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CentOS vs Oracle Solaris vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 5.1%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Solaris is 2.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.6%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Mahender Nirwan - PeerSpot reviewer
In-depth documentation available and command-line utility works well
One issue I recently faced, but I think it was due to my IT support guys, was that when the server storage gets full, the service crashes. It's very difficult to regain access and stability in that situation. That could be improved. So, the stability might be improved. But I don't think it's a CentOS-level issue. The system administrators need to come up with a solution for that, but I don't think it's CentOS's fault. I haven't done any research [R&D] on this issue. There's one thing for sure. We recently migrated from CentOS 7 to CentOS 9, and it was a bit difficult. For example, updating Windows is simple; you just download it, and it takes about 15-20 minutes. But that's not the case with migrating from CentOS 7 to 9. We had to back up the entire server, launch a new server, and then restore the backup to the new server. We couldn't directly migrate. I think that was a bit of a problem. The setup and updates are not that new in CentOS.
Erick Kathurima - PeerSpot reviewer
Has enabled a user-friendly and lightweight installation with improved performance
I installed Oracle Solaris on a normal PC to test its functionality. It is comfortable to use and provides a good test environment, especially because it is not commonly known or recognized in the market Oracle Solaris has a graphical interface that is user-friendly, especially with its use of…
Bruce Lundberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable patch management, high uptime, and incredible knowledge base
In terms of security, it does a lot of things that most people still turn off. SELinux is turned on by default. They have pretty good firewall rules in their defaults. The audit rules always take tweaking, but, overall, it comes out of the box not too bad. I used to write scripts to harden them from there. There are multiple ways to provision and patch. You have everything from local repositories to doing it by hand. Their knowledge base is incredible. There is so much information out there. It has never taken me longer than 30 minutes to find an answer to anything, even very tough ones. One company I worked for was a security company, and we did a lot of patching on everything. It was designed around security and email hosting, and uptime was pretty much whatever we wanted it to be. I have had a couple of times when the uptime was bad, but it was caused by a third-party solution. In fact, the Norton antivirus was definitely the worst. Red Hat had nothing to do with it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Offers useful information and has good compatibility."
"It is a scalable and cost-effective product compared to public cloud solutions."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"CentOS adapts well to many software and applications, providing good compatibility."
"A valuable features of CentOS is that it's quite stable and doesn't crash often. It's also quite intuitive."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
"The most valuable feature is the limited resources the solution uses in operation."
"It's less expensive than Red Hat."
"Oracle Solaris's operating system is good."
"Oracle Solaris is pre-installed in our environment. Thus, it is simple to customize."
"Oracle Solaris was the preferred operating system for their customers to run their databases on and to get the best performance. It performs well with Oracle applications. Additionally, there are some features inside that are called zones which are Linux containers."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Solaris is the incremental backup that happens in the system."
"This product is stable, has good documentation, lots of solutions, a big community, and good support."
"Solaris's best features are high availability, robustness, and database hosting."
"One of the main advantages is the rock-solid reliability. It works. The stability is very good. It has a very good track record in the data security database."
"The stability of the solution is good."
"The tool is simple and easy to use. It has good support and doesn't have many outages due to the OS."
"The most valuable feature is Satellite. Its consistency in patch upgradation is great. For the ten-year lifecycle, we have been able to rely on it and not worry if the patch will break. We do not need additional patching features since it covers everything."
"RHEL has made our operations more reliable by giving us a more repeatable process. After we've built it once, we know it will work the same way the next time we build it. It has reduced the time I spend training my operations team, and the cost of ownership is low."
"One of the valuable features is that it's convenient."
"The support and the stability are Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable areas."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is easy to manage, update, and integrate. I also like Red Hat Enterprise Linux's built-in security features. You need to enable them by default or keep them enabled if you want your system to be secured. It protects most of the system components."
"Enterprise support is available for our customers."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is stable and secure; these are the two biggest factors that drive our usage."
 

Cons

"CentOS is not easy."
"The price could be better. They could add more drivers in terms of peripherals and other things. Add more drivers for the Linux specifications in the next release. Right now, they are just pushing to have more drivers for Windows instead of Linux."
"GUI could be merged and expansion simplified."
"The solution could be more scalable."
"The main issue is the End of Support. For that reason, we will switch to another operating system."
"The solution is stable, however, it could always be even more stable if possible."
"The solution could improve by being more user-friendly."
"The tool has no official support."
"Currently, there are two variants, there's SPARC and there's x86. I would have wanted a scenario where they're all just one product."
"More monitoring tools could be included in the product."
"I don't want to receive any updates on Oracle"
"The solution is pricey and can be improved by lowering the cost."
"Solaris is not easy to use. It needs better GUI, UI, and configuration tools."
"One of the drawbacks is Oracle itself. Oracle has its good and bad they are not putting resources into the development."
"I believe before Oracle was using Oracle Linux, they were using Oracle Solaris for their customers who are using Oracle databases. This was because it was more optimized for the hardware built for it. It has good performance for the database only. However, if you take it out of the Oracle applications, it will not do well compared to other operating systems, such as Linux or even Windows can have better performance."
"The challenge arises from the differences in commands and configurations compared to more common systems like Linux."
"I believe they need to improve in terms of compatibility between services. I know that it's difficult to follow the different versions and maintain compatibility."
"Sometimes the solution deletes our archives or other features that were useful to us."
"I'm also using IBM AIX, which supports a tool called Smitty. You just put Smitty, and you can do anything. At the backend, the command will run automatically. It is not exactly like a GUI, but you just give the input and it will give you the output. That is something that Red Hat should work on. That would be an added advantage with Red Hat."
"The cost could be lower. Red Hat is considered a costly solution. It can be expensive if you want all the features in the license. A cheaper license would make Red Hat more accessible to a broader range of users."
"Data migration issues during upgrades can sometimes arise from the layers above Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
"We had issues migrating from the old to the new RHEL version in the virtual environment. It forced us to spin up a new virtual environment to have the new RHEL version."
"Sometimes they don't have new versions for applications like Apache or PHP. I understand it's because they have to have support for them, so they can't have the latest version all the time, but that's the main thing I see that could be improved."
"The cost of this solution could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm not required to pay a licensing fee."
"There are no licensing fees for CentOS."
"We have a CentOS license that we pay for on a yearly basis."
"The solution is free of cost to use."
"The solution is not subscription-based, unlike Red Hat."
"The solution is open source."
"The product is free."
"The price could be better. The cost depends on how the organization or a specific person licenses it. If you want the free version, there's Ubuntu which is supported by forums. You can pay for the license yearly or pay for a specific version."
"It is more expensive, but very complete and worth enacting."
"It is a very expensive product."
"The current setup with hardware devices involves a higher cost, but the performance is top-notch."
"We don't use an authorized license."
"There are no licensing fees but you can opt to pay for support."
"Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
"The solution is free to use."
"The annual license cost is fair and reasonable."
"The licensing is tricky to understand. Enterprises want to be beyond reproach when it comes to licensing. We would rather over-license than under-license. However, that can be complicated with a high-performance development team who may need multiple operating system instances or want to experiment with spinning up many machines to see if something works or sticks."
"The price for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is reasonable."
"The licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux in Peru is very expensive."
"RHEL has a decent pricing model. It's a subscription, which makes sense. The OS itself is free, but you pay for the support. I have never heard any complaints about the pricing."
"For me, it is not too bad, but my company pays the bill, so I do not worry too much about it."
"Lowering the cost of enterprise-level offerings could attract organizations seeking operating systems or Kubernetes solutions, as these tools are essential for many businesses in the region."
"This is a cost-effective solution."
"From a management point of view, it's quite good, but everyone is complaining that it's more expensive than the other operating systems."
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 24, 2017
It's improved our company's system environments that run Oracle databases.
Red Hat is mission critical to our environment Red Hat has improved the mission critical environments running Oracle databases, while CentOS has improved our web environment and MySQL. Oracle and SAP Environment and all HPC environments. 10 years No issues Very stable i don´t find any problem…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which would you choose - RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or CentOS?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is fantastic. It is an inexpensive solution that has excellent security, performance, and st...
What do you like most about CentOS?
CentOS is very easy to use, and all the commands are user-friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CentOS?
CentOS is a free product with free updates. There are third-party companies available for support, but they charge va...
How does Oracle Linux compare with Solaris?
When comparing Oracle Linux and Solaris, I believe that Linux is more secure and more flexible. It is also very suita...
What do you like most about Oracle Solaris?
We use the solution as an internal operating system.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Solaris?
I find the pricing of Oracle Solaris to be affordable compared to competitors like Windows.
What do you like most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
Though a bit expensive compared to competitors, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is still recommended because it works...
What needs improvement with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
The performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux ( /categories/operating-systems-os-for-business ) (RHEL) could be improve...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Solaris 11, Solaris
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Siemens, IVV
Travel Channel, Mohawk Industries, Hilti, Molecular Health, Exolgan, Hotelplan Group, Emory University, BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, HCA Healthcare, Paychex, UPS, Intermountain Healthcare, Brinker International, TransUnion, Union Bank, CA Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: May 2025.
852,852 professionals have used our research since 2012.