Mirantis Kubernetes Engine

Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (MKE) is an enterprise Kubernetes platform — formerly Docker Enterprise, acquired by Mirantis in 2019 — that manages and secures container clusters at scale across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid environments.

What is Mirantis Kubernetes Engine?

Mirantis Kubernetes Engine has carried two heavy identities — as Docker Enterprise it anchored enterprise containerization, and since Mirantis acquired it in November 2019 it has been re-cast as an enterprise Kubernetes platform. The idea is simple on paper: one set of APIs and tools to deploy, manage, and observe secure-by-default, certified Kubernetes clusters on anything from bare metal to any public cloud or hybrid setup, complete with an integrated image registry (Docker Trusted Registry lineage), RBAC, and security scanning. On TrustRadius it earns a solid 8 out of 10 from 208 reviews, with reviewers leaning heavily on rock-solid production stability, strong documentation, and genuinely responsive support — but they also flag a real learning curve, opaque containers, and tangled logging and networking once you scale. The current MKE 4 generation was rebuilt around Mirantis's own open-source k0s Kubernetes to cut commercial-software cost and lock-in. It's built for IT teams that want a stable, batteries-included platform rather than assembling raw Kubernetes by hand.

Key Features

• Single-plane orchestration — One set of APIs and tools to deploy, manage, and observe clusters on bare metal, private data centers, public cloud, or hybrid environments
• Security scanning — Integrated vulnerability scanning for images plus RBAC, authentication, policy controllers, and DISA STIG / FIPS 140-2 hardened encryption
• Integrated Docker Trusted Registry — Built-in image registry line from Docker Enterprise for storing, signing, and promoting container images centrally
• Multi-tenancy & RBAC — Role-based access control with fine-grained teams and permissions for enterprise-scale, multi-team operation
• High availability — Automated failover, disaster recovery mechanisms, and HA configurations for uninterrupted production workloads
• CI/CD integration — Seamless hookups into existing continuous integration and delivery tools to streamline build and deploy
• Observability — Built-in monitoring, logging, and alerting for deep visibility into cluster health and performance
• Open-source core — Rebuilt around k0s/k3s Kubernetes so the stack stays composable, patchable, and free of some commercial lock-in
• Cross-cloud portability — Runs on bare metal, private, or public clouds with Calico networking and NGINX ingress included out of the box

Who is it for?

• Enterprise IT teams that need a certified, support-backed Kubernetes platform with on-prem and hybrid requirements
• Organizations moving off Docker Swarm or legacy Docker Enterprise who want a supported, batteries-included path
• Teams with compliance needs (finance, healthcare, government) that value STIG, FIPS, and strong RBAC
• Companies that prefer a single vendor for support rather than assembling raw Kubernetes themselves

Who is it NOT for?

• Small teams, startups, or solo devs — the licensing and operational overhead are prohibitively heavy
• Anyone already cloud-native on EKS, AKS, or GKE who doesn't need an on-prem/self-managed platform
• Teams that want a transparent, pay-as-you-go price instead of quote-driven enterprise contracts
• Ops teams that would rather manage vanilla Kubernetes than adopt a proprietary control plane