Oracle Linux vs Oracle Solaris comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 14, 2022

We performed a comparison between Oracle Linux and Oracle Solaris based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Reviewers of Oracle Linux all agreed that its installation was straightforward. Some Oracle Solaris users said that its deployment was not complex either, but others disagreed.

  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability and scalability. Oracle Linux was found to be easy to use but several reviewers complained about the level of security. Oracle Solaris users were happy with its level of security but did not find the interface to be user-friendly.
  • Pricing: Most Oracle Linux users agreed that it is a low-cost solution, whereas some users of Oracle Solaris felt that it is expensive.
  • Service and Support: Both solutions had mixed reviews from users regarding service and support. Some said it was good and others said it left room for improvement, especially when it comes to response time. It was noted that Oracle Solaris has an extensive knowledge base available in their “My Oracle Support.”

Comparison Results: Oracle Linux ultimately won out in this comparison. Our reviewers found Oracle Linux to be easy to install and easy to use, while Oracle Solaris was less so. Oracle Linux users are also happier with the price than Oracle Solaris users. One place where Oracle Solaris did come out on top was in the realm of security.

To learn more, read our detailed Oracle Linux vs. Oracle Solaris Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The performance, feasibility, and flexibility of the I/O subsystem are valuable to us.""The most valuable feature is the ease of the commands which take little time to learn.""The good thing about Oracle Linux is that it's free, as long as you don't want support.""The solution's technical support team answers all our queries.""It helps us to create users and groups. We can also plan on the access that will be given to them. I use it for identity management during the installment and configuration process. We use it to start or stop processes and services. Another use case of the solution is post-opening.""It is a stable solution with a secure operating system.""Once installed, the product is good, I like it. The core of the software is really good.""The most valuable features are performance, frequent update patches, and security."

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"The stability of the solution is good.""Solaris Zones and Containers are my favorite features.""One of the main features of this solution is the ease of use.""The product's initial setup phase was easy.""Solaris's best features are high availability, robustness, and database hosting.""Oracle Solaris's operating system is good.""Solaris is scalable because they have their own file system, like CFS.""It is a scalable solution. I recommend it for bigger companies."

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Cons
"There were some problems when updating the operating system, which affected the system as a whole.""They could introduce the same level of remote capabilities, which are available with VMware applications to build distant environments.""The security and integration could improve.""The solution could improve by giving the client or customer more control.""It would be ideal if they added a faster implementation of the security fixes, if possible.""Oracle Linux could improve by having more documentation.""It will be better to consolidate all the features in one release instead of sporadic releases.""Pricing could be improved."

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"Solaris' package management could be improved, especially in comparison to Linux.""Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more secure and better documented. So Oracle could learn from them when it comes to security and documentation.""The challenge arises from the differences in commands and configurations compared to more common systems like Linux.""This product is not as flexible as other similar solutions on the market today.""Solaris is not easy to use. It needs better GUI, UI, and configuration tools.""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.""The scalability of the solution can be improved."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The pricing and licensing are good."
  • "Nowadays, Oracle is very open toward price negotiation; they negotiate well with their clients"
  • "This is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
  • "The licensing is expensive."
  • "Oracle Linux is very cheap at this time."
  • "The solution is free."
  • "There is a license required for this solution and we are on an annual license."
  • "The licensing cost is expensive. It should be reduced by at least half."
  • More Oracle Linux Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It is more expensive, but very complete and worth enacting."
  • "There is no OS licensing cost if you use their hardware and purchase hardware maintenance."
  • "If you buy Oracle hardware it's supported free with the hardware. If you're putting it on non-Oracle hardware, that is when you buy the support license, which is also very reasonable. It is $1000 dollars per year, so it's not overly expensive."
  • "There should be an option to install the solution for free and just pay for the support. We purchased an annual license and the price could be better."
  • "Its licensing is on a yearly basis."
  • "The price is not good and needs to improve."
  • "This solution needs a license to use it."
  • "There are no licensing fees but you can opt to pay for support."
  • More Oracle Solaris Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:When comparing Oracle Linux and Solaris, I believe that Linux is more secure and more flexible. It is also very suitable for enterprises that are already Oracle solution users. I found Linux to be… more »
    Top Answer:Ubunto Linux is a complete Linux operating system that is freely available with both community and professional support. This solution is suitable for both desktop and server use. It has a very… more »
    Top Answer:The main business advantage is maintaining compliance with Oracle licensing, avoiding non-compliance issues, and license revisions.
    Top Answer:The product's most valuable feature is partitioning resources and optimizing hardware utilization effectively.
    Top Answer:It is an expensive product. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten.
    Top Answer:They could also enable Oracle OEM for x86 architecture as well. It is currently applied only to risk processors. It could help reduce costs associated with x86 environments compared to risk… more »
    Ranking
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    Comparisons
    23,398
    Reviews
    30
    Average Words per Review
    408
    Rating
    8.4
    Views
    10,671
    Comparisons
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    Reviews
    15
    Average Words per Review
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    Rating
    8.7
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Oracle Enterprise Linux
    Solaris 11, Solaris
    Learn More
    Overview

    Oracle Linux is a stable, reliable, and scalable operating system primarily used for deploying and running Oracle databases. It is also suitable for various other functions, including managing operating systems and web servers, supporting traffic surveillance, and identity management. 

    Oracle Linux is highly valued for its stability, reliability, scalability, good technical support, and ease of use. It has helped organizations to achieve faster DNS queries, stable development environments, reduced vulnerability issues, good performance for Oracle applications, and improved ability to run test scenarios and parallel queries across massive databases.

    Oracle Linux Features

    Oracle Linux has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • The software is 100% free (no cost) to use, distribute, and update
    • Ksplice allows for zero-downtime kernel and user-space upgrades
    • DTrace provides comprehensive kernel and application tracing
    • For Oracle Linux Support clients, Linux management and high availability are available at no additional cost
    • It's Oracle-optimized and works well with Oracle Database and Oracle Applications
    • New workload optimizations:
      • Enhanced memory performance by attempting to better locate a process near its memory and better placement of tasks that do not fit on a single NUMA node
      • SPECjbb's performance has been improved by up to 3.6 times thanks to optimizations that help reduce lock contention.
      • With bcache, it's simple to employ SSDs as a block cache for slower block devices. A new, scaled block layer subsystem supports many millions of IOps on NVM-Express and high-end PCI-E devices.
    • Oracle Linux has three deployment options:
    • Linux in the cloud: Oracle Linux Premier Support is included in all Oracle Cloud Infrastructure subscriptions at no additional cost.
    • Linux on premises: This is the industry's most comprehensive and open Linux distribution.
    • Embedded Linux design: Embedding a feature-rich Linux distribution is an optimized, cost-effective solution for your business.

     Oracle Linux Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Oracle Linux. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Save money by only paying for support for the systems you need
    • Improve security by applying patches faster and spending less time troubleshooting and updating
    • Improve Oracle software and hardware performance

    Reviews from Real Users

    Oracle Linux stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its stability and scalability. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews: 

    One PeerSpot reviewer, an IT Manager, reports, “I find the virtualization the most valuable.” He adds, “Oracle Linux is the best Linux operating system that I have ever known. It is very stable and strong.”

    An Enterprise Architect at a financial services firm writes of the solution, “You also don't have memory issues, especially when it is engineered with platforms like Exadata and Oracle Cluster. These give you the most throughput and performance.” He adds, “It is very scalable, especially on platforms like Oracle Cluster and Exadata.

    Oracle Solaris is a trusted business platform that provides consistent compatibility, is simple to use, is always secure, and is designed to help you run your modern and legacy enterprise applications. The solution is the most recommended enterprise operating system for Oracle Database and Java applications and is engineered for large-scale enterprise deployments.

    Oracle Solaris Features

    Oracle Solaris has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Application binary guarantee
    • Unified archives
    • Rich selection of DevOps tools
    • REST-based configuration and monitoring
    • Software security assurance
    • Automated installer
    • Image packaging system and ZFS boot environments
    • Simplified system life-cycle, application life-cycle, and cloud capabilities
    • Constraint packages
    • Fault diagnosis
    • Service management facility

    Oracle Solaris Benefits

    There are many benefits to implementing Oracle Solaris. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Portable and scalable
    • Interoperable and compatible
    • Simple to use
    • Infrastructure designed to scale on large systems without code
    • Supports a wide range of hardware
    • 24 x 7 support from Oracle
    • Portability across different architectures
    • Supports tools optimized for Oracle hardware devices
    • Guarantees binary compatibility for your applications across various Oracle Solaris OS releases
    • Supports programming languages such as Perl, Ruby, and Python
    • Mitigates risk and easily proves compliance
    • Reduces costs
    • Helps reduce planned and unplanned downtime

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Oracle Solaris solution.

    A CEO at a computer software company says, “The most valuable feature is virtualization. They have attained virtualization and it's quite simple to create the Oracle Solaris zones. The solution is quite powerful. Oracle Solaris is great due to the fact that it actually is meant for high-end servers. The high availability is great. You can clone and you can do quite a number of things with them. There's also the ZFS File system which is very good. Is one of the best file systems that there is.”

    Diego A., Oracle ACE - Specialized in Systems Technologies at Telecom Argentina, mentions, “The most valuable features for me are virtualization (Containers, Zones, Security, PDOM's, LDOM's) and Performance, ZFS, Debugging with Dtrace.”

    A Service Manager at a tech services company expresses that the solution is “Stable, scalable, and has easy installation.”

    PeerSpot user Marcel H., Oracle ACE Director "Solaris," CEO, Enterprise Consultant at JomaSoft, explains, “Solaris includes two virtualization solutions: LDoms for SPARC and Solaris Zones. Both solutions can be combined to create private clouds. Solaris Zones is ideal to separate applications and to migrate from older to current hardware. LDoms is very efficient because it uses the hardware hypervisor of the SPARC servers. Both technologies increase Security, because they separate the applications from each other. Using the Security Compliance Framework we are sure the systems are set up properly.”

    Shafiq K., Senior Manager IT Operations at a financial services firm, states, “The reliability of the solution is excellent. The security has been very good overall. We've found the solution to have good availability. The backup capabilities are quite good. The solution has proven to be quite stable so far. The product can scale. The solution is 100% free to use. It doesn't cost a company anything as it's embedded in the hardware.”

    Sample Customers
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    Siemens, IVV
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Retailer10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Government10%
    Educational Organization9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm29%
    Comms Service Provider25%
    Logistics Company8%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government11%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise58%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise62%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business30%
    Midsize Enterprise8%
    Large Enterprise62%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise68%
    Buyer's Guide
    Oracle Linux vs. Oracle Solaris
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Linux vs. Oracle Solaris and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Oracle Linux is ranked 3rd in Operating Systems (OS) for Business with 108 reviews while Oracle Solaris is ranked 8th in Operating Systems (OS) for Business with 47 reviews. Oracle Linux is rated 8.4, while Oracle Solaris is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Oracle Linux writes "The operational system is the best and is packed with free features like CapsLive". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Oracle Solaris writes "Improve flexibility, automate DR process, and speed up recovery time using Zones". Oracle Linux is most compared with Ubuntu Linux, CentOS, Rocky Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Windows Server, whereas Oracle Solaris is most compared with Ubuntu Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), Windows 10, CentOS and SUSE Linux Enterprise. See our Oracle Linux vs. Oracle Solaris report.

    See our list of best Operating Systems (OS) for Business vendors.

    We monitor all Operating Systems (OS) for Business reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.