VM

VMware Tanzu

Kubernetes for the Enterprise, Built on vSphere

Founded 1998Palo Alto, CA30,000+ employees

VMware Tanzu brings Kubernetes to organizations with existing VMware vSphere investments, allowing containers and VMs to run on the same infrastructure. Tanzu Mission Control provides multi-cloud cluster management. Tanzu Application Platform (TAP) delivers a developer experience built on Backstage. Note: Broadcom acquisition (2023) has significantly restructured licensing and support.

Analyst Findings

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Verified

Tanzu is the best Kubernetes platform for organizations with existing VMware vSphere infrastructure

Confirmed for vSphere-centric environments. Running Kubernetes on vSphere via Tanzu Kubernetes Grid eliminates the need for separate bare-metal infrastructure, leverages existing vSphere admin skills, and provides NSX-T network integration. For organizations where vSphere is the primary infrastructure platform, Tanzu provides the lowest operational friction path to Kubernetes.

Dr. Sarah Chen
Reviewed 2026-01-10
Disputed

Broadcom acquisition has not significantly changed Tanzu licensing or support

This is inaccurate. The Broadcom acquisition of VMware (completed late 2023) resulted in significant changes to VMware l...

Caveat

Tanzu Mission Control manages Kubernetes clusters across any cloud

Tanzu Mission Control does provide multi-cloud cluster management, but depth of management varies by cluster type. vSphe...

Feature Specifications

GAGenerally AvailableBetaPublic BetaRoadmapOn Roadmap

Kubernetes

Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (TKG)

vSphere-integrated K8s clusters

GA
Tanzu Mission Control (TMC)

Multi-cloud cluster lifecycle management

GA
Cluster API support
GA
Helm Support
GA
GitOps (Flux-based)
GA
vSphere with Tanzu (Workload Management)

Run K8s pods natively on vSphere

GA

Developer Experience

Tanzu Application Platform (TAP)

Developer platform built on Backstage

GA
Tanzu Developer Portal (Backstage)
GA
Supply Chain Choreographer

Secure software supply chain

GA
Tanzu Build Service (Cloud Native Buildpacks)
GA

Networking

Antrea CNI
GA
NSX-T Integration
GA

Security

Tanzu Application Platform Security (TAPS)
GA
Harbor Registry (image scanning)

Open-source, graduated CNCF project

GA
FIPS 140-2
GA

Storage

vSphere CSI Driver
GA
Tanzu Data Services

Lifecycle management for databases on K8s

GA

Deployment

On-premises (vSphere)
GA
AWS (TKG on AWS)
GA
Azure (TKG on Azure)
GA
Air-gapped
GA

Observability

Tanzu Observability (Wavefront)
GA
vRealize Operations Integration
GA

Recent News

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Deployment Options

On-premises (vSphere required for TKG)
AWS (TKG on EC2)

Self-managed

Azure (TKG on Azure VMs)

Self-managed

Air-gapped
Tanzu Mission Control (SaaS management plane)
FedRAMP

Not FedRAMP authorized; GovCloud use requires custom engagement

Compliance & Certifications

SOC 2 Type II
ISO 27001
HIPAA
GDPR
FedRAMP

FedRAMP roadmap uncertain post-Broadcom acquisition

FIPS 140-2

Integrations

Hypervisor

VMware vSphere

Cloud

AWS (TKG)Microsoft Azure (TKG)

Networking

NSX-T (networking)

Registry

Harbor (registry)

Automation

Terraform

CI/CD

JenkinsGitHub Actions

Observability

Wavefront / Aria OpsDatadog