Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Google Compute Engine VS OpenShift

Compare Google Compute Engine VS OpenShift and see what are their differences

Google Compute Engine logo Google Compute Engine

Google Compute Engine is not just fast. Itโ€™s Google fast.

OpenShift logo OpenShift

OpenShift gives you all the tools you need to develop, host and scale your apps in the public or private cloud. Get started today.
  • Google Compute Engine Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-22
  • OpenShift Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-15

Google Compute Engine features and specs

  • Scalability
    Google Compute Engine offers robust scalability, allowing users to easily increase or decrease resources to match the workload demands. This ensures that businesses can handle growing traffic and data without unnecessary delays.
  • Performance
    GCE provides high-performance virtual machines with the ability to customize CPU, memory, and persistent disk configurations. The underlying infrastructure is optimized for high-speed operations.
  • Global Reach
    With data centers located around the world, GCE provides global reach and redundancy. This ensures low-latency access and high availability for applications and services.
  • Integration
    GCE integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services, such as Google Kubernetes Engine, BigQuery, and Cloud Storage. This ecosystem facilitates streamlined workflows and enhanced functionality.
  • Security
    GCE features multiple layers of security including encryption, identity management, and regular compliance audits. These measures ensure that data and applications are well-protected.
  • Cost-Effective
    With per-second billing and various pricing plans, GCE offers cost-effective solutions. Users only pay for what they use, which can lead to significant savings.

Possible disadvantages of Google Compute Engine

  • Complexity
    For new users, the wide range of services and options within GCE can be overwhelming. It may require a steep learning curve to fully understand and leverage all available features.
  • Support Costs
    While GCE offers various support plans, premium support options can be expensive. Smaller businesses might find the cost prohibitive compared to their budget.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Once services are deeply integrated with GCE, it may be difficult to migrate to another cloud provider. This could result in vendor lock-in and reduced flexibility for organizations.
  • Regional Availability
    Even though GCE has a broad global presence, not all services are available in every region. This can be a limitation for businesses that require specific features in certain geographic locations.
  • Network Egress Charges
    GCE charges for outbound data transfer, which can add up for applications serving large amounts of data across regions or the internet. Users need to monitor and manage egress costs carefully.

OpenShift features and specs

  • Comprehensive Platform
    OpenShift provides a complete Kubernetes-based container platform, including a strong set of integrated tools such as CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and logging, which simplifies the development and deployment of applications.
  • Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Support
    OpenShift supports hybrid and multi-cloud deployments, enabling organizations to build, deploy, and manage applications across on-premises infrastructure and multiple cloud providers.
  • Enterprise-grade Security
    It offers robust security features, including role-based access control (RBAC), built-in authentication and authorization, and integrated vulnerability scanning, ensuring secure application development and deployment.
  • Developer Productivity
    OpenShift boosts developer productivity with features like source-to-image (S2I) builds, self-service environments, and a rich catalog of pre-configured application templates and runtimes.
  • Scalability and High Availability
    It is designed to scale applications seamlessly and ensure high availability with automated horizontal pod scaling, load balancing, and failover capabilities.

Possible disadvantages of OpenShift

  • Complexity
    The comprehensive nature of OpenShift can lead to increased complexity, particularly for small teams or organizations without prior Kubernetes or container orchestration experience.
  • Cost
    Enterprise-grade features come with significant licensing costs, which might be a barrier for startups and small to medium-sized enterprises.
  • Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive range of features and integrations, there can be a steep learning curve for administrators and developers new to the platform.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    While OpenShift supports hybrid and multi-cloud environments, there can be concerns about vendor lock-in due to the level of customization and proprietary features specific to Red Hat's implementation.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running OpenShift efficiently requires substantial computational resources and infrastructure, which might be challenging for organizations with limited IT resources.

Analysis of Google Compute Engine

Overall verdict

  • Google Compute Engine is a strong choice for cloud computing needs, particularly if you're already using other Google Cloud services or require a scalable and reliable infrastructure.

Why this product is good

  • Google Compute Engine (GCE) is known for its robust infrastructure, scalability, and strong support for a variety of workloads. It offers customizable virtual machines with reliable security features and seamless integration with other Google Cloud services. Additionally, GCE benefits from Google's global network, providing high-performance and low-latency connectivity for users worldwide. Advanced features like Preemptible VMs and various machine types allow for cost-effective and flexible computing solutions.

Recommended for

  • Businesses looking for scalable and cost-effective cloud solutions.
  • Organizations utilizing other Google Cloud Platform services.
  • Developers who need a variety of machine types and advanced configuration options.
  • Enterprises requiring global reach and low-latency network performance.
  • Teams focusing on data-intensive applications or machine learning tasks.

Analysis of OpenShift

Overall verdict

  • OpenShift is considered a good choice, especially for enterprises looking for a robust, scalable, and secure platform for deploying applications at scale. Its integration of Kubernetes with additional developer tools makes it an excellent option for facilitating DevOps practices.

Why this product is good

  • OpenShift is a solid platform as it combines containers and Kubernetes with developer-centric tools to accelerate application development and deployment. It offers built-in CI/CD, security features, and extensive scalability options. The platform ensures consistency across hybrid environments, which simplifies the management of containerized applications.

Recommended for

  • Organizations seeking a comprehensive platform for container orchestration.
  • Development teams focused on improving their CI/CD pipelines.
  • Enterprises adopting hybrid or multi-cloud strategies.
  • Teams that require robust security and compliance features.
  • Businesses aiming for rapid application development and deployment.

Google Compute Engine videos

Getting Started with Google Compute Engine

OpenShift videos

OpenShift Container Platform by RedHat | Kubernetes Made Easy | Tech Primers

More videos:

  • Review - Open Source PaaS - OpenShift Review Part 1
  • Review - Red Hat OpenShift overview

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Google Compute Engine and OpenShift)
Cloud Computing
44 44%
56% 56
Cloud Infrastructure
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Hosting
27 27%
73% 73
VPS
62 62%
38% 38

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Google Compute Engine and OpenShift

Google Compute Engine Reviews

Alternatives to Amazon's Cloud Services (AWS)
Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Compute are the two biggest competitors to AWS attempting to offer a growing stack of service offerings.

OpenShift Reviews

Kubernetes Alternatives 2023: Top 8 Container Orchestration Tools
OpenShift is another container orchestration alternative for Kubernetes. It is a PaaS developed by Red Hat as a hybrid, enterprise-scale platform with extended Kubernetes capabilities for container orchestration. With a Linux OS, OpenShift helps you securely automate and scale the entire lifecycle of containerized applications. That means you can virtualize every host and...
OpenShift alternatives
The OpenShift platform was released by Red Hat โ€“ the maker of the professional Linux distribution โ€œRed Hat Enterprise Linuxโ€ (RHEL). The OpenShift alternative โ€œRancherโ€ has now been taken over by the traditional Linux provider SUSE. โ€œCanonical Kubernetesโ€, is another OpenShift alternative from an established Linux provider. Read on to find out more about these and other...
Source: www.ionos.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google Compute Engine seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 17 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Google Compute Engine mentions (17)

  • Decoding high-bandwidth memory: A practical guide to GPU memory for fine-tuning AI models
    For maximum control: Spin up a Compute Engine instance with the latest NVIDIA H100 or A100 Tensor Core GPUs and take full control of your environment. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • AWS Free Tier Changes on July 15, 2025
    Https://cloud.google.com/products/compute ? You get one e2-micro VM instance free per month. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Please bring neon db to GCP
    Surely you can run your own instances on some sort of "Compute" in GCP? https://cloud.google.com/products/compute. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Pickems website for MSI 2023
    The backend is written in node.js and is deployed using Google Compute Engine. I wanted to learn Kubernetes but it seemed more complicated and also more expensive than GCE. We also use mongodb. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Is it possible to host a Golang Application Free Indefinitely?
    Google seems to have a free tiny VM offering. AWS and Azure have one for a year. Of course, whether Google's will still be free in a year is whoknows. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

OpenShift mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of OpenShift yet. Tracking of OpenShift recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Google Compute Engine and OpenShift, you can also consider the following products

Amazon EC2 - Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

Google App Engine - A powerful platform to build web and mobile apps that scale automatically.

DigitalOcean - Simplifying cloud hosting. Deploy an SSD cloud server in 55 seconds.

Salesforce Platform - Salesforce Platform is a comprehensive PaaS solution that paves the way for the developers to test, build, and mitigate the issues in the cloud application before the final deployment.

Microsoft Azure - Windows Azure and SQL Azure enable you to build, host and scale applications in Microsoft datacenters.

Dokku - Docker powered mini-Heroku in around 100 lines of Bash