VMware vSphere Kubernetes Services (VKS) vs. Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (formerly Docker Enterprise)

VMware vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) is the CNCF-certified Kubernetes runtime built directly into VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), to run all apps. VKS is among the first platforms certified under the new CNCF Kubernetes AI Conformance Program. VKS enables platform engineers to easily deploy, manage and scale Kubernetes clusters while leveraging a comprehensive set of cloud services included in VCF, as well as all CNCF-conformant third party services.

Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (MKE) is the industry’s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, designed to provide organizations with total control over their strategic infrastructure. Powering some of the world’s largest production clusters, MKE 4 introduces a 100% open-source, "composable" architecture based on k0s. This shift allows platform engineers to precisely tailor their stack by swapping in validated CNCF ecosystem components for networking, ingress, and storage, avoiding the "black box" limitations of proprietary distributions.