Much like Kubernetes, OpenShift is available in countless implementations. Red Hat, the maker behind OpenShift, provides various products. That’s one important difference to Kubernetes: OpenShift is a paid product. However, that means once purchased, you can expect professional support. While you need to rely on the voluntary help of experts from the community with Kubernetes, Red Hat offers guaranteed support.
Being a finished product, OpenShift not only offers ease of use but also a great degree of security. Since the system is self-contained and configured by the experts at Red Hat, you can count on high-security standards. By contrast, when you configure Kubernetes, you’re responsible for installing your own security measures.
Nonetheless, Red Hat also provides a free, open-source solution called OpenShift Origin. Its products are available as a Platform-as-a-Service. The packages offered by Red Hat may differ in detail, but they generally concern hosted versions. In other words, the company provides the necessary hardware and software configuration. You can then access a secure test environment with container technology via the internet. Running your own server is not necessary.
What all its products have in common is that they expand on Kubernetes. With OpenShift, you, therefore, get a Kubernetes distribution with additional service. So, instead of having to configure K8s yourself, OpenShift is a finished environment that can immediately be used for development, testing and deployment.