Kubernetes vs. OpenShift: A Thorough Comparison

Gartner predicts that by 2022, more than 75% of global organizations will be running containerized applications in production, which is a significant increase from fewer than 30% today

Containerization is the latest jargon today, in the world of IT, primarily to develop and deploy apps in an accelerated manner. In the era of serverless computing and container technology, containers have become highly popular for a long time now. With the increase in popularity, there is an increase in the complexity levels of large containerized applications. Here comes the need of efficient container management platforms that can help in easily managing containerized applications. Today, Kubernetes and OpenShift are two big names in this arena and have become a major player in the container revolution. Popular, effective, scalable, robust and simplistic – both have their own user community to boast of.

Here is a certain feature list that is present in both – Kubernetes as well as OpenShift:

• Productive, machine-agnostic concepts for development and IT teams
• A modern, future proof architecture
• Modernization in distributed systems and large-scale app development
• A robust and scalable architecture
• Enhances the productivity level of developers to a great degree

By the year 2020, more than 50% of companies will use container technology, up from less than 20% in 2017

Here is the first glance at both the container management platforms and their introductory parameters:

Let us go through the nuances of Kubernetes and OpenShift, understanding them further and knowing their strength areas:

Kubernetes

“Kubernetes (commonly stylized as k8s[3]) is an open-source container-orchestration system for automating application deployment, scaling, and management.” – Wikipedia

“Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications”. – Kubernetes

Originally born at Google, Kubernetes was released in 2015 as an open-source tool for all. Later, Google handed over the entire project to Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), operated by the Linux Foundation. Kubernetes is an open-source container as a service (CaaS) orchestration systems that automate deploying, scaling and managing of containerized apps, speeding up the development procedure. Since it has been handled by Google taskforce, there is a certain level of maturity that exists.

Key Features Of Kubernetes

• Offers the freedom to take advantage of on-premises, hybrid, or public cloud infrastructure, letting you effortlessly move workloads
• Rigorous self-checking of servers and containers
• Scalable enough to modify storage needs based on requirements
• Executable in varied environments and cloud setups
• Can automatically choose the ideal container location
• Seamless integration with popular storage systems
• Strong and active user community support
• Wide enriched support to multiple languages and frameworks

Who Uses Kubernetes?

Spotify, Nav, IBM, Nokia, AppDirect, Philips, Ant Financial, China Unicom, Amadeus, Bose, Comcast, eBay and many more

Openshift

“OpenShift is a family of containerization software developed by Red Hat. Its flagship product is the OpenShift Container Platform—an on-premises platform as a service built around Docker containers orchestrated and managed by Kubernetes on a foundation of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.” – Wikipedia

“The Kubernetes platform for big ideas. Empower developers to innovate and ship faster with the leading hybrid cloud, enterprise container platform” – OpenShift

Red Hat® OpenShift® is supported Kubernetes for cloud-native applications with enterprise security

Developed by Red Hat, OpenShift is a containerization software solution whose prime product is OpenShift container platform, a PaaS managed by Kubernetes. OpenShift has been often called as “Enterprise Kubernetes” by its vendor – Red Hat. It has been written the Go programming language and AngularJS. It possesses an Apache License. The original version facilitates developers to develop and deploy apps to the cloud and appends tools over a Kubernetes core to fasten development and deployment process.

Key Features Of Openshift

• Supports multiple languages such as Go, Node JS, Ruby, Python, Java, Perl, PHP, etc.
• Rapid app development with DevOps methodology
• Enables scaling of containerized applications automatically or manually
• Inbuilt security checks across the container and application stack
• Application visualization and monitoring through Prometheus
• Unified policy implementation for users
• Compatible with Kubernetes container workloads
• Easy migration to newer OS without rebuilding containerization orchestration

Who Uses OpenShift?

Optus, HCA Healthcare, Deutsche bank, BMW, Intermountain Healthcare, ThoughtWorks, Worldpay Inc and many more

Kubernetes V/s OpenShift – A Comprehensive Comparison Of Important Parameters

Subsequently, OpenShift is grounded on Kubernetes and hence, there is a lot of similarity between both. Yet, there are some variances between both the platforms, depending on important parameters.

Which One to Choose, Is Always A Tough Question

Both are open-source; both have a common base with Kubernetes at the core of OpenShift; both are popular, and both aim to facilitate faster application development. Because of its unique features and reliance on Kubernetes, OpenShift does have an added advantage of easy installation. Kubernetes is experienced and well-proven; it does require a proper strategy for installation. Kubernetes is a standardized version and is available on an increased number of platforms than OpenShift. But, OpenShift has many inbuilt components that makes app containerization faster and effective. On top of both, comes a crucial decision – choosing the IT service provider who has the experience, expertise, and infrastructure to help you with the entire application development lifecycle. That holds more crucial and hence should be thought of, very sincerely.