Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs openSUSE Leap comparison

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. openSUSE Leap

Download the complete report

Helped 885,286 peers since 2012

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

openSUSE Leap

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

14th

Average Rating

9.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

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

7.0

Number of Reviews

392

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of openSUSE Leap is 5.6%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 7.4%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)	7.4%
openSUSE Leap	5.6%
Other	87.0%

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

Featured Reviews

Nagendra Kavadi

Senior Manager at Cognizant

Provides BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots

I only use the tool for testing purposes on my team, but multiple people use it. We don't make a team effort to install the solution. When it comes to maintenance, we ask our company to buy SUSE Linux Enterprise. My team consists of 13 people. We are currently integrating the solution with Ansible to do some coding. Although not a full-fledged automation, we are integrating the solution with Ansible and executing a couple of playbooks connected to openSUSE Leap. I would recommend the solution to other users looking for an open-source solution. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Read full review

Ray Ortega

Server administrator at Northrop Grumman

Empowers collaboration through streamlined integration and extensive documentation

Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be tough, however, a significant area is collaboration tools. We have many Windows users that use Outlook and Skype or Teams to collaborate on our network. They want Linux desktops due to the fact that they want to use containers. Their biggest complaint is, 'I need two workstations to do my container work and one to collaborate.' If somehow RHEL can start introducing or collaborating with Teams and Outlook so their users can work with their Windows peers, that would be great. But I don't think that's available yet. Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, there needs to be more of an education piece to it. For instance, when purchasing 10 or 100 node licenses, they could suggest, 'We also offer this 1,000 node license instead, and it'll save you specific amounts.' Just more education on their offerings would be helpful, because usually, we're coming out with the requirements, and then they just provide it to us. They could inform us about saving by bundling it differently or using alternative approaches.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."

"The solution is very stable after it is configured. It is hard to have a panel slow, a problem, misconfiguration, or any kind of loss function."

"openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman."

"The solution's most valuable feature is the BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots."

"This solution has helped my organization's security from the use of its firewall, and the features for blocking or allowing traffic are very effective and have worked well for us."

"The solution is easy for me to use because the backend is derived from FreeBSD and this is something I have been using for over 20 years."

"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."

More openSUSE Leap pros

"I find the most valuable feature to be stability, as it is important for me, and we have all the functionality that we need because we are using mainly the KVM for running the virtual machines, along with other packages that are part of the operating system, such as HAProxy, Nginx, or other modules."

"Since we started recommending and our clients started using it, I can see the cost-to-performance ratio go up by over 50%."

"The solution is useful for application support and automations."

"The updates are the most valuable feature."

"Integrating Ansible Automation offers benefits, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides robust security features, including benchmarks and CIS security hardening."

"RHEL'S built in security features have helped us reduce risk and maintenance compliance."

"One of Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s valuable features is its enterprise-level security. We are guaranteed that it's secure, and that's important for us because we need to comply with security regulations. Security always remains a top priority."

"I have not found another operating system that matches Red Hat Enterprise Linux; it receives a perfect score of ten out of ten."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pros

Cons

"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."

"There is room for improvement in the console."

"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."

"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."

"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."

"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."

"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."

More openSUSE Leap cons

"Network virtualization resources could be better. When you have any kind of trouble with network virtualization, such as with OVS, which is like a switch in a virtual environment, it takes many hours to find what is happening. Other vendors, such as VMware, and even other Linux implementations for network virtualization have better resources. It is much easier to escalate, and there is better documentation."

"I don't find Red Hat Enterprise Linux's security features to be good. They have many vulnerabilities that haven't been fixed for many years."

"For telecom products and technical platforms that support RAN engineering, we expect more features to be added to satellite, as it is currently quite complicated."

"With on-premise Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), scalability is not easy because I cannot deploy new machines."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a little expensive for some customers who don't have the budget. It depends on the client. They can save money by not purchasing some of the added packages and services. If the client has a budget of $10 million, we can go for the whole bundle."

"To improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it would be helpful to have a step-by-step process to make setup easier."

"Some of the solution's features need to be automated. We encounter the hassle of registering the system and attaching a subscription."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved by offering more on the Ansible side, with more integration with Ansible Satellite and all their tools for a one-stop area that manages both vulnerabilities and image deployments in a workflow pipeline."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost."

"The solution is open-source."

"The cost of this solution was reasonable and it was within our budget."

"This is an open-source operating system that can be used free of charge."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux licensing is not cheap, but it is worth it, especially considering the compliance and support it provides."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a more cost-effective solution than Windows Servers."

"We have a site license on a yearly basis. Generally, we're okay with its price, but everything could be cheaper."

"The solution is cost-effective."

"With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you need to pay a massive upfront licensing fee in order to get support."

"I have limited information regarding Red Hat Enterprise Linux pricing and licensing, but our managers appear satisfied."

"It is not fairly priced. If they can reduce the price, it would be nice."

"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

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

885,286 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

20%

Educational Organization

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	90
Midsize Enterprise	49
Large Enterprise	268

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with openSUSE Leap?

Both openSUSE Leap and the SUSE Enterprise version use the same kernel. Suppose I have a lower environment where I can run openSUSE to test all my products. It would be helpful if I could easily sw...

What is your primary use case for openSUSE Leap?

I use openSUSE Leap for testing purposes. Before officially using any server in our office, we test it using the solution. My office usually uses production servers on the SUSE Linux enterprise ver...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for openSUSE Leap?

openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost.

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...

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)?

Regarding the pricing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) subscription, I believe the pricing is fair. The support that Red Hat provides is very good. Whenever I encounter issues, Red Hat always pro...

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs openSUSE Leap

Comparisons

Compared 17% of the time

Ubuntu Linux vs openSUSE Leap

Compared 14% of the time

Debian vs openSUSE Leap

Compared 13% of the time

Rocky Linux vs openSUSE Leap

Compared 12% of the time

AlmaLinux vs openSUSE Leap

Compared 6% of the time

More openSUSE Leap Competitors

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 12% of the time

Windows Server vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 10% of the time

Rocky 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

Windows 10 vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 5% of the time

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Competitors

Product Reports

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

Download openSUSE Leap product report

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for AWS

Overview

openSUSE Leap is a brand new way of building openSUSE and is new type of hybrid Linux distribution. Leap uses source from SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE), which gives Leap a level of stability unmatched by other Linux distributions, and combines that with community developments to give users, developers and sysadmins the best stable Linux experience available. Contributor and enterprise efforts for Leap bridge a gap between matured packages and newer packages found in openSUSE’s other distribution Tumbleweed.

openSUSE

Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers stability, security, and support for mission-critical applications with robust tools and scalable architecture, ideal for diverse environments and hybrid cloud compatibility.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides organizations with a reliable platform ideal for high-performance computing and virtualization. Known for its robust security and seamless network administration, it integrates well with OpenShift and Ansible, ensuring adaptability and scalability. Despite challenges with documentation, upgrade complexity, and cost, RHEL remains a formidable choice thanks to its comprehensive documentation and extensive community support.

What are the key features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Stability and Security: Maintains high stability and advanced security measures, critical for enterprise environments.
Extensive Support: Offers robust support through community and documentation, assisting with problem-solving and integration.
Automation with Ansible: Simplifies tasks and enhances efficiency, optimizing operations across the infrastructure.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Supports cloud environments, enabling flexibility and strategic deployments.
Scalable Architecture: Adapts to different workloads, making it suitable for growing organizational demands.

What benefits should users look for when evaluating Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Reliable Performance: Ensures consistent and secure operations across diverse environments, including cloud infrastructure.
Efficient Management: Centralized operations make it easy to manage enterprise workloads effectively.
Community and Documentation: Access to a strong community and comprehensive documentation aids in resolving issues.
Integration Capabilities: Easily integrates with technologies like OpenShift and SAP, enhancing operational versatility.
Adaptability: Supports a wide range of environments and technical requirements, improving strategic deployment.

Organizations across industries like financial services, telecommunications, and application hosting implement Red Hat Enterprise Linux for server and application management. Its compatibility with technologies such as SAP, Oracle, and Ansible supports functions including web, database, and enterprise solutions, ensuring stable and secure performance in high-pressure environments.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. openSUSE Leap