Remember 2015? Cloud Foundry was everywhere, and everyone wanted a piece of the Platform-as-a-Service action. Fast forward to today, and Kubernetes has become the darling of the cloud-native world – and for good reason. Its flexibility and control has reshaped how we think about container orchestration. The debate has become almost religious in tech circles: Cloud Foundry is old school, Kubernetes is the future, and apparently, we must choose sides. However, this type of thinking is missing the point entirely, which is that technical teams should concentrate on what is the best technical decision for the use case, not what tool should hold the crown.
Here’s something interesting: while everyone’s been busy spending months building custom platforms and writing YAML, Cloud Foundry has been quietly evolving and delivering some pretty impressive results. The reality is, you don’t always need to build everything from scratch to get amazing outcomes. Whether you’re looking at Cloud Foundry or eyeing Kubernetes, or looking for a commercial out of the box easy button like Tanzu Platform, the goal is the same: spend less time wrestling with infrastructure and more time shipping great code. While the industry’s been caught up in this “new vs old” debate, Cloud Foundry has been quietly proving that maturity has its advantages, delivering real value in ways that might surprise even the most dedicated Kubernetes enthusiast.
The Numbers That Make You Go “Hmmmmm”
Recent studies have shown something that might raise eyebrows in the “Kubernetes or bust” crowd. Organizations that have switched to Cloud Foundry have seen significant improvements compared to previous operations, such as:
- Deploying applications 48% faster
- Reducing development costs by 36%
- Operating with 73% fewer platform engineers
- Achieving 90% security patch compliance within a week
These aren’t just statistics, they represent real business outcomes that contribute directly to the bottom line. Not too shabby for a platform some folks consider “yesterday’s news.”
The Developer Experience: A Tale of Two Deploys
Let’s start with a simple example. Here’s how you deploy an application in Cloud Foundry:
cf push my-app
That’s it. No, really. That’s the whole thing.
Now, let’s review a typical Kubernetes deployment:
- A Dockerfile (because containers)
- A deployment YAML (okay, fair enough)
- A service YAML (getting a bit much)
- An ingress YAML (sigh)
- Some config maps and secrets (of course)
- Namespace configuration (why not)
And that’s just for a “simple” deployment. No wonder developers are spending nearly half their time wrestling with infrastructure instead of writing actual code. It’s like trying to make a sandwich while juggling chainsaws – sure, you can do it, but should you?
The Hidden Costs of Freedom
“But wait,” I hear the Kubernetes fans say, “all that complexity gives us freedom and increased control!” And they’re not wrong. Kubernetes is incredibly powerful. But as Uncle Ben once said, with great power comes… a lot of YAML files.
Let’s break down what this “freedom” actually costs:
Learning Curve? More Like a Learning Wall
Let’s be honest – calling it a “curve” is being generous. To be effective with Kubernetes, developers need to master a daunting technical landscape. We’re talking container runtimes, network policies, storage classes, service meshes, DNS… and that’s just the appetizer. Add in Kubernetes-specific concepts like Pods, ReplicaSets, StatefulSets, RBAC, and about 1,000 CNCF projects, and you’re basically drinking from a fire hose while riding a unicycle blindfolded.
The impact? Teams report stark differences:
- Kubernetes: 6-12 months for developer proficiency
- Cloud Foundry: 2-3 days to first deployment, 2-3 weeks for mastery
The Cloud Foundry Difference
Instead of turning developers into infrastructure experts, Cloud Foundry lets them focus on what matters:
cf login
cf push my-app
That’s your Day One experience. Not Month Three. Not Week Six. Day One.
The learning path is practical and progressive:
- Start with basic deployments
- Add services as needed
- Scale when required
- Optimize when it matters
While Kubernetes teams spend months mastering container basics, networking, and platform specifics, Cloud Foundry teams are shipping code and delivering value.
The Maintenance Reality Check
Ever feel like your team is running on a perpetual IT treadmill? Then let’s talk about the elephant in the room that’s eating up your development time. Recent data shows teams spending over 200 developer hours monthly just keeping the lights on – that’s basically a full-time engineer whose sole job is feeding the maintenance monster instead of building features.
The Infrastructure Treadmill
Without Cloud Foundry, teams are stuck in an endless cycle:
- Updating base images
- Patching vulnerabilities
- Managing dependencies
- Coordinating cluster upgrades
- Fighting configuration drift
- Maintaining CI/CD pipelines
- Juggling cloud provider configurations
These hidden costs can pile up faster than technical debt:
- Environment provisioning takes 2-3 weeks
- Deployment debugging becomes a part-time job
- Service bindings turn into coordination nightmares
- Simple deployments require multiple team touchpoints
Breaking Free
Cloud Foundry flips the script by automating the mundane:
- Automatic base image updates
- Managed service bindings
- Coordinated upgrades
- Consistent environments
- Automated certificate management
- Built-in load balancing
What’s the outcome of maintenance toil? Teams using Kubernetes often find themselves spending a substantial portion of their development time on infrastructure maintenance and configuration – from managing cluster nodes and performing regular upgrades, to patching security vulnerabilities, troubleshooting network issues, and resolving configuration drift. This constant cycle of infrastructure management pulls developers away from feature development and into the weeds of operational tasks.
Organizations that switch to Cloud Foundry consistently report reductions in maintenance overhead due to its high-level abstractions and built-in automation. Instead of wrestling with platform management, security patches, and configuration issues, these tasks are handled automatically by the platform. This frees up developers to focus on what matters most: building cool stuff that delivers business value.
There’s also something to be said about the platform engineer to developer ratio you get with Cloud Foundry versus Kubernetes. Anecdotally we put Kubernetes at one Platform Engineer (PE) to every 10 developers. Meanwhile, Cloud Foundry customers are running their entire platform with just one engineer supporting 200 developers, with some established customers pushing that to 500. That’s not a typo – one platform engineer handling what would take 50 Kubernetes engineers to manage.
Think about your current team size. Now imagine needing fewer platform engineers while getting better results. That’s not just saving money – it changes how your entire team works and frees them to work on more strategic projects.
The Security Story: From Nightmare to Night’s Sleep
Here’s a mind-boggling stat: Cloud Foundry teams patch 90% of their applications within a week, while the industry average sits at 25%. Let’s unpack why.
The Container Security Challenge
Traditional container environments face a perfect storm of security hurdles:
- Base image vulnerabilities
- Container runtime risks
- Network policy complexities
- Storage permission headaches
- Service mesh security
- Secrets management nightmares
Add in common pitfalls like containers running as root, unscanned images, misconfigured policies, and exposed secrets, and you’ve got a security team’s worst nightmare.
The Cloud Foundry Shield
Instead of manual security whack-a-mole, Cloud Foundry automates security:
- Built-in image scanning
- Standardized network policies
- Integrated secrets management
- Automatic certificate rotation
- Default encrypted communication
The results speak volumes:
- Before: 25% of apps patched regularly, manual audits taking weeks
- After: 90% patched within a week, 38% reduction in security incidents
The Human Factor
Perhaps the biggest win isn’t technical – it’s human. Cloud Foundry turns security from a specialized function into a natural outcome:
- Standardized deployment processes
- Automated security controls
- Built-in best practices
- Reduced configuration complexity
When you cf push, you’re not just deploying code; you’re deploying with enterprise-grade security baked in. No security expertise required.
What Makes Cloud Foundry Special
1. Opinion as a Feature
Cloud Foundry has opinions – and that’s a good thing. It’s like having a really smart friend who’s already solved all the common problems. This leads to:
a) Easier deployment that just works consistently – Cloud Foundry gives you a consistent and proven path that lets your developers focus on code and platform engineers scale services up or down as necessary.
b) Built in support for best practices – We make the right thing the easy thing by giving you goodies like:
- Automatic certificate management (because nobody likes expired SSL certs)
- Standardized logging (apps need only output to stdout and stderr)
- Consistent environment deployments for dev and prod (no more “works on my machine)
- Built-in security policies (sleep better at night)
- Container lifecycle management (it’s like having a very attentive robot butler)
2. Application Lifecycle That Makes Sense
a) Health Management That Actually Helps
The platform watches your apps like a helicopter parent, but in a good way:
- Is it running? ✓
- Accepting traffic? ✓
- Getting enough resources? ✓
- Actually working? ✓
If anything goes wrong, it fixes it before you even notice. It’s like having a self-healing application infrastructure.
b) Zero-Downtime Everything
- Blue-green deployments? Automatic.
- Rolling updates? Built in.
- Canary deployments? You got it.
- A/B testing? Naturally.
3. Multi-tenancy That Works
The platform organizes things the way actual companies work:
- Organizations (for your bigger chunks)
- Spaces (for your projects)
- Applications (for, you know, apps)
This isn’t just nice to have – it’s helping organizations reduce their customer churn and cut down security incidents significantly.
When to Choose What
Cloud Foundry Shines When:
- You want developers writing code, not YAML
- You need things to “just run”
- You’re building standard web applications
- You value sleep over infrastructure control
Kubernetes Makes Sense When:
- You need to control everything
- You’re building complex microservices
- You have unusual workload requirements
- GPU intensive workloads (although the Tanzu Platform GenAI tile can help here as well)
- You have a team of infrastructure experts (and a big coffee budget)
Looking Forward
Here’s the plot twist – Cloud Foundry now runs on Kubernetes. It’s like getting the best of both worlds: the developer experience of PaaS with the infrastructure flexibility of Kubernetes. Industry experts predict this kind of hybrid approach will become increasingly common.
The Bottom Line
The perceived war between PaaS and CaaS was always a bit silly. It’s like debating whether you need a car or a truck – it depends entirely on what you’re trying to do.
Cloud Foundry’s focus on developer experience and built-in best practices is as important now as it ever was, especially as applications grow more complex. When teams are shipping code 48% faster and spending 36% less on development, that’s not just an efficiency gain – it’s a competitive advantage.
Think about it this way:
- Your CEO wants features in market faster
- Your CFO wants predictable costs
- Your CTO wants scalable, reliable systems
- Your CISO wants consistent security
- Your developers want to write code, not YAML
Tanzu Platform for Cloud Foundry delivers on all these fronts. Not because it’s a silver bullet, but because it follows a simple truth: constraints, thoughtfully applied, create freedom. The platform’s opinions aren’t limitations – they’re guardrails that keep you on the road to productivity.
Does this mean Kubernetes doesn’t have its place? Of course not, but it does mean we should stop pretending every development team needs bare-metal control of their infrastructure. Most teams need reliable, secure, and efficient paths to production. They need their platforms to be boring so their applications can be exciting.
Ready to Rethink Your Platform Strategy?
Start by asking yourself three questions:
- How much of your development time is spent on actual business logic versus infrastructure?
- What would your team do with 40% more development capacity?
- Could your current platform survive losing your key infrastructure person tomorrow?
If these questions make you uncomfortable, maybe it’s time to take a closer look at Tanzu Platform for Cloud Foundry.. VMware’s evolution of the Cloud Foundry experience into a modern application platform delivers enterprise-grade reliability with startup-speed deployment. Your developers will thank you, your security team will sleep better, and your business might just move a bit faster.
The choice isn’t about following the latest trend – it’s about picking the right tool for your needs. And sometimes the right tool is the one that just lets you get on with the job.
Want to see these benefits in action? VMware offers training where you can learn about Tanzu Platform for Cloud Foundry firsthand (just filter to find). Sometimes the best way to end the PaaS vs CaaS debate is to try it yourself and let the results speak for themselves.
Ready to explore what Tanzu Platform can do for your team? Looking for more information? Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn and we can show you how to deploy your first app in less time than it takes to write a Kubernetes configuration file.
Sources:
[2] 2023 State of DevOps Report, DORA/Google Cloud
[3] Cloud Native Computing Foundation Annual Survey 2023