Flatcar Container Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comparison

Kinvolk and Red Hat are both solutions in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category. Kinvolk is ranked #18, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Kinvolk holds a 0.6% mindshare in OSB, compared to Red Hat’s 9.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Kinvolk users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Flatcar Container Linux

Read 1 Flatcar Container Linux review

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638 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Read 331 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reviews

25,473 Views
25,218 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Flatcar Container Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Flatcar Container Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business.

To learn more, read our detailed Operating Systems (OS) for Business Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Flatcar Container Linux

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

18th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

331

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Flatcar Container Linux is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.1%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

Featured Reviews

Yogesh Deore

Senior Consultant at Capgemini

The solution is stable and allows us to make needed changes

The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net I have eight years of experience with Flatcar Container Linux. The version of Flatcar Container Linux that I am using is stable. The scalability of this product is fine. It allows us to make the needed…

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Bruce Lundberg

Linux HPC Systems Administrator at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Flatcar's support is good. The version I am using is stable and allows us to make needed changes."

"It's one of those nice things, similar to your refrigerator—you don't notice it until it breaks."

"The solution is stable and reliable."

"I find the most valuable aspect of Red Hat Enterprise Linux to be its ease of customization."

"The most valuable features are stability and supportability... You want to have something that's up and running and stable, something that's not going to crash. But if we do have an issue, we can get somebody for technical support who can help us work through the problems."

"I prefer AIX, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is cheaper."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales excellently with the growing needs of my company."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable attribute is its stability."

"The solution's technical support is really good and responsive. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pros

Cons

"The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net."

"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."

"Cheaper pricing would definitely be beneficial."

"To improve standardization, deprecate YUM and transition to DNF."

"The only reason that I, or anybody else, uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux is because it offers commercial support. That is it."

"Customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is an area they could improve."

"It does have a workstation option, but you rarely hear anything about it. I would love to see the workstation replace Windows. That is a stretch goal, but it is possible."

"The pricing model may be less attractive to individuals or small businesses. Compared to cloud-based platforms like AWS or Azure, which offer flexible pay-as-you-go options, RHEL's subscription-based model can become cost-prohibitive for those with limited budgets or smaller-scale projects."

"The only improvement I can think of for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that I'm unsure how their migration tool works to go to the next version. I've heard people say it doesn't work properly."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"RHEL is expensive."

"The cost of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is reasonable."

"I'm unsure what the standard RHEL license costs for one machine. We pay for premium support that guarantees a response in two hours."

"RHEL is expensive. We have changed the cloud provider's subscription to a pay-as-you-go model."

"The prices are comparable, and good for what is being provided."

"If Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can reduce its pricing, then it would be easier to convince others that there is not much difference between open-source solutions while still receiving several features for a licensing cost."

"One Red Hat license costs USD 131, which I find reasonable."

"There are special academic offerings for academic institutes, which is pretty good. We need these offerings. In my personal opinion, the prices are okay. However, for educational purposes, they could be lower. For example, in Germany, the budget in the education sector for IT is lower compared to the huge universities in the US."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user281973

Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

25%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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 stability, and also lots of features. I specifically like that the solution has fe...

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What do you like most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) indicates that this was the main topic that made me step away from RHEL. Personally, I don't see good b...

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Comparisons

Ubuntu Linux vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 49% of the time

Alpine Linux vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 19% of the time

CentOS vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 8% of the time

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 7% of the time

Debian vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 5% of the time

More Flatcar Container Linux Competitors

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 22% of the time

Windows Server vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 15% of the time

Rocky Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 13% of the time

Oracle Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 9% of the time

Ubuntu Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 9% of the time

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

July 2025

Download Flatcar Container Linux product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

July 2025

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL

Overview

Flatcar Container Linux is a lightweight, secure, and reliable operating system designed for running containers at scale with automatic updates and a minimal attack surface. The solution is easy to use and manage and has a simple and intuitive command-line interface and a powerful set of tools for managing containers and clusters.

It supports various container runtimes, including Docker, Kubernetes, and Mesos. It can be deployed on various infrastructure platforms, including bare metal, virtual machines, and cloud environments. Flatcar Container Linux is an ideal choice for organizations deploying containerized applications in production environments.

Kinvolk

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is recognized for its stability, security, and performance, serving diverse industries with its robust support and seamless cloud deployment capabilities.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides comprehensive server applications across cloud environments, featuring tools like Ansible for enhanced user experience. It integrates OpenShift, Identity Management, and automation, supported by extensive documentation. Users seek easier upgrades, enhanced network virtualization support, and improved live patching.

What are the key features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Stability and Security: RHEL is designed to provide a stable and secure environment, backed by consistent updates.
Cloud Deployment: Easily deployable across cloud platforms, enhancing flexibility.
Integration with Ansible: Enhances operational efficiency with powerful automation tools.
OpenShift and Containerization: Supports modern app development with integrated OpenShift features.
Extensive Documentation: Offers comprehensive resources for users to troubleshoot and optimize.

What are the benefits of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Reliable Support: Benefit from extensive support options for seamless operation.
Enhanced Security: Built-in features ensure data integrity and protection.
Increased Flexibility: Suitable for diverse deployment environments, including on-premises and cloud.
Operational Efficiency: Tools like automation and cloud navigation improve productivity.
Training and Resources: Access to comprehensive training contributes to smoother implementations.

In sectors like finance, telecommunications, and education, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is crucial for running stable, secure systems. Its application spans web servers, data management, and containerization through tools like Kubernetes. Organizations adopt it for on-premises, virtualized, and cloud environments, ensuring robust infrastructure management.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

CISCO, mettle, Microsoft, Upguard, GMX

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

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

July 2025

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