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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Infrastructure as a Service
  4. Virtualization Platform
  5. Rancher vs VMware vSphere

Rancher vs VMware vSphere

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere
Stacks608
Followers550
Votes30
Rancher
Rancher
Stacks952
Followers1.5K
Votes644

Rancher vs VMware vSphere: What are the differences?

Differences between Rancher and VMware vSphere

Rancher and VMware vSphere are both popular solutions for managing and orchestrating virtualized infrastructure, but they have some key differences. Here are 6 main differences between the two:

  1. Architecture: Rancher is built on top of Kubernetes, making it a container management platform that focuses on orchestration and running distributed applications. On the other hand, VMware vSphere is a virtualization platform that provides features for running and managing virtual machines.

  2. Support for Containers: Rancher is specifically built to manage and orchestrate containers, providing features like automated deployment, scaling, and health monitoring for containerized applications. VMware vSphere, while it has some support for containers through its vSphere Integrated Containers solution, is primarily designed for virtual machines.

  3. Vendor Lock-In: Rancher is an open-source platform that allows you to run and manage containers on any infrastructure, whether it's on-premises or in the cloud. VMware vSphere, on the other hand, is a proprietary solution that requires you to use VMware's infrastructure and technologies.

  4. Scalability: Rancher is designed to scale horizontally, meaning you can easily add more nodes to your cluster to handle additional workloads. In contrast, VMware vSphere scales vertically, relying on adding more resources (CPU, memory, etc.) to a single node to handle increased demand.

  5. Ease of Use: Rancher has a user-friendly interface and a simple deployment process, allowing users to quickly set up and manage containerized environments. VMware vSphere, while it offers powerful features, can be more complex to set up and manage, requiring specialized knowledge and training.

  6. Cost: Rancher is open source, which means it's free to use. However, there may be costs associated with running and maintaining the underlying infrastructure. VMware vSphere is a commercial solution with licensing fees, and there may be additional costs for support and maintenance.

In summary, Rancher is a container management platform built on Kubernetes, focusing on orchestration and running distributed applications, with support for containers on any infrastructure. VMware vSphere is a virtualization platform for managing and running virtual machines, with limited support for containers and a focus on VMware's infrastructure and technologies.

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Detailed Comparison

VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere
Rancher
Rancher

vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Powerful Server Virtualization;Network Services;Efficient Storage;Consistent Automation;High Availability;Robust Security
Manage Hosts, Deploy Containers, Monitor Resources;User Management & Collaboration;Native Docker APIs & Tools;Monitoring and Logging;Connect Containers, Manage Disks, Deploy Load Balancers;Docker App Catalog; Included Kubernetes Distribution;Included Docker Swarm Distribution; Included Mesos Distribution;Infrastructure Management
Statistics
Stacks
608
Stacks
952
Followers
550
Followers
1.5K
Votes
30
Votes
644
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 8
    Strong host isolation
  • 6
    Industry leader
  • 5
    Great VM management (HA,FT,...)
  • 4
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Feature rich
Cons
  • 9
    Price
Pros
  • 103
    Easy to use
  • 79
    Open source and totally free
  • 63
    Multi-host docker-compose support
  • 58
    Load balancing and health check included
  • 58
    Simple
Cons
  • 10
    Hosting Rancher can be complicated
Integrations
No integrations available
Jenkins
Jenkins
Datadog
Datadog
Google Compute Engine
Google Compute Engine
Docker Compose
Docker Compose
Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean
GitHub
GitHub
Docker
Docker
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Drone.io
Drone.io

What are some alternatives to VMware vSphere, Rancher?

VirtualBox

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Kubernetes

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Portainer

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

Codefresh

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

Proxmox VE

Proxmox VE

It is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.

CAST.AI

CAST.AI

It is an AI-driven cloud optimization platform for Kubernetes. Instantly cut your cloud bill, prevent downtime, and 10X the power of DevOps.

k3s

k3s

Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. Supports something as small as a Raspberry Pi or as large as an AWS a1.4xlarge 32GiB server.

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