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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service

    Score8 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 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

    VMware ESXi

    Score7.4 out of 10
    N/AA bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto a physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs.N/A
    Pricing
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    27 Answers
    98%
    Would buy again
    93 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    25 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    86 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    28 Answers
    99%
    Happy with the feature set
    94 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    19 Answers
    99%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    91 Answers
    Features
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Container Management
    Comparison of Container Management features of IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service and VMware ESXi
    Feature
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
    8.1
    20 Ratings
    1% below category average
    VMware ESXi
    -
    Ratings
    Security and Isolation8.120 Ratings00 Ratings
    Container Orchestration8.520 Ratings00 Ratings
    Cluster Management7.820 Ratings00 Ratings
    Storage Management8.020 Ratings00 Ratings
    Resource Allocation and Optimization8.020 Ratings00 Ratings
    Discovery Tools7.819 Ratings00 Ratings
    Update Rollouts and Rollbacks7.720 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self-Healing and Recovery8.418 Ratings00 Ratings
    Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging8.220 Ratings00 Ratings
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service and VMware ESXi
    Feature
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
    -
    Ratings
    VMware ESXi
    8.2
    128 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
    Management console00 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings8.0112 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.0116 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.0117 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Small Businesses
    Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
    Score8 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)
    Score8.6 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SUSE Rancher
    Score9.4 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (86 ratings)
    9.0
    (129 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.9
    (16 ratings)
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    Usability
    8.7
    (16 ratings)
    9.0
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.7
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (55 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.7
    (15 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.6
    (3 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.1
    (2 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes ServiceVMware ESXi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service also stands out in environments where the workloads vary continuously and require befitting scale. The product excels particularly in microservices structures, wherein the companies would harness the capacity for container orchestration and automated scaling. Still, it may face the challenges due to monolith applications that have not been originally developed for using container technology.
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    If you're looking for the industry standard in server virtualization, I would recommend ESXi. After decades of expertise in the field, VMware continues to provide a strong product, production-ready, with an easy-to-learn interface that allows for quick management along with less costly upfront onboarding and training. Grab the free personal-use license and install in your homelab to start!
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    IBM
    • 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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.
    • Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.
    • VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    IBM
    • 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
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.
    • VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.
    • I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    It is critical to our business, what started out as a way to do certain functions, it has now become core to ensuring our product is available to our customers and reducing our costs to operate and reduce our recovery time and provisioning servers. Their support is great and the costs to renew is reasonable.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    IBM
    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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    The interface is fairly intuitive for most things, and the areas that are a little less obvious usually have fantastic documentation in the online knowledgebase. In 3-4 years of managing our ESXi hosts, I think that I have only opened 4-5 support cases for things that I could not figure out myself or find answers to on the website.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    IBM's cloud is almost infallible.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    Without the need to patch the servers with bug fixes and enhancements we whave not experienced any downtime with VMware issues. Even the bug fixes and updates do not cause of downtime as we just migrate the servers to the opposite node and update the one and then move servers back. Very simple and painless.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    IBM
    IBM's cloud has a site in my conuntry (MEXICO) so the network latency was almost 0
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    We do not notice any difference between a physical and virtual server running the same workload. In fact we can scale quicker with the virtual server than we can with the physical.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    IBM
    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)
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    I can't say enough good about VMware's support team. To an individual they take ownership of the case, provide thorough answers, and follow up regularly. On one occasion, a problem we experienced with NSX Endpoint was escalated to development for a permanent resolution after a workaround was found. In my experience, most companies would have tried to find a way to close a case like that instead of taking it all the way. Most importantly, when production is down and every second counts, they VMware teams understand that urgency and treat your issue as if it were the only one they had to deal with. You can't ask for better.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    IBM
    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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    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.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    Jsut read and follow anything your storage provider may require to allow the integration of VMware with storage operations, outside of that VMware jsut works.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    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].
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    As long as you're using Nutanix AOS on Nutanix hardware and are paying their software support fees, AOS is a valid competitor to VMware and can save money due to not needing a license and having their server management system built into the base host management system. If you aren't using Nutanix hardware, however, VMWare is in most cases the best way to go. I cannot comment on HyperV, but most IT people I know either use it because they have to (most) or they like it better (not many).
    Incentivized
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    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    it has been fair and easy to understand. I know VMware is looking at wanting to change from CPU to core pricing so we will see what that looks like when it happens.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    IBM
    IBM's CKS does not offers automatic autoscaling nor vertical scaling (automatic). Other services like Google Kubernetes Engine scales up and down very well
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    We started out with a two-server cluster and adding a third or fourth is very straightforward and simple with no issues. You just need to be aware of the size of your Vcenter Server to handle the workload, but still the resources needed is very minimal
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • Increased development speed and agility allows to build features faster and more economically.
    • Improved resource utilization helps keep applications running very efficiently, which saves on cloud service expenses.
    • Scalability and resilience allows for scaling up or down based on demand, which keeps applications running efficiently and more economically.
    Incentivized
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    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMWare ESXi licensing is affordable for our business - and the licensing model is simplistic. Not like that of Microsoft with having to keep track of server licenses and CAL licenses for users.
    • VMWare ESXi also has hardware-monitoring built-in, so that further saves us money from having to be spent with another vendor.
    • As much as I hate the saying "a single pane of glass" does fit for this product. You can manage your servers, monitor hardware status, create and export backup snapshots, manage virtual NICs, connect to various storage devices. We're very happy with this product.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots