Google Kubernetes Engine vs KubeSphere
Google Kubernetes Engine
cloud.google.com
KubeSphere
kubesphere.ioSide by side
| Figure | Google Kubernetes Engine | KubeSphere |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.10/mo | $65/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 8 |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 8.7 (#3) | 8.9 (#1) |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California, USA | Beijing, China |
| Integrations | The product page names Config Sync, Cloud Service Mesh, Fleets, and AI Hypercomputer among GKE integrations or related services. | Official materials identify integrations or ecosystem collaboration with Jenkins, Grafana, Loki, Higress, KubeKey, OpenELB, KubeEye, Fluent Operator, and OpenFunction. |
| Intended users | Google describes GKE as a foundation for platform builders and enterprise developer platforms, as well as for teams training and serving AI models. | The product site describes benefits for infrastructure teams, developers, operations teams and end users deploying applications on Kubernetes. |
| Purpose | Google Kubernetes Engine is a managed environment for running containerized applications. | KubeSphere is a Kubernetes-based distributed operating system for cloud-native application management with a plug-and-play architecture for third-party applications. |
| Security | GKE’s security dashboard provides visibility into cluster misconfigurations and risks, and agentless scanning for critical vulnerabilities. | The Enterprise kernel adds security features including image security hardening, two-factor authentication and vulnerability fixes. |
Plans
Google Kubernetes Engine
- Free tierFree
- Cluster management fee$0.10 a month
KubeSphere
- KubeSphere Backup FreeFree
- KubeSphere Community EditionFree
- KubeSphere Community EditionFree
- KubeSphere Backup Basic$65 a month
- KubeSphere Backup Standard$200 a month
- KubeSphere Backup Enterprise$340 a month
- KubeSphere Backup ExclusivePriced on request
- KubeSphere EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Google Kubernetes Engine
Google Kubernetes Engine is a managed environment for running containerized applications. It manages the Kubernetes control-plane life cycle for each cluster, from creation to deletion. Teams using Autopilot can hand node provisioning, scaling, scheduling and infrastructure management to Google, while users who prefer can manage nodes themselves. Autopilot also includes automatic capacity right-sizing and per-pod pricing. GKE supports GPU and TPU workloads and connects with AI Hypercomputer for machine-learning and high-performance computing. The product page states that clusters can reach 65,000 nodes. Security features include visibility into configuration issues and risks, agentless scanning for critical vulnerabilities, workload isolation through GKE Sandbox and hardware-based encryption for data in use with Confidential GKE Nodes. Fleets and Teams help organize clusters and workloads across teams. It also supports conformant attached Kubernetes clusters and says applications can run unmodified on on-premises hardware or in public cloud. Windows Server node images and containers are unavailable in Autopilot. A free tier and trial are listed, with a $9/mo starting price.
KubeSphere
KubeSphere is a Kubernetes-based platform for managing cloud-native applications, with a plug-in architecture for third-party applications and open-source tools. Its Community Edition is an open-source container platform and costs nothing, with free-forever availability for a self-managed Kubernetes platform. The platform supports multi-tenancy and multi-cluster management, with monitoring, event and audit-log queries, tenant log collection, alerting and notifications. Delivery features include Jenkins-based CI/CD and automated Source-to-Image and Binary-to-Image workflows. KubeSphere supports online or offline installation, one-click upgrades and cluster scaling across infrastructure environments. Its REST API backend includes an API server and controller manager. Enterprise adds image security hardening, two-factor authentication, vulnerability fixes and permission controls at platform, cluster and application levels. Enterprise is available by on-demand subscription or private deployment, with extensions available by subscription; pricing is available from sales. Its lightweight architecture can run with 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of memory.