Rancher VS Google Kubernetes Engine

Compare Rancher VS Google Kubernetes Engine and see what are their differences

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Rancher

Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Google Kubernetes Engine

Google Kubernetes Engine is a powerful cluster manager and orchestration system for running your Docker containers. Set up a cluster in minutes.

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2023-07-24

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2023-02-05

Rancher

Website: rancher.com
Pricing URL: Official Rancher Pricing
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Google Kubernetes Engine

Website: cloud.google.com
Pricing URL: -
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Rancher features and specs

Ease of Use
Rancher provides an intuitive interface for managing Kubernetes clusters, making it accessible for both seasoned DevOps professionals and those new to container orchestration.
Multi-Cluster Management
Rancher simplifies the management of multiple Kubernetes clusters, whether they are on-premise, in the cloud, or a combination of both, from a single dashboard.
Comprehensive Monitoring
Rancher includes built-in monitoring and alerting features using Prometheus and Grafana, providing robust insights into cluster health and performance.
Security and Access Control
Rancher offers detailed Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies to ensure that users have appropriate permissions, enhancing security and compliance.
Integrated CI/CD Pipelines
Rancher integrates seamlessly with popular CI/CD tools, streamlining the development and deployment process across multiple environments.
Scalability
Rancher is designed to easily scale with your needs, supporting a large number of clusters and nodes efficiently.
Open-Source
Rancher is an open-source project, which means it is free to use and benefit from community contributions and transparency.

Possible disadvantages of Rancher

Complex Initial Setup
While Rancher simplifies ongoing management, the initial setup and configuration can be complex and time-consuming for newcomers.
Resource Intensive
Running Rancher can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial CPU and memory, which might be a concern for smaller environments or budgets.
Potential Overhead
Introducing Rancher adds an additional layer between the user and the Kubernetes clusters, potentially introducing latency and an extra point of failure.
Learning Curve
Despite its user-friendly interface, Rancher encompasses a wide array of features that require time and effort to learn and utilize fully.
Limited Vendor Support
Some cloud providers have more robust support and native tools for their Kubernetes services, which might make Rancher less appealing if tight integration with a specific provider's ecosystem is required.

Google Kubernetes Engine features and specs

Managed Service
GKE is a fully managed service, which means Google takes care of tasks like provisioning, maintenance, and updates of the cluster, reducing the operational burden on users.
Scalability
GKE offers robust scalability options, allowing you to easily scale your applications up or down based on demand. This is facilitated through auto-scaling features for both nodes and pods.
Integration with Google Cloud Services
GKE integrates seamlessly with other Google Cloud services such as Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and more, providing a streamlined experience for leveraging multiple cloud tools.
Security
GKE offers advanced security features like private clusters, and integrates with Google Cloud IAM, which allows for fine-grained access control, helping to secure your Kubernetes environment.
Ease of Use
GKE's comprehensive dashboard, command-line interface, and supporting documentation make it easy to deploy, manage, and monitor Kubernetes clusters.
Global Reach
With GKE, you can deploy clusters across multiple regions and zones, giving you the ability to build highly available, geographically dispersed applications.

Possible disadvantages of Google Kubernetes Engine

Cost
While GKE offers extensive features, it can be more expensive compared to other Kubernetes solutions, especially when additional services and high-availability features are utilized.
Limited Customization
As a managed service, GKE has some limitations in terms of customization and control over the underlying infrastructure compared to self-managed Kubernetes environments.
Complexity
Despite its ease of use features, GKE still requires a certain level of expertise to efficiently manage Kubernetes clusters, which can be a steep learning curve for beginners.
Dependence on Google Cloud
Using GKE ties you to the Google Cloud ecosystem, which may limit flexibility if you decide to migrate to a different cloud provider or adopt a multi-cloud strategy.
Resource Constraints
Like all cloud services, GKE nodes can be subject to resource limits and quotas imposed by Google Cloud, which can impact performance if not properly managed.
SLA and Downtime
While Google Cloud offers Service Level Agreements (SLAs), there is still a risk of downtime which could affect your applications. Additionally, relying on a third-party provider means issues may take time to resolve.

Rancher videos

+ Add

Slime Rancher Review - Worthabuy?

Google Kubernetes Engine videos

+ Add

Getting Started with Containers and Google Kubernetes Engine (Cloud Next '18)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Rancher and Google Kubernetes Engine)

Rancher

Google Kubernetes Engine

DevOps Tools

78 78%

DevOps Tools

22% 22

Developer Tools

62 62%

Developer Tools

38% 38

Cloud Computing

53 53%

Cloud Computing

47% 47

Continuous Integration And Delivery

100 100%

Continuous Integration And Delivery

0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Rancher and Google Kubernetes Engine. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews

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

Rancher Reviews

Kubernetes Alternatives 2023: Top 8 Container Orchestration Tools

Rancher is an open-source container orchestration platform. With it, you can manage production containers across different platforms, including on-premises and the public cloud. As a Platform as a Service, it simplifies container management by allowing access to a set of available open source technologies, rather than having to build platforms from scratch.

Source: www.servertribe.com

Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023

Rancher also offers integration with popular container runtimes and networking solutions, making it an excellent choice for teams seeking a comprehensive PaaS solution for their Kubernetes deployments.

Source: humalect.com

11 Best Rancher Alternatives Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform

Create a Kubernetes cluster, then link it to Rancher to use Rancher with Kubernetes. Rancher offers a web-based dashboard, an API, tools for deploying and scaling containerized apps and services, and resources for managing and monitoring your cluster.

Source: technicalustad.com

Docker Alternatives

An open-source code, Rancher is another one among the list of Docker alternatives that is built to provide organizations with everything they need. This software combines the environments required to adopt and run containers in production. A rancher is built on Kubernetes. This tool helps the DevOps team by making it easier to testing, deploying and managing the...

Source: www.educba.com

Heroku vs self-hosted PaaS

All in all I’m intrigued by Rancher but since I am looking for something simple then it is too advanced and resource intensive for my small side projects. I will however look into Rancher a bit more later and try to deploy one of my projects to it. That will probably be a blog post in it’s own!

Source: www.mskog.com

Google Kubernetes Engine Reviews

Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is a prominent choice for a Kubernetes alternative. It is provided and managed by Google Cloud, which offers fully managed Kubernetes services.

Source: humalect.com

11 Best Rancher Alternatives Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform

Google Kubernetes Engine is a CaaS (container as a service) platform that lets you easily create, resize, manage, update, upgrade, and debug container clusters. Google Kubernetes Engine, aka GKE, was the first managed Kubernetes service, and therefore, it is highly regarded in the industry.

Source: technicalustad.com

Top 10 Best Container Software in 2022

If you need a speedy creation of developer environments, working on micro services-based architecture and if you want to deploy production grade clusters then Docker and Google Kubernetes Engine would be the most suitable tools. They are very well suited for DevOps team.

Source: www.softwaretestinghelp.com

7 Best Containerization Software Solutions of 2022

If you’re looking for a managed solution to help you deploy and scale containerized apps on your virtual machines quickly, Google Kubernetes Engine is a great choice.

Source: techgumb.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Google Kubernetes Engine should be more popular than Rancher. It has been mentiond 49 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.

Rancher mentions (24)

Terraform code for kubernetes on vsphere?
I don't know in which extend you plan to use Kubernetes in the future, but if it is aimed to become several huge production clusters, you should looks into Apps like Rancher: https://rancher.com. Source: over 2 years ago
I want to provide some free support for community, how should I start?
But I think once you have a good understanding of K8S internal (components, how thing work underlying, etc.), you can use some tool to help you provision / maintain k8s cluster easier (look for https://rancher.com/ and alternatives). Source: over 2 years ago
Don't Use Kubernetes, Yet
A few years, I would have said no. Now, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Personally, I think that you can use something like Rancher (https://rancher.com/) or Portainer (https://www.portainer.io/) for easier management and/or dashboard functionality, to make the learning curve a bit more approachable. For example, you can create a deployment through the UI by following a wizard that also offers you... - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
Building an Internal Kubernetes Platform
Alternatively, it is also possible to use a multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud approach, which combines several cloud providers or even public and private clouds. Special tools such as Rancher and OpenShift can be very useful to run this type of system. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
Five Dex Alternatives for Kubernetes Authentication
Rancher provides a Rancher authentication proxy that allows user authentication from a central location. With this proxy, you can set the credential for authenticating users that want to access your Kubernetes clusters. You can create, view, update, or delete users through Rancher’s UI and API. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago

Google Kubernetes Engine mentions (49)

Google Cloud Unveils A4 VMs with NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for AI
Integration with Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), which supports up to 65,000 nodes per cluster, facilitating robust AI infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
Deploy Gemini-powered LangChain applications on GKE
In my previous post, we explored how LangChain simplifies the development of AI-powered applications. We saw how its modularity, flexibility, and extensibility make it a powerful tool for working with large language models (LLMs) like Gemini. Now, let's take it a step further and see how we can deploy and scale our LangChain applications using the robust infrastructure of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and the... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
Securing Applications Using Keycloak's Helm Chart
Kubernetes cluster: You need a running Kubernetes cluster that supports persistent volumes. You can use a local cluster, like kind or Minikube, or a cloud-based solution, like GKE%20orEKS or EKS. The cluster should expose ports 80 (HTTP) and 443 (HTTPS) for external access. Persistent storage should be configured to retain Keycloak data (e.g., user credentials, sessions) across restarts. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
Simplify development of AI-powered applications with LangChain
In a later post, I will take a look at how you can use LangChain to connect to a local Gemma instance, all running in a Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) cluster. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
26 Top Kubernetes Tools
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) is another managed Kubernetes service that lets you spin up new cloud clusters on demand. It's specifically designed to help you run Kubernetes workloads without specialist Kubernetes expertise, and it includes a range of optional features that provide more automation for admin tasks. These include powerful capabilities around governance, compliance, security, and configuration... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago