People are rapidly moving towards new technology day by day. The containerized-based solutions for applications have now become so popular. OpenShift and Kubernetes are the two most common platforms for containerized deployment management. Most of the similar features are present between OpenShift and Kubernetes. However, some differences are also between them. We will explain some major differences between Kubernetes and OpenShift in this article.
OpenShift
OpenShift is an open-source and containerization-based application that is developed by Red Hat. It allows the user to run container-based apps and workloads. It has been written in AngularJS and the Go programming language. OpenShift has an Apache License and facilitates developers to deploy projects or applications to the cloud. It makes the development and deployment process fast with the core of Kubernetes.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is also an open-source containerized framework developed by Cloud Native Computing Foundation that is used to manage the workload and services. It automates the container base application-based development and deployment.
Similarities – Kubernetes and OpenShift
There are the following similarities that are common in both technologies:
- Both have machine-agnostic, productive for development, and IT, development teams.
- Both have modern and good architecture.
- They provide modernization features in distributed systems and application development on a large scale.
- They have scalable and robust architecture.
- Both increase the level of productivity of developers to a good degree.
| Differences based on Points | OpenShift | Kubernetes |
| Project / Product | OpenShift is a product. It allows users to install OpenShift that provides support with a paid subscription. | Kubernetes is an open-source project or framework. It provides support to the user from external experts and the knowledgeable community in case of any problem. |
| Installation | It has limited options when the installation starts. | You can install it on every Linux environment. |
| Flexibility | OpenShift has some limits related to flexibility. | Kubernetes provides much flexibility with the operating system. Helm charts are much more flexible as compared to OpenShift templates. |
| Cloud Platforms | Products are available on OpenShift Online, OpenShift Azure, and OpenShift Dedicated. | It is available on EKS on Amazon on AWS, GKE on Google GCP, and AKS on MS Azure. |
| Security | OpenShift has a very strict security policy. You need certain security permissions to maintain your security level. | It is easy to maintain security in Kubernetes. |
| Deployment Approach | OpenShift has a deployment Configuration as deployment config. | Kubernetes has deployment objects. These objects are implemented internally by the use of controllers and further used to update the pods. |
| Router vs ingress | Router objects permit external access to OpenShift. | Ingress objects permit external access to Kubernetes. They are more mature than router objects. |
| Management | OpenShift image streams make better management. | Container image management is not easy in Kubernetes. |
| User Experience | OpenShift provides good support to users. | In Kubernetes, users require some extra tools for a better user experience. |
| Networking | OpenShift provides a good networking solution to users. | Some of Kubernetes’ components do not have networking solutions. So, it provides third-party plugins. |
| Service Catalog | OpenShift provides a good service catalog. | Kubernetes provides less provision for better services in clusters. |
| Enterprise Level Use | OpenShift design and components support to an enterprise level. | Kubernetes has all categories but not all are specific for enterprise. |
| Learning | The web console layout is user-friendly and attractive. So, easy to control for beginners. | Kubernetes console layout is not so easy. So, it is hard to learn for beginners. |
| CI / CD | In OpenShift, integration of CI / CD is available with Jenkins. | In Kubernetes, CI / CD integration is possible in Jenkins but not integrated within a tool. |
Differences between Kubernetes vs OpenShift
As mentioned above, with some similarities, there are also some differences between the Openshift and Kubernetes, which we are listed in the comparison table below:
Kubernetes makes the base of OpenShift, OpenShift, and Kubernetes, both are container-based technologies and much similar to each other but in some cases differentiate from each other. OpenShift manages the cluster of Kubernetes. Kubernetes is used to manage many containers.
Kubernetes supports load balancing, auto-scaling, and managing storage to containers. It has powerful expert community support. OpenShift is self-powered with Kubernetes and it enables more convenience in managing the workloads along with different tools.
In OpenShift vs Kubernetes comparison. We have briefly explained some of the important differences between both of them. From all the differences, OpenShift is a much better choice because it has built-in features. The manageable logging, rollout, and monitoring operations keep OpenShift more popular as compared to the Kubernetes. The networking solutions, installing and integrating process, also make good for OpenShift and more demanding. Both technologies are quite similar, the extreme hot features of OpenShift is a big difference between Kubernetes and OpenShift.
Conclusion
In this article, we explore the major differences between OpenShifts and Kubernetes. We have also discussed which one is better among both for the user.