  • "Autoscaling is a very unique feature, but it could be useful to have more options based on traffic statistics, for example, via Prometheus. So, there should be more ready solutions to autoscale based on specific applications."

What is our primary use case?

Usually, we use it as a test environment and to quickly develop the proof of concept for various projects. So, it's mainly for quick deployment and testing.

It's deployed on the cloud and on-premises.

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest benefit is the speed. When developing a new PoC, if we don't have a container-based environment, we would have to set up virtual machines. We would have to install different software to make sure that there are secure ways to do that, which would most likely need a couple of days, whereas, with a container-based platform, such as Kubernetes or OpenShift, we can do that in a matter of minutes or hours.

The security throughout the stack and the software supply chain is very good. It's a step-by-step procedure to obtain new software. It's very secure. We cannot have access without a safe, provisioned way. For troubleshooting a fault, I like the new oc debug feature where you spin up a new pod for debugging. You can spin up a new test pod for a complete copy of the problematic one. We are very happy with it security-wise. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of security features for running business-critical applications. That's only because I never give a ten.

It provides us with the flexibility and efficiency of cloud-native stacks while enabling us to meet regulatory constraints. We can automate these checks. For example, in the hybrid cloud model, we can check for different things, such as the accessibility of many different classes not only in the cloud but also on-premises. We can use the hybrid view to check many things very quickly. If someone comes into the company from a regulatory body whose job is to run a couple of scripts and check if certain rules apply to all servers, without having this kind of interface, we would have to give him a week to be able to connect to everything and check everything one by one, and of course, we would have to pay him for that. With OpenShift, from one panel, we can automatically run a script across several different servers or even connect manually to each of them, which is a big benefit. It saves a lot of time and money.

It can speed up the development time. There's only Jenkins, but I'm not so sure about that. Because the development and testing phases are sped up, the time to market can also be very good. However, it also depends on other factors, such as any back-and-forth changes, because we can have a lot of feedback. Overall, there is about a 10% improvement in the time to market.

The CodeReady Workspaces reduce project onboarding time. There is about a 20% reduction.

What is most valuable?

Its security is most valuable. It's by default secure, which is very important.

It's very easy to manage deployment across different environments. It doesn't matter if it's a private or a hybrid cloud. It's very well-suited for the type of work that we do, which is the deployment for our PoCs. It's very easy to start with small ideas and then gradually scale up. 

It's very easy to integrate with different systems and products, which is another plus point. 

It also has a very nice user interface. It's very self-explanatory, and that saves a lot of time from training new users. You can cut a lot of time to quickly familiarize yourself with the base.

OperatorHub is another big plus. It's very easy to use and very useful.

What needs improvement?

One thing that can be improved but is surely difficult to improve is the cost. We have a lot of customers who would prefer a Vanilla Kubernetes solution or another solution that combines Kubernetes with some cloud provider, especially if they are already using a specific cloud provider. When we try to work with them, some customers complain about it.

Another thing is that the installation and setup process is a little bit complex, but I must admit that it has improved a lot as compared to the older version. 

Autoscaling is a very unique feature, but it could be useful to have more options based on traffic statistics, for example, via Prometheus. So, there should be more ready solutions to autoscale based on specific applications.

Buyer's Guide
Red Hat OpenShift
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat OpenShift. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for about one and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a very stable solution. Usually, problems occur when there's an application error or someone does something wrong and there is a human factor. For example, once there was an application creating a lot of automatic snapshots. There were volumes of snapshots, which couldn't be deleted easily. So, occasionally, there may be some bugs, but generally, it's very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is a big plus. There is scalability from nodes to machines and so on. However, I would prefer more options on scalability based on statistics. That would be very interesting and very nice to see in the future.

Currently, we have less than 100 users who use this solution. They are mostly developers. There are also some end-users, assessors, architects, administrators, and project managers. The end-user experience is quite self-explanatory, and it's very important.

How are customer service and support?

Once I'm able to talk to a technician, the support is very good. They are very knowledgeable and polite. I'm very impressed, and I've only good things to say about their technical support even though there's a lot of bureaucracy until you reach the right department, which can take some time, but I understand that. All big organizations have a bit of a challenge. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

As a partner for helping us create the platform that we need, I would rate Red Hat a nine out of ten. They're helpful. Whenever I'm in contact with the technical team, they're knowledgeable and helpful.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I'm not sure because I wasn't involved in the installation. 

We never considered building our own container platform. I've only seen customers using Vanilla Kubernetes because OpenShift is a little bit expensive, and some specific organizations have chosen to invest in a strong team because they would need a strong team to build Vanilla Kubernetes. They are succeeding in maintaining that way of working. I have seen this a couple of times.

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in its initial setup, but I talked to a lot of the people who were involved. Compared to a simple or Vanilla Kubernetes, it requires lots more work and has a lot of default processes constantly running, but, in my opinion, it's something where OpenShift is getting better and better. It's getting quicker. It's going in the right direction.

The deployment took a few days.

What was our ROI?

I believe there is an ROI for organizations where security is very important, and because of privacy requirements, the public cloud cannot be an option. Especially in the banking sector, there's almost no competition. There is about 15% ROI.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's expensive. It may be cheaper to invest in building Vanilla Kubernetes, especially if security is not the number one motivation or requirement. Of course, that's difficult, and in some business areas, such as banking, that's not something you can put as a second priority. In other situations, a Vanilla Kubernetes with a sufficiently strong team can be cheaper and almost as effective. In addition, people who are already working with a specific cloud provider tend to find cheaper solutions by combining Kubernetes on the specific cloud and choosing that over OpenShift.

What other advice do I have?

It's important to build a team around this. So, invest in getting the correct training. There are a lot of options that Red Hat provides. Start small, scale up gradually, and involve people from different areas. In addition to the infrastructure team, also involve someone from development and the architecture team to be able to see its value from different perspectives.

I would rate it a nine out of ten. I'm very happy with the interface, security, and support.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Timothius Tirtawan - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jan 15, 2023
Easy to deploy with good automation and reduces time to market
Pros and Cons
  • "The security is good."
  • "The interface could be simplified a bit more."

What is our primary use case?

I primarily use the solution for deploying Springboot applications and Engine X among other things. 

How has it helped my organization?

In the company, if transactions rise, we can scale up the solution easily. It's flexible and we're able to ensure it meets our needs based on its ability to autoscale. 

What is most valuable?

The deployment is easy.

The security is good. I'd rate it 4.5 or five out of five. I'm satisfied with the security on offer. 

The product can scale well automatically. 

OpenShift can be deployed on-premises and on the cloud. It helps us comply with regulatory issues that would require at least a portion to be covered by on-prem usage. 

The automated processes are really great. It helps with development time and the end product quality. It helps by being so flexible, which translates into easier development. It helps take some stuff off our plate. 

The solution's code ready workspaces have reduced project onboarding time. It's really simple to deploy on OpenShift. The reduction levels have been around 35%. It also reduces time to market due ot the faster development times. The reduction has been around almost 20% based on some administration we ned to handle in order to maintain compliance.

What needs improvement?

The flexibility is nice, yet comes with great sacrifice. It's much more complicated in general. We'd like the flexibility on offer to be simplified a bit so that we don't have to do so many workarounds. 

The interface could be simplified a bit more. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for one and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product is good. There may be a few bugs, however, in general, it works quite well. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is scalable. 

We have 100 or hundred users on the solution right now in our organization. Most are developers. Some are end-users. There might be a handful of admins as well. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support isn't used really. I've never called them personally. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used a different solution. We switched to this product since it was more flexible.

We have considered building our own container platform as well since we needed something on-prem. However, OpenShift already provided what we needed, and so it wasn't necessary. 

I'm not sure if we also use any other Red Hat products. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was not done by me. I only work with the solution. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't directly deal with pricing or handle the negotiation on licensing. I can't speak to the exact price. 

What other advice do I have?

We're a customer and end-user. 

I do not use the solution on the vendor's open stack platform.

It's a good idea to explore the solution first before really jumping in. Also, companies need to understand the costing and the SSL before jumping into a deployment. 

I'd rate OpenShift at a nine out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat OpenShift
October 2026
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat OpenShift. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2062821 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager - Cloud at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jan 4, 2023
The security throughout the stack and the software supply chain is pretty robust
Pros and Cons
  • "Two stand-out features are the security model and value-add features that don't exist in Upstream Kubernetes."
  • "One glaring flaw is how OpenShift handles operators. Sometimes operators are forced to go into a particular namespace. When you do that, OpenShift creates an installation plan for everything in that namespace. These operators may be completely separate from each other and have nothing to do with each other, but now they are tied at the hip. You can't upgrade one without upgrading all of them. That's a huge mistake and highly problematic."

What is our primary use case?

OpenShift is a containerization platform.

How has it helped my organization?

OpenShift provides faster container orchestration without the need to know the guts of an already complex system. Kubernetes is complicated for an organization to do correctly on its own, so OpenShift streamlines that process and makes it easier to get up and running.

It allows flexible and efficient cloud-native stacks. You've got a lot of capabilities, such as build packs to automatically access development solutions or different languages like Spring Boot or .NET. Everything is in one place and addresses the developers and administrators.

What is most valuable?

Two stand-out features are the security model and value-add features that don't exist in Upstream Kubernetes. OpenShift's security throughout the stack and the software supply chain is pretty robust. Including advanced cluster security, OpenShift covers almost everything out of the box.

We are also using Linux Rail and Ansible, and all these Red Hat products have some awareness. However, it's hard to say because some of them previously existed as non-Red Hat products.

What needs improvement?

One glaring flaw is how OpenShift handles operators. Sometimes operators are forced to go into a particular namespace. When you do that, OpenShift creates an installation plan for everything in that namespace. 

These operators may be completely separate from each other and have nothing to do with each other, but now they are tied at the hip. You can't upgrade one without upgrading all of them. That's a huge mistake and highly problematic. They shouldn't be linked together so that when you upgrade one, you must also upgrade the other. It doesn't make sense if they aren't related as operators.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using OpenShift for three or four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

OpenShift is mostly stable. It's designed so that you seldom notice if it's unstable. I have no complaints.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

OpenShift is scalable. It automatically scales.

How are customer service and support?

I rate OpenShift support seven out of 10. There is room for improvement. We sometimes find the answer before the vendor. You get bounced around to various people and must repeat the issue even though it's all documented.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

Setting up OpenShift is pretty straightforward, and you can do it in under 30 minutes if you know what to do. We have four admins who maintain it. It requires a lot of maintenance because the underlying platform moves quickly. Kubernetes moves quickly, so new versions are constantly coming out. Keeping current requires lots of maintenance. We do upgrades monthly.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Vendor support is one reason to go with OpenShift. It's an open-source product, but you can pay for support. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at all the options, including Upstream Kubernetes, AWS, Azure, GCP, and Rancher.

What other advice do I have?

I rate OpenShift eight out of 10. Red Hart is a good partner for the most part. Like anything, it depends on who you work with. Some people will regurgitate the documentation, while others will bring their experiences from other locations.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
PeerSpot user
Srinadh  Puli - PeerSpot reviewer
VP at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Oct 22, 2022
Has a good design, and can reduce the cost of having multiple applications, but has some bugs that still need fixing, cluster upgrades can be challenging, and has bad technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "What I like best about OpenShift is that it can reduce some of the costs of having multiple applications because you can just move them into small container applications. For example, applications don't need to run for twenty days, only to be used up by Monday. Through OpenShift, you can move some of the small applications into any cloud. I also find the design of OpenShift good."
  • "My team has found some bugs in OpenShift due to continuous integration, and this is an area for improvement in the platform. RedHat should fix the bugs. Another area for improvement in OpenShift is that upgrading clusters can be challenging, resulting in downtime. Application support also needs improvement in OpenShift because the platform doesn't support all applications in the cloud. I'd like upgraded storage in the next release of OpenShift, especially when I need to do a DR exercise. It would also be good if the platform allows mirroring with another cluster, or more portability in terms of moving applications to another cluster."
  • "My team contacts OpenShift support whenever there's an issue, and it was a very bad experience."

What is our primary use case?

Our use cases for OpenShift are for payments and internal bank transactions.

What is most valuable?

What I like best about OpenShift is that it can reduce some of the costs of having multiple applications because you can just move them into small container applications. For example, applications don't need to run for twenty days, only to be used up by Monday. Through OpenShift, you can move some of the small applications into any cloud.

I also find the design of OpenShift good.

What needs improvement?

My team has found some bugs in OpenShift due to continuous integration, and this is an area for improvement in the platform. RedHat should fix the bugs.

Another area for improvement in OpenShift is that upgrading clusters can be challenging, resulting in downtime.

Application support also needs improvement in OpenShift because the platform doesn't support all applications in the cloud.

I'd like upgraded storage in the next release of OpenShift, especially when I need to do a DR exercise. It would also be good if the platform allows mirroring with another cluster, or more portability in terms of moving applications to another cluster.

For how long have I used the solution?

We're using OpenShift for the last two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

OpenShift is a good solution, stability-wise.

The performance of OpenShift is good, but sometimes, it can be bad, depending on the network, but that's okay. That's normal. You won't have a very bad experience with OpenShift, performance-wise. You'll experience some issues from it, but it's still a good platform.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

As OpenShift is on-premise, there's not much scalability from it. My team is still coming up with new clusters, and some clusters have been deployed as well, but my company isn't ready to scale OpenShift at the moment.

How are customer service and support?

My team contacts OpenShift support whenever there's an issue, and it was a very bad experience. The response time needs improvement, and support didn't give straightforward answers.

On a scale of one to five, my rating for OpenShift support is a two.

How was the initial setup?

The setup for OpenShift was complex, and it can only be done by a consultant. My team can do an on-premise setup and automation, but a consultant has to certify the cluster, otherwise, you can't get support from RedHat.

Deployment for OpenShift can be completed within six to seven hours depending on the infrastructure. Otherwise, it could take more than one day.

My rating for the initial setup of OpenShift is three out of five. RedHat will check the setup or configuration, and if the customer is ready to take over the process, then it's good, but what's usually happening is that the vendor isn't providing detailed guidelines, so my rating is more on the neutral side.

What about the implementation team?

We used a RedHat consultant for the deployment of OpenShift.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing cost for OpenShift is expensive when compared to other products. RedHat also charges you additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We're currently evaluating a product from IBM.

What other advice do I have?

My company uses OpenShift currently, but it's still under RFP.

OpenShift is deployed on-premises on a disconnected cluster for a financial institution.

Some maintenance is required for OpenShift. Whenever there's a bug, my team does the maintenance, but there's still a need to check with RedHat support on how to fix the bug. My team can't do the maintenance without support from RedHat developers.

Less than ten people use OpenShift within the company.

I would recommend OpenShift to others because it's a good tool for the financial sector versus public clouds such as AWS and Azure. I'd also advice others that if it's a public cloud, it's easy to manage, but if it's on-premise, then it can't be managed.

My rating for OpenShift is seven out of ten.

My company is a customer of OpenShift.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Vikram Casula - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Infrastructure & Cloud ops at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Oct 2, 2022
Mature, seamless integration, and easy setup
Pros and Cons
  • "Its interface is good. The other part is the seamless integration with the stack that I have. Because my stack is mostly of Red Hat, which is running on top of VMware virtualization, I have had no issues with integrating both of these and trying to install them. We had a seamless integration with the other non-Red Hat products as well."
  • "It is an excellent product."
  • "One of the features that I've observed in Tanzu Mission Control is that I can manage multiple Kubernetes environments. For instance, one of my lines of business is using OpenShift OKD; another one wants to use Google Anthos, and somebody else wants to use VMware Tanzu. If I have to manage all these, Tanzu Mission Control is giving me the opportunity to completely manage all of my Kubernetes clusters, whereas, with OpenShift, I can only manage a particular area. I can't manage other Kubernetes clusters. I would like to have the option to manage all Kubernetes clusters with OpenShift."
  • "With OpenShift, I can only manage a particular area. I can't manage other Kubernetes clusters."

What is our primary use case?

These are for some of our applications where we wanted high resiliency. In the traditional VM environment, what used to happen is that everything was dependent on the infrastructure. We wanted to move away from that particular concept. Once an application becomes stateless, it should not be dependent upon platform-related things. We wanted it to be more robust and perform at a much better efficiency. We also wanted higher availability.

We are getting everything from OpenShift at this point in time. What we're doing here is pretty much basic. Any of Kubernetes could have done it because all we're looking for is being able to manage the complete cluster.

What is most valuable?

Its interface is good. The other part is the seamless integration with the stack that I have. Because my stack is mostly of Red Hat, which is running on top of VMware virtualization, I have had no issues with integrating both of these and trying to install them. We had a seamless integration with the other non-Red Hat products as well.

What needs improvement?

One of the features that I've observed in Tanzu Mission Control is that I can manage multiple Kubernetes environments. For instance, one of my lines of business is using OpenShift OKD; another one wants to use Google Anthos, and somebody else wants to use VMware Tanzu. If I have to manage all these, Tanzu Mission Control is giving me the opportunity to completely manage all of my Kubernetes clusters, whereas, with OpenShift, I can only manage a particular area. I can't manage other Kubernetes clusters. I would like to have the option to manage all Kubernetes clusters with OpenShift.

I would like to have self-service capability. A lot of developers want to become independent today, and they don't want to depend on the Infra teams for managing, provisioning, etc. If we can give a self-service capability, in terms of building a particular Kubernetes cluster end-to-end, to developers, that would be a plus. That's the ask of the hour.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for the past one and a half years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a perfectly stable product. If an application is ready to be containerized, it is seamless. You will not have any hiccups.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scaling up and down is happening, but my concern is that if we hit any kind of bugs, the open-source community won't be that active in terms of doing the bug fixes. If I get any bug, there might be a delay in getting the bug release or the patch coming up. When I'm hosting an enterprise data application on an open-source product, I will have a little higher risk of non-availability, and that might lead to revenue impact as well. Keeping that in mind, I would like to go for the enterprise edition, at least for my high revenue-generating applications.

In terms of the number of people working with this solution, I have about eight administrators. I have eight people in my team who manage the complete Kubernetes cluster for me, which is a combination of OKD and Tanzu. It is being used on a daily basis.

How are customer service and support?

We are using the open-source version, and their community support is good. I don't expect a rapid response from the community, but if I post today, I usually get a response in a few hours. 

We have an enterprise agreement with Red Hat for the other products that we are using. Their response is very prompt.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We also use Tanzu, which has more limitations. If I have to use an F5 load balancer or other third-party products, Tanzu shrinks a little bit. It is not as mature as Red Hat OpenShift, which is more open to other products. I have an F5 load balancer, and I struggle a bit to integrate the F5 load balancer with Tanzu, whereas with OpenShift, it happens directly. For Tanzu, I have to have another layer on my load balancer, which is Avi. I have to use their services. Adding one more product into the environment brings some complexity, whereas OpenShift is very agile in nature. It adapts to all kinds of products that are not part of the same stack. So, I had no issues with that. I would rate OpenShift higher than Tanzu because OpenShift is a much more mature product.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward. I had a perfect team with prior experience in OpenShift. They were able to do it without any hiccups. The community of OpenShift is very good. There are a lot of exchanges happening in the community space, which helped us in doing it in a seamless way. I would rate it a 5 out of 5 in terms of the ease of the setup.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are currently using the open version, OKD. We plan to get the enterprise version in the future.

What other advice do I have?

It is an excellent product. There are a lot of items that will be good to have in there, but based on the comparison with others and based on the kind of use cases I have seen, I would rate it a 10 out of 10.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
PaaS Support Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Mar 24, 2022
Our BUs can rapidly deploy changes to code, test them, and deploy an image in seconds, saving us time
Pros and Cons
  • "The developers seem to like the source-to-image feature. That makes it easy for them to deploy an application from code into containers, so they don't have to think about things. They take it straight from their code into a containerized application. If you don't have OpenShift, you have to build the container and then deploy the container to, say, EKS or something like that."
  • "Overall, Red Hat is a handy tool to have, like an electric screwdriver instead of a manual one, because we can use what they've already written to make us more productive."
  • "The software-defined networking part of it caused us quite a bit of heartburn. We ran into a lot of problems with the difference between on-prem and cloud, where we had to make quite a number of modifications... They've since resolved it, so it's not really an issue anymore."

What is our primary use case?

Our company uses it as a platform as a service. We have business units with developers who deploy their containerized applications in OpenShift. We have a team that supports the infrastructure of clusters all over the world. We run thousands of applications on it.

It's deployed on-prem and in the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

One benefit is that it provides you with the flexibility and efficiency of cloud-native stacks while enabling you to meet regulatory constraints. They have a catalog of the ratings of the base images that we use to build our containers. We reference that to show our security team that an application we're building has passed the security with vulnerabilities that are acceptable. We won't deploy it if something is not unacceptable.

In terms of our organization, the business units are able to deploy changes to the code rapidly. They can test it on the test cluster and, once it's tested, they can deploy an image in seconds. It has saved us time. Our guys are continuing to move to the OpenShift platform from whatever they were on, whether it was a mainframe or a standalone machine. And they're doing that for the cost savings.

In addition, a perfect example of the solution's automated processes and their effect on development time is the source-to-image feature. The developer can use that tool to improve his code's quality and it saves him some time. He doesn't have to understand the specifics of building a container.

There is also an advantage due to the solution's CodeReady Workspaces. That definitely helps reduce project onboarding time. There are prebuilt packages that they use. We have a lot of Java and some .NET and Python and the CodeReady packages help. Conservatively, that feature has reduced onboarding time by 50 percent. It also helps reduce the time to market by about the same amount.

Overall, Red Hat is a handy tool to have, like an electric screwdriver instead of a manual one. We don't have to write things manually. We can use what they've already written to make us more productive.

What is most valuable?

The developers seem to like the source-to-image feature. That makes it easy for them to deploy an application from code into containers, so they don't have to think about things. They take it straight from their code into a containerized application. If you don't have OpenShift, you have to build the container and then deploy the container to, say, EKS or something like that. It's a little different.

In terms of the solution’s security throughout the stack and the software supply chain, it meets our needs. It's excellent as far as we're concerned. It goes right along with the Kubernetes role-based assets control. OpenShift's security features for running business-critical applications are excellent. A lot of our external-facing applications have been protected. We do use Apigee for a lot of it, but we also do security scans so we don't expose something to a known vulnerability.

What needs improvement?

The software-defined networking part of it caused us quite a bit of heartburn. We ran into a lot of problems with the difference between on-prem and cloud, where we had to make quite a number of modifications. That heartburn meant millions of dollars for us. That was a year ago and the product has matured since then. They've since resolved it, so it's not really an issue anymore.

The storage part of it was also problematic. There were quite a few things that really hampered us. But it's much better now.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using OpenShift for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's extremely stable. We haven't had any outages that were caused by the software. There have been issues due to human error on our side, such as not buying enough memory for the host. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's also extremely scalable. On our dev cluster, we auto-scale from 50 nodes up to 130 on a weekend, when there is a need. It also scales itself down to save money over the weekend. When people start hitting it on Monday, it scales back up, seamlessly.

In terms of users, we have about 20,000 developers, all over the world. It's used 24 hours a day. We have centralized development clusters that are being used all the time because we have deployments on every continent except Antarctica.

We're moving off mainframes and monolithic apps into the containerized world. Increasing our usage is a stated management decision in our organization. OpenShift has been growing in our company in the last couple of years.

How are customer service and support?

We use the tech support daily and they're pretty good. There are always going to be a few rough spots, but most of the time they're responsive.

You may get one support guy who doesn't understand the solution or the problem and they give a wrong solution, and we all know that it's the wrong solution. The problem is that we have people who have different first languages, so they don't always phrase the question well. I can see where a tech support guy might get a little confused because of the wording of an issue.

Red Hat, as a partner for helping to create the platform we need, has shared code, information, and ideas. They've been very helpful and open. We have a couple of technical account managers who meet with us once a month. One is in the UK and the other is in the US. They're very responsive when it comes to any problems we run into.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, all we used were standalone Unix machines. We didn't use a different container orchestration, like Mesos. We never considered building our own. We took a look at OpenShift a long time ago and it was really the best at the time.

How was the initial setup?

Version 3 is very complex but it's 1,000 times better than five years ago, and it's even much better than it was a year ago. The deployment was a pain point for our company, but it's irrelevant for someone buying it now. They have fixed a lot of stuff.

We have huge deployments, hundreds of nodes in a cluster. The deployment time is relative to the size of the cluster, but the deployment time has gone from a week to a day for a 100-node cluster. Red Hat has improved the process considerably.

What was our ROI?

It provides us with good value.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There weren't a whole lot of options. There was Mesos or home-grown or Kubernetes using Rancher. There wasn't anything that really compared to OpenShift at the time. OpenShift was a complete package. There were a lot of things you had to do manually with the other products. The Kubernetes world has changed a lot since then.

The fact that Red Hat was open source was a factor and the security was what we really liked about it. They use CRI-O, which is a secure runtime container, as opposed to using Docker, which is super-insecure running as root. Red Hat is definitely the leader in the container security world.

What other advice do I have?

You have to understand what you're getting into and you have to be committed to upgrading it. There are some people in the world who say they'll never want to upgrade it again. With Kubernetes, if you're going to get into OpenShift, you have to "sign the bottom line," so to speak, that says, "I'm going to update it," because the Kubernetes world moves at a fast pace.

In terms of container orchestration, we are totally OpenShift, but we use other Red Hat products like Linux and Tower. We do have standalone Linux machines that we manage, but we'll be migrating some of the applications from those standalone machines into the OpenShift container world. That's where the cost savings are.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Petr Bunka - PeerSpot reviewer
System Architect at CGI
Real User
Top 20
Jun 3, 2024
Used for runtime or application migration, transitioning from classic application servers
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution offers ease with which we can define how to run applications and configure them. It's much more convenient than creating a virtual machine and configuring application servers, making the process faster and simpler."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Red Hat OpenShift for runtime or application migration, transitioning from classic application servers and configuration restore machines.

    What is most valuable?

    The solution offers ease with which we can define how to run applications and configure them. It's much more convenient than creating a virtual machine and configuring application servers, making the process faster and simpler.

    What needs improvement?

    There are some features regarding English and communication. This refers to external communication points to and from the OpenShift cluster. However, there are limitations due to the cluster's setup.

    There are configuration problem, but we managed to find a workaround. Now, we're waiting for Red Hat to address it as a patch. In the meantime, we're using the workaround and are somewhat satisfied. Dealing with just one issue was unexpected, but it did take longer.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is highly scalable. This is a key feature that led us to transition from classic legacy applications to OpenShift because adding more nodes and scaling applications is straightforward. However, it's important to note that applications need to be designed to support this scalability. 

    From an external perspective, it's accessible via the OpenShift Internet. Some services require authentication for users, while others are available to non-authenticated users. t can handle anywhere from ten thousand to one hundred thousand users. I rate it a ten out of ten.

    How are customer service and support?

    We don't have a huge number of ticket.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is complex as you need to know the steps. You can design the configuration of the cluster because it comprises various nodes, including infrastructure nodes, control points, and workers. You need to understand how to set up these basic components of the cluster and address persistent volume challenges to ensure they function properly.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The product comes with annual subscription. I rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten.

    What other advice do I have?

    The automation capabilities are straightforward. The tools are designed from the ground up to facilitate automation processes, making it increasingly comfortable to create CI/CD automation processes

    One piece of advice is not to be stuck in old ways of thinking because you may need to transition to different types of work. Once you make this shift, you'll find that it's easier than it was in the past.

    Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Senior System Engineer at a tech consulting company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Oct 18, 2023
    An expandable solution with an easy initial setup phase and a great GUI
    Pros and Cons
    • "The product's initial setup is very easy, especially compared to AWS."
    • "Latency and performance are two areas of concern in OpenShift where improvements are required."

    What is our primary use case?

    Compared to OpenStack, OpenShift is the best product in the market. There are plenty of cloud service providers who use OpenStack or other open-source products, but OpenShift is the best. Even AWS is just an okay product, but they have different proprietary software, which is not the same as OpenShift.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features of the solution stem from the product's GUI, and other such areas of the product have been set up. Compared to AWS, OpenShift is better.

    What needs improvement?

    Latency and performance are two areas of concern in OpenShift where improvements are required.

    OpenShift's scalability has scope for improvement.

    OpenShift's technical support team needs to improve the support they provide to my company since the support we currently receive depends on the support package we have from the ones that OpenShift offers, like platinum, gold, or silver. OpenShift's technical support team is good, but it takes time for them to find the root cause of a particular issue. One of the clients of my company doesn't face many issues with the product, so we don't use much of the technical support. I can say that OpenShift's technical support team is okay in general.

    I have experience with the product, but I don't possess a large amount of technical knowledge to comment on what functionalities need to be added to the product.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using OpenShift for two years. My company is a user of Red Hat products.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It is a scalable or expandable solution. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

    Eight members of my company's team use OpenShift.

    How are customer service and support?

    For one of my company's clients, we have to deal with the technical support team of OpenShift. With Red Hat, my company has platinum support. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    AWS and DigitalOcean are products with which I have some experience.

    Kubernetes on AWS is a bit complex to set up, whereas OpenShift is easier for me to set up. However, they use the same things during the setup process. OpenShift is just a better product for a new user compared to AWS since the former is easier to understand.

    How was the initial setup?

    The product's initial setup is very easy, especially compared to AWS.

    The solution is deployed on a public cloud since half of the deployment is in the data center and half of it is in the cloud.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    My company makes payments towards the licensing costs attached to OpenShift.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    During the evaluation phase, I looked at Google Cloud.

    What other advice do I have?

    I carried out OpenShift's integration process for two or three firms as a part of the team, so it was not done by myself alone. I did carry out the integration process for AWS. Comparing OpenShift with AWS, I found the former to be much easier.

    I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Arun Sahani - PeerSpot reviewer
    Kubernetes/Openshift Security Consultant at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
    Real User
    Jun 23, 2023
    A tool that offers a good production environment that is much more stable
    Pros and Cons
    • "I have seen a return on investment, and it depends upon the types and the nature of some of the most critical applications that have been hosted on the OpenShift infrastructure."
    • "Some of the storage services and integrations with third-party tools should be made possible."

    What is our primary use case?

    I have not used it on IBM Cloud. It is basically used on AWS and Azure. I am using a standard OpenShift.

    OpenShift is a container orchestration tool. We have been using it for hosting products on container-based applications.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Actually, what happens is that the solution gives or provides that kind of stability and much more. It gives a good production environment that is much more stable and error-free. That's how the solution contributes to the productivity of my whole organization.

    What is most valuable?

    If we compare OpenShift and Kubernetes Harbor, OpenShift is derived from Kubernetes. However, some of the most prominent features of OpenShift are its security services and some of the policies, especially security policies that are some of the add-ons and the best things I like in OpenShift.

    What needs improvement?

    Some things need to be improved in the solution. Some of the storage services and integrations with third-party tools should be made possible.

    I think some more things will come in, like the projects of CNCFs. I think that verified CNCF projects will be integrated into OpenShift.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using OpenShift for eighteen months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

    How are customer service and support?

    I think the support is fine. It depends upon some of the SLAs and how things or how the SLAs have been maintained. Overall, it is fine, so I will rate the support a seven out of ten.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    How was the initial setup?

    Initially, the setup seemed to be complex, but the recommendations from Red Hat, and especially on the CoreOS systems, for quality, stability, and security purposes, it seems to be complex. However, once we get hands-on experience, it is very, very useful and easily maintainable as well.

    What was our ROI?

    I have seen a return on investment, and it depends upon the types and the nature of some of the most critical applications that have been hosted on the OpenShift infrastructure. Considering in terms of stability, performance-wise, and security-wise, if everything goes fine, I think its return on investment is justified.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The price depends on the type and the nature of the organizations, along with the types of projects that are of considerable range. I don't think the price is very much of an issue for any organization against the services being delivered over the cloud and the services of OpenSuite.

    What other advice do I have?

    If any organization is just working on open-source technologies and wants to have enterprise support and enterprise-grade solutions, then we must go with OpenShift.

    Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Yossi Shmulevitch - PeerSpot reviewer
    Owner at SoftContact
    Real User
    Top 5
    May 23, 2023
    A stable and scalable solution for microservices and Kubernetes distribution
    Pros and Cons
    • "I am impressed with the product's security features."
    • "The tool lacks some features to make it compliant with Kubernetes"

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution to split monolithic into microservices. I mostly use OpenShift as a Kubernetes distribution. 

    What is most valuable?

    I am impressed with the product's security features. 

    What needs improvement?

    The tool lacks some features to make it compliant with Kubernetes. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I am working with the solution for four years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The tool is stable. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The cloud version is scalable. The solution's on-prem scalability can be improved. 

    How are customer service and support?

    The tool's support should be improved. 

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    How was the initial setup?

    The tool's deployment takes a matter of hours to complete. You need a team of three to four to maintain the solution. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The product's support is expensive. I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten. 

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The tool requires knowledgeable people to manage it. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Red Hat OpenShift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: October 2026
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Red Hat OpenShift Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.