Google Cloud stood out as a leader in Forrester's first-quarter 2022 public cloud container platform (PCCP) analysis while rival cloud giants Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft didn't make the cut.

Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google Cloud, Huawei Cloud, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Tencent Cloud are the eight most significant PCCP providers today, according to Forrester's report. Forrester evaluated each provider based on its current offering, strategy, and market presence.

Google Cloud and its product portfolio, which includes Google Kubernetes Engine and Anthos, among others, is the best option for enterprises "that want extensive cutting-edge cloud-native capabilities for distributed workloads spanning public cloud, private cloud, and multi-cloud environments," the report's authors said.

Forrester noted Google's cloud-native roadmap targets simplicity at scale through "comprehensive coverage in service and application catalogs, microservice development support, service mesh support, serverless support, DevOps automation, container image support, control plane configuration, hybrid cloud support, and container networking."

Google's contributions to the ecosystem — from service mesh Istio, to its Knative serverless platform, to Kubernetes itself — have helped shape the world of cloud-native.

Despite its cloud-native prowess, however, the report said Google Cloud's weaknesses include its lack of a low-code development environment and minimal support for edge computing.

Alibaba Cloud is the other PCCP provider Forrester named as a leader in this space, citing its "rich cloud-native services" with the caveat of "uneven availability." The vendor's areas of strength are support for service mesh and container images, security features and policies, support for hybrid cloud and edge computing, and container storage and networking.

Alibaba customers told Forrester the vendor is particularly skilled at observability in logging and monitoring, efficient cluster lifecycle management, and simple integration with other services. Forrester noted the vendor's "solid features in microservice development support, DevOps automation, and prepackaged vertical solutions, but most of them are only available in China, which has a negative impact on the experiences of developers elsewhere."

AWS, which still holds the largest share of the cloud market, was named a strong performer in the PCCP arena and deemed "a good fit for firms that prioritize the breadth and global reach of a cloud provider’s offerings over the availability of cloud-native technologies," according to Forrester.

Although AWS "has a community-driven innovation roadmap with extensive coverage on a range of domains" and leads the competition in container runtime and registries support, Forrester reported a lack of support for prebuilt microservices frameworks, edge computing, and container storage. And AWS customers told Forrester the platform's limited cost management features are a common concern.

Forrester also named Microsoft and its Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) as a strong performer but highlighted its need to improve developer experiences. The vendor has "solid support for DevOps automation," but more "basic capabilities for service and app catalogs, microservices development support, and service mesh support," the report said.

AKS customers noted the well-designed monitoring dashboard, stability, and overall performance as the platform's highlights.

Huawei Cloud — which lacks modernization, an application catalog, and isn't available in much of the world — and Tencent Cloud —which "offers a solid container platform but lacks global presence" — were named as contenders.

Oracle is the lone challenger, only deemed "a suitable fit for existing Oracle enterprise customers that want to build on that relationship to modernize legacy applications and explore cloud-native technologies."

What features build a good managed container service? Here are a few key characteristics to look for when choosing a PCCP provider, according to Forrester.

You want a provider that offers prebuilt services and automation to accelerate cloud native application development. This might include a prebuilt application catalog, service mesh, function as a service, and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD). Automation features to look for include support for GitOps, low-code, and serverless apps.

"Top vendors provide rich prebuilt templates of Kubernetes operators and Helm charts, as well as native integration with development services and open source components in a wide range of domains," the report's authors explained. And all this should be a unified management approach across hybrid cloud environments.

Another key ability of leading PCCP vendors is automating all platform operations in hybrid environments. Look for a provider that offers cloud services like control plane configuration, security, monitoring, and cluster lifecycle management while prioritizing observability.

Finally, Forrester recommends choosing a provider that helps your enterprise build value through cloud-native marketplaces and robust partner ecosystems. Seek out vendors that "leverage app marketplaces and open source communities dedicated to cloud native to curate, integrate, and enhance the most popular open source cloud native technologies to address the broadest set of needs," the authors said.