We performed a comparison between CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) finishes ahead of CentOS in this comparison. Users feel that RHEL offers better stability, control, and consistent value-added updates. Additionally, the improved integration with RHEL provides for a better TCO, allowing resources to be distributed elsewhere in the organization, further enhancing productivity and profitability.
"The most valuable feature of CentOS is the speed and it is very easy to use."
"A valuable features of CentOS is that it's quite stable and doesn't crash often. It's also quite intuitive."
"The pricing is good. We pay a minimal fee."
"The solution is productive."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
"I like how you can alternate certain things and minimize admin features on there and just let it run on specific scripts. It's nice. Even if I had to put it in a container, I'd still do it. I prefer Linux over Windows any day."
"Setup is straightforward. You can complete it in about 30 minutes."
"Its performance is most valuable. There is a performance boost as compared to when the applications are run on Windows OS."
"The integrated solution approach reduces our TCO tremendously because we are able to focus on innovation instead of operations."
"The most valuable feature is its security. In Windows, there are risks of attacks or of data leaks because it is using .exe files, but in Red Hat's Linux-based operating system, the data is more secure."
"User friendly with good compatibility."
"I like its integrations. I would put it higher than any other Linux version when it comes to availability. Its integrations with different applications and solutions are the best. We work with a lot of clients that use RHEL, and we could easily and quickly integrate any cloud solution, virtualization solution, storage solution, or software with the RHEL system. It is better than the other solutions we have worked with."
"The feature that I like the most is that we can integrate it easily with our existing infrastructure. We found that it is much easier to deploy RHEL in our environment compared to a competing distribution like Ubuntu."
"The solution is very stable, reliable, easy to use, and has good technical support."
"It is a well-established operating system. We have tried to implement almost every feature of a version in our environment, and it has been very reliable. We are not facing many production issues on a day-to-day basis. They have well-documented articles on their documentation site and a knowledge base on their website. When we need to implement anything, we are able to find information about the best practices and the solution."
"Technical support is excellent."
"As an open-source solution, there isn't much technical support."
"The solution could improve by being more user-friendly."
"I would like the integration to be more secure."
"Continuous deployment is the only thing that can be improved."
"The solution is stable, however, it could always be even more stable if possible."
"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."
"The solution could improve by making the management tools better for the DevOps teams. For example, WebEX and Webstacks."
"It could be more secure."
"The solution is moving away from CentOS and there are growing pains from the customer's perspective."
"I would mostly like to see improvement around corporate messaging. When Red Hat 8 came out, and Red Hat decided to change, it inverted the relationship between Red Hat and CentOS. This caused my customers who had a CentOS to RHEL development to production workflow quite a bit of heartburn that several of them are still working out. A lot of that probably could have been avoided through better messaging."
"Red Hat's standard deployment is with Satellite and Kickstart, but we're looking at other options to help speed it along. We do have a mix of bare metal and virtualized servers and it's easier to spin up in the virtualized world versus bare metal. That's why we're looking at some options outside of Red Hat, for the bare metal."
"There are some things that we've seen from RHEL that have given us a little bit of consternation. Their IdM product could be improved greatly. It would be great if they had some type of application built in that would let you do whitelisting for applications. On the government side, for zero trust, that's becoming very important. We're currently using a third-party solution, and it's tough to get it to match up because anytime the kernel changes, you have to match the software to the kernel."
"Linux overall needs improvement. They cannot go much beyond what Linus Torvalds's kernel implementation can do. I come from AIX, and there were very cool things in AIX that I am missing dearly, e.g., being able to support not only adding, but also reducing memory and number of processors. That is not supported on Linux right now, and it is the same for the mainstream file systems supported by Red Hat. There is no way of reducing a file system or logical volume. Whereas, in AIX, it was a shoo-in. These are the little things where we can say, "Ah, we are missing AIX for that.""
"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."
"Support for older versions of the operating system could be improved. If people can't afford to upgrade, or if they have servers that are outdated, they need to be able to provide back-field support for those."
"I would like Insight to include some features from OpenSCAP, which they offer for compliance services. I played with it a little bit, but haven't gotten the updated setup to get that. It creates excellent documentation."
More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Pricing and Cost Advice →
CentOS is ranked 7th in Operating Systems (OS) for Business with 44 reviews while Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is ranked 1st in Operating Systems (OS) for Business with 44 reviews. CentOS is rated 8.2, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of CentOS writes "Relegated to a test bench, and therefore is no longer stable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) writes "Feature-rich, good integration, stable, easy to deploy, and the security is kept up to date". CentOS is most compared with Oracle Linux, Ubuntu Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE Leap and Windows Server, whereas Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is most compared with Windows Server, Ubuntu Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris. See our CentOS vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) report.
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