Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs openSUSE Leap comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

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
13th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
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
7.4
Number of Reviews
327
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 openSUSE Leap is 6.4%, up from 5.5% 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

NK
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.
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

"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."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"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 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."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
"Customer support is valuable."
"One pro is that at the operating system layer, like, RHEL has better support from Red Hat, and if something goes down, I found many resources for troubleshooting and stuff online."
"The most valuable feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is its support."
"I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten."
"One of the features I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the usability and satellite integration across multiple sites, which helps us significantly."
"Stability, support, and life cycle management are valuable."
"I prefer AIX, but Red Hat Enterprise Linux is cheaper."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers many features I appreciate, especially the increasing maturity of the operating system and its automation platform."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"More comprehensive support for OpenShift integrations and a less customized, Red Hat-specific setup process would be beneficial."
"The price for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more expensive than other operating systems, especially when compared to other cloud versions."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved slightly even though the new RHEL 10 just came out and there are many helpful features in it. For instance, while Image Builder is good, improving the image mode could be beneficial, although it might have already been improved in RHEL 10."
"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."
"I encountered an issue updating the time zone for one of my assigned countries due to a daylight-saving time change."
"The solution should improve its documentation."
"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."
"It isn't hard to patch, but migrating between versions is difficult. We have the the latest version, but the previous version is still working very well. It's hard to leave a working version to upgrade. I would like more AI features, but those will be added to the next version. We are in an AI age, and it's an area where we need to keep pace."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is open-source."
"openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost."
"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 offers a compelling value proposition for corporations due to its robust support infrastructure, which is essential for maintaining enterprise-level systems."
"When you are running your infrastructure on this, you can always find some discounts with local support, etc. There are always some discounts to match your budget. It is definitely affordable."
"We have moved to the Simple Content Access (SCA) model. It is much easier to do renewals and see how I am using my licenses. I used to have to do it all by hand. It would take me a good couple of hours every few months to make sure that we were up to snuff on everything. However, with the new model that they have, this is very easy. I just go to cloud.redhat.com to look and see how I am utilizing my licenses. If I am running out of bounds, I can find out why. If it is simply that we have images that need to be removed, we remove those images. If we need to buy more licenses, then we can start the process of purchasing more licenses."
"It's pretty expensive, but I'm not familiar with the pricing of other vendors for their operating systems. I'd rate it a seven out of ten in terms of pricing. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's main advantage is the support that you get by purchasing their subscriptions."
"Our client has a direct subscription to Red Hat."
"The solution can get pretty pricey depending on how many machines we're licensing but for a good reason."
"I like my developer account. The free sixteen licenses that they give with the developer account are great because that gives me the ability to keep using it at home instead of trying CentOS or something like that."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
16%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about openSUSE Leap?
openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman.
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...
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL
 

Overview

 

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
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.