Small business=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 47 → 58 of 68
IBM · 1 category · RankedIBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
16Judge labels
0First choices
5Negative labels
10 / 14Models named it
1Category
October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.8, every buyer segment counted.
Best standing
0% in Managed Kubernetes for enterprise buyers
Rank 52 of 52 in the mid-market standing
0 of 14 models made it the first choice on the direct prompt; 67% of its 3 labels there were negative.
By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.
Small business65 of 76
0%2 labels
under the label threshold
Mid-market52 of 52
0%3 labels
under the label threshold
Enterprise14 of 52
0%11 labels
accepted challenger
In managed kubernetes · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading
Standing by category
Every category where a model named IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managed Kubernetes platforms | Cloud and infrastructure | 0% | 52 of 52 | 67% | 3 | under 10 labels · led by Google Kubernetes Engine at 43% | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. |
Movement
Since September 2026, IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service held within the floor in its one category: no change cleared 11 points.
Best category · Managed Kubernetes · by segment
Mid-market=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 43 → 46 of 46
Enterprise=heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked.
0%from 0% in September 2026
Inside the floor by 11 pointsRank 29 → 12 of 47
All categories · Mid-market
| Category | September 2026 | Now | Change | Reading | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Managed Kubernetes | 0% | 0% | =heldSince September 2026: 0% → 0%, ±0 points. Inside the 11-point floor: within noise. Read over the models both editions asked. | Within noise | Rank 43 → 52 of 52 |
Shares here are read over the models both editions asked, so they can differ by a point or two from the standing above, which counts every model in this edition.
The floor is 11 points of share, measured: how far the models move a leader on their own when the same questions are asked twice with nothing changed. A larger change is movement; a smaller one is noise, and both are shown. Movement is read over the twelve models both editions asked; GPT-6 Luna, Muse Glimmer 30B joined this edition and are in the standing but not yet in the comparison. How the floor is measured · The editions
By model
How each model treated IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
How each model treated IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.
ShowHide| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Grok 4.20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Kimi K2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
By framing
Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.
FramingLabels by classFirst choices
Direct2 labelsNone
Paraphrase1 labelNone
Comparative7 labelsNone
Budget-constrained0 labelsNone
Scale-constrained1 labelNone
Negative5 labelsNone
First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative16 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 0 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
No positive label carried a quote.
And against it
Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.
“Avoid these unless you are legally or contractually bound to their broader cloud ecosystems.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Managed Kubernetes · negative prompt · hard negative
“Historically had a smaller adoption base, fewer ecosystem integrations, and less community support” DeepSeek V4 Flash · Managed Kubernetes · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, over the 16 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, over the 16 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service was named but was not.
ShowHideProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head
A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.
What carried it into the answer
The sites and pages cited by the answers that named IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 15 of the 16 answers that named IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
linkedin.com7
qovery.com7
dev.to6
kubegrade.com6
mirantis.com6
devopsschool.com5
it-ai-index.com5
redhat.com5
spot.rackspace.com5
ibm.comYour site4
Fifty-two of the fifty-six domain citations in answers naming IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
Pages are listed as the models cited them.
Search and answers
Where IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.ShowHide
Search and answers
Where IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.
ShowHideIn search
Google, US estimates- Searches for its name, Google
- 50 a month (“ibm cloud kubernetes service”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 2 a month
- Its own site
- It sits on IBM's site (ibm.com), so there are no site figures for it alone
In answers
This editionShare of first choices
0%
rank 52 of 52 in managed kubernetes
Segment leader
43%
Google Kubernetes Engine
- First choices
- 0 across its categories
- Named in
- 16 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 15 of the answers that named it
Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Names read as IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service; a claim can dispute any of them.
IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service (IKS) 1IBM Kubernetes Service 1
Follow IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service
An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.
Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.
The company
IBM is the company behind IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.ShowHide
The company
IBM is the company behind IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service.
ShowHideOn record
Company recordsIn its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- The IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service provides a fully managed container service for Docker containers, so you can deploy and manage containerized apps on IBM Cloud.
- Price stated
- Get pricing options ibm.com/products/kubernetes-service
- Free plan or trial
- Kubernetes ecosystem — no charge ibm.com/products/kubernetes-service
- Customers named
- Etihad AirwaysHarry RosenCRM.comALM
- Not stated on the pages read
- Who it is for, starting price, integrations, certifications, hosting
What IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: ibm.com/products/kubernetes-service, developer.ibm.com/components/kubernetes, developer.ibm.com/blogs/kubernetes-helm-3, developer.ibm.com/blogs/kubernetes-vs-openshift, developer.ibm.com/tutorials/kafka-in-kubernetes. A claimed page can correct any of them.
Is this your product?
Claim this page
Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.
What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives
A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
- the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
- its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
- who was chosen in the answers that did not name IBM Cloud Kubernetes Service, and every reason the record gives;
- a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
- one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.