IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service vs. Mirantis Kubernetes Engine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Score 7.4 out of 10
Enterprise companies (1,001+ employees)
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service is a managed Kubernetes offering, delivering user tools and built-in security for rapid delivery of applications that users can bind to cloud services related to IBM Watson®, IoT, DevOps and data analytics. As a certified K8s provider, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service provides intelligent scheduling, self-healing, horizontal scaling, service discovery and load balancing, automated rollouts and rollbacks, and secret and configuration management. The Kubernetes…N/A
Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
The Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (formerly Docker Enterprise, acquired by Mirantis in November 2019)aims to let users ship code faster. Mirantis Kubernetes Engine gives users one set of APIs and tools to deploy, manage, and observe secure-by-default, certified, batteries-included Kubernetes clusters on any infrastructure: public cloud, private cloud, or bare metal.
$0
per year
Pricing
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Free
$0.00
per year
Basic
$500.00
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsThese pricing options are compatible with Linux or Windows Server and are per year, per node. The basic version requires maximum online purchase not to exceed 50 nodes. Support/professional services are not included.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Considered Both Products
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
I have earlier used various services, such as Kubernetes and Google Cloud Run. Still, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service offers more convenience and a larger set of functions and features are available in Kubernetes. Google Cloud Run is much closer to a server less approach to …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Both services are very similar and work in a very similar way, both fulfilling their purpose well. IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service was chosen to test how a different platform from the traditional one would work during the execution of the project and whether it would perform well. …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
It is more focous on enterprise security and hybrid cloud support, It is also openshift to enhance from anywhere, tight integration with other tool, It's cloud features so that we can easily to use from anywhere and it is easily to integrate with ibm other tool so that multiple …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Many solutions and vendors are offering the service to deploy a solution for based Kubernetes cloud, but we have selected IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service for the optimization, high availability, DRP process, reduced downtimes, support, documentation, and the easy way to deploy …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
IBM Cloud is simple to use and has no custom requirements to start, Other products are not cost-efficient compared to IBM IKS.
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS), Google Kubernetes Engine, Kubernetes and Alibaba Cloud Container Service
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
IBM Kubernetes Service and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) are two popular managed Kubernetes offerings that allow organizations to deploy, manage and scale their containerized applications.

Advantages of IBM Kubernetes Service
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service is a scalable solution, but compared to AWS and Mirantis it is not auto-scaling, and The technical support from IBM is kind of poor.
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Our almost all use-cases are being addressed by IKS and integrations on IBM Cloud. So have not necessarily explored other vendors with similar depth.
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Well, as we were in a state to compulsory implement this service, but then it is very suited for deployment of a service that has higher fault tolerance. And maintaining the lifecycle of custom made resources. And the ability to integrate other services also
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
The agility of Kubernetes allows it to be deployed quickly with short iterations. Operability makes it work well over time, not just at [the] deployment phase and the application itself is able to expose a health check in order for the infrastructure it is running on to query …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
All of the container management systems we evaluated are popular and each has its unique features and benefits. Kubernetes is the solution we found with containerization, agile development, and continuous delivery which would shorten the time it took to get a project up and …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
It's very fast, easy to navigate, and has more features and compatibility while using the GUI. Pricing is less compared to IBM.
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
With the scalability, the management, the coordination, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service really empowers the whole IT team and gives the company more time back than we had before. It is a system that has the capability to manage where workloads are being distributed out and [do] …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Kubernetes was original formed by Google. We had a lot of compute in Google Cloud Platform and used to use their managed Kubernetes service Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and it performed quite well. I think both products are solid, but I lean toward GKE. However, I would opt …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
When compared to AWS, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service offers more features and also comes at a reasonable cost.
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Docker is the other alternative we considered. But I suppose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service does the job pretty well for us.
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Directing administrations, similar to API entryways, constrained you to do everything automatically through config records. I would have favored a GUI for minor design changes. I think the planned maxim was that you could push configs from versional sources, while as yet having …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
We mainly selected [IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service] because IBM fabric blockchain service is mostly compatible with it. To have all the infrastructure in a single cloud to get the best output we selected the [IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service].
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
Routing services, like API gateways, forced you to do everything programmatically through config files. I would have preferred a GUI for minor configuration changes. I think the intended idiom was that you could push configs from versional sources, while still having a bit of …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
I used also Kubernetes on-premise installation. It permits you to install a custom Kubernetes cluster in your physical machines. The advantages are clearly the complete access to the machines via ssh and the possibility of customization. In the cons, the costs are really high …
Chose IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service is far more distributed around the world. Also it has lower costs.
Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
I didn’t select Mirantis Cloud Native Suite (Docker Enterprise) when I joined this organisation it was already being used here. The one thing I can say about Mirantis Cloud Native Suite (Docker Enterprise) is easy to use and creates a good impact in the businesses. So, I …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
So far I haven't used any other containerized product except Docker Enterprise because in terms of community support and tutorial videos, Docker has a better reach than other tools.
Docker can be easily set up from local to the cloud without worrying about the flavor of OS …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
I have not used any other software as a container management solution. Its containerized apps allow the usage of less memory, thus they start and shut down very fast. This tool is helping the enterprise software to work quickly against the changing conditions thus offers great
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
I have heard about others, but all my professional life I have been using Docker as my primary container and the thing is you just don't need anything else right now. Because Kubernetes supports Docker and Docker is open-source and just very simple to get started with. 10 …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
I have used Vagrant for consistent development environments as well. It is a more "heavyweight" solution since it's a complete virtual machine that requires a host like VirtualBox in order to run. With Docker, the container is much more lightweight and just requires the docker …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
FreeNAS, I don't wish to bad mouth any product but it appeared that iXsystems just did not want to help their users or attempt to resolve issues. It looks good on paper and it worked well for me for about 4 years until I needed more support and a more complex and bigger …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker has become the defacto service, as far as I have seen, to run Linux or other tools on any OS and architecture and get the same output. I have used vagrant in the past, but it was much more complicated to use. Docker is very common among developers, so documentation and …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Dockers isn't a replacement for VMWare or VirtualBox in all cases. It's fundamentally a different way to solve the development problem. We use Docker when we need a lightweight, fast development scaffold. We use other virtualization solutions if we need GUI access or need a …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
I would also compare to BSD Jails, LXC, and Solaris Zones, but they weren't listed. One of the first reasons we decided to use Docker over other container applications is because Docker is the default everyone recommends and is easily the most popular. We found Docker to be …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker provides less lock in and more portability than Heroku. You can also easily self host or choose a Docker hosting service. Additionally, there is a wide availability of Docker containers where Heroku build packs are somewhat more limited. Heroku offers a more turnkey …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
We've used XAMPP, PHPmyAdmin and similar local environments (our app is on PHP).

Because of how easy you can change the configuration of libraries on PHP and versions (which is SO painful on XAMPP or other friendly LAMP local servers) we are using Docker right now. Also, being …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker isn’t a buzz word. It has promising return on investment and a bright future ahead backed up by the open source community.
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Prior to docker, we had a custom build and deployment system. For local development, we use VirtualBox to host our VMs, while our custom VMs resided directly on the servers. We chose Docker primarily to allow us to get rid of our custom deployment system, both simplifying build …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker is great because of how the Docker Runtime works and how it eliminates the need to have the full operating system overhead that you'd find in a virtual machine (VM), keeping things lightweight and compatible regardless of where you go. Having an isolated, full Linux …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
For light weight frontends, the Docker Swarm is the easiest to manage. One person can then mange the production environment and at the same time develop new software.
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
While Ansible and Docker focus on solving two different problems, we were previously using Ansible to ensure that all dependencies were automatically setup on new servers and that proper configuration was applied when new nodes were brought up. With docker, most of these …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
While we still use virtual machines [for our Docker servers], we prefer Docker containers for our deployments. It really allows for a simpler infrastructure footprint to manage. For example, instead of managing 30 virtual machines with one or two apps on each VM, we could …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
I had to use virtual machines before, the last one was VirtualBox. I was only a user there, I wasn't responsible for the configuration, it was a black box for me. When I had to use Docker for the first time I was a skeptic, but it proved to be easy. I can't really compare the …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Doocker lacks a lot of the scaling, automation, integration of 3rd party tools/solutions, and integration of shared high-performance self-healing storage, solutions like Heketi provide those missing pieces.
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker runs both locally and on the server, whereas VirtualBox is only used locally to create a development environment. Docker gives us the ability to have the exact same environment both in the cloud and on individual developers' laptops. There are no surprises for the team, …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Vagrant is another software that offers similar [features that] stack to Docker. It offers an isolated container similar to Docker but Docker is lighter weight because it does not have the additional overhead of a VM Container. Docker has a much larger community of developers …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker is a different beast in that it is not trying to solve all of your infrastructure problems or most of them, it is simply trying to provide a reliable container serviced based on linux containers in which you can easily and quickly deploy microservices. LXD does provide …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Docker doesn't directly compare to very many other services. It is unique in its field. However, I love how fast Docker services spin up in comparison to VM-based or server-based applications. Docker is being adopted at a fast rate in the industry, so it's great to see Docker …
Chose Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Before Docker, we were using Chef to manage our deployments. Chef didn't provide the environmental consistency and release confidence we needed. We had a split process between how the build servers, the developers and the deployed environments were managing the software …
Features
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
7.5
Ratings
3% below category average
Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
-
Ratings
Security and Isolation7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Container Orchestration8.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Cluster Management6.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Storage Management7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Discovery Tools7.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Update Rollouts and Rollbacks7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-Healing and Recovery7.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging7.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Small Businesses
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.6 out of 10
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.9
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.7
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.6
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceMirantis Kubernetes Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service is ideal for deploying modern applications on a microservices architecture -- where easy scaling and ability to update are important. IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service also handles automated deployments and load balancing very well, particularly if you're already working in the IBM Cloud ecosystem. There are applications less suited to IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service -- such as very small applications, where managing an IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service cluster would be overkill. Also, users not familiar with container organization might find IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service to be a challenge to manage effectively.
Read full review
Docker is great for when you would want to use a VM for any given application, but don't need the overhead of the whole OS. Docker containers use very little computing resources, boot up very quickly, and are very easy to set up. An instance where Docker may not be appropriate would be for an application that requires good security. If in this situation, a true VM would probably be your best bet.
Read full review
Pros
  • IBM has a strong focus on serverless and Kubernetes. This shows in the platform. Deploying containers to Kubernetes was very easy.
  • Deploying a Kubernetes cluster through the GUI is very easy and quick. On top of that, IBM Cloud offers a single node cluster for Free.
  • Container Registry is a very good product for managing container images. Integration with Kubernetes was seemless.
  • Portability. To transition from Google Cloud Kubernetes to IBM Cloud Kubernetes took almost no effort. We mostly use the CLI and the standard tools such as kubectl were present.
Read full review
  • Containerization - allowing multiple micro-services to function together without in-depth orchestration at the VM level.
  • Rapid deployment - a developer with appropriate access can simply push to the correct remote and the deploy happens automatically from there
  • Decouples provisioning from VM administration - allows containers to be deployed (more) regardless of VM set up.
Read full review
Cons
  • I constantly get this error even when everything is well configured prefect.exceptions.AuthorizationError: [{'path': ['auth_info'], 'message': 'AuthenticationError: Forbidden', 'extensions': {'code': 'UNAUTHENTICATED'}}]
  • Then sometimes the error disapear without changine anything, happened twice to me. Should there be an issue with the authentication service? Please let's improve or let users know why this may be happening.
  • Improve the UX in the browse console when removing many images at once
  • UX on the process of installing KeyCloack operator
Read full review
  • Docker has a bit of a learning curve, and it takes some time to become familiar with the tooling and syntax. Transitioning an existing architecture to docker can represent a significant investment.
  • Docker attempts to provide some level of cross-host container orchestration via swarm, but it falls short of third-party solutions like kubernetes.
  • We occasionally run into stability issues when the docker daemon is subjected to high load (many applications starting/stopping frequently). In these cases, docker hangs and we have to restart or replace the node.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
We have our application running on a CentOS compartment on IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service. We have been utilizing the help since IBM Cloud initially dispatched. We liked the adaptability and versatility that IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service give us. Since we are tiny, the Kubernetes administration is just utilized at present inside my venture bunch.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Usability
We actually haven't had any real problems in our clusters recently and the results we have gotten from adopting IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service have been beyond even our greatest expectations. The community has helped optimize the use of the system and make it relatively simpler to use.
Read full review
Docker's CLI has a lot of options, and they aren't all intuitive. And there are so many tools in the space (Docker Compose, Docker Swarm, etc) that have their own configuration as well. So while there is a lot to learn, most concepts transfer easily and can be learned once and applied across everything.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
IBM's cloud is almost infallible.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Performance
IBM's cloud has a site in my conuntry (MEXICO) so the network latency was almost 0
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
The self-guided support was solid, and there are plenty of online videos to guide first time users, but I think one area of improvement is a faster way to transfer a large quantity of files from our local machine to the cloud for storage (Aspera)
Read full review
The community support for Docker is fantastic. There is almost always an answer for any issue I might encounter day-to-day, either on Stack Overflow, a helpful blog post, or the community Slack workspace. I've never come across a problem that I was unable to solve via some searching around in the community.
Read full review
Online Training
Online training is really an important resource for using these tools. IBM's help center is rich in useful information and tips. Also, external guides and tutorials are available (e.g. on youtube), but I followed only IBM ones and I had no difficulties.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Ease of use. Very intuitive. We have been looking for a product that allows us to orchestrate our docker containers in a way where it allows us to effectively scale our applications to production. It also provides us a way of monitoring all our infrastructure in a very clear concise way.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I have earlier used various services, such as Kubernetes and Google Cloud Run. Still, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service offers more convenience and a larger set of functions and features are available in Kubernetes. Google Cloud Run is much closer to a server less approach to deployment, although it gives slightly less flexibility in terms of configuration than IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.
Read full review
I have not used any other software as a container management solution. Its containerized apps allow the usage of less memory, thus
they start and shut down very fast. This tool is helping the enterprise
software to work quickly against the changing conditions thus offers great
scaling by simultaneously allowing me to meet the demands, which also leads to
easy implementation of the strategies.
Read full review
Scalability
IBM's CKS does not offers automatic autoscaling nor vertical scaling (automatic). Other services like Google Kubernetes Engine scales up and down very well
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • IKS can provide around 30% savings when it comes to operational costs since Kubernetes is designed to run applications in most machines in the most efficient manner possible.
  • Managed Kubernetes can save a company time by 45% since Managed Kubernetes usually is seamlessly updated, without any interruptions with the workload. IKS fall into this benefit.
  • We heard people had saved in maintenance downtimes when it comes to Kubernetes by a factor of 10 so IKS can contribute to more flexible and distributed services with virtually no downtime.
Read full review
  • We are able to try things very quickly compared to before. If you need to debug it, changes on X/Y/Z will have an impact on the way your app works, and changing libraries or configurations of the environment easily can improve your development cycles.
  • In case someone new arrives, the onboarding is pretty easy thanks to Docker. We have tried many configs and images until we reached a point were we have what we want. We don't have to painfully do that again for every new user. We just send him the image.
Read full review
ScreenShots