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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs Rocky Linux comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
275
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocky Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.6%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocky Linux is 15.5%, up from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Dominique Locksley - PeerSpot reviewer
Very simple to work with, easy to learn, and has a competitive pricing
The UX design, the user front end, and the user GUI are very well done on the GNOME and KDE platform side. It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are. I have worked with a lot of different solutions like Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, and CentOS. Rocky Linux is very easy, and if you switch from one to the other, you can easily detect your tools in the front end. Since it is very similar to the file system breakdown of downloads and documents, it's very easy to show users where things will be.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the flexibility RHEL offers in terms of permissions. The patch management is much shorter and easier."
"RHEL's effect on our organization's management and efficiency is noticeable because we check all the compliance boxes when we run STIG machines."
"When it comes to security, scalability, and robustness, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) excels in all aspects. That's why we rely on this operating system."
"The biggest benefit is from a security standpoint. As the product progresses and they come up with new versions, the new security features are addressing vulnerabilities. From that perspective, it has worked well."
"The product is optimized for resource utilization."
"The most valuable features of RHEL are security, performance tuning, storage management, and OS-level automation."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux has made significant improvements in terms of storage. You can mount an 18 terabyte file system. It also supports NFS shares and the SIP share for the photos. There have been many features added since RHEL 6. It's more user-friendly and graphical."
"The solution's technical support is really good and responsive. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability."
"It helps us keep our workstations in sync and ensures consistent settings across most of our machines."
"I haven't needed to use customer service or support, which speaks volumes about their product's reliability and ease of use."
"It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are."
"The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward."
 

Cons

"The cost could be lower. Red Hat is considered a costly solution. It can be expensive if you want all the features in the license. A cheaper license would make Red Hat more accessible to a broader range of users."
"The solution lacks proper documentation."
"A lot of it is related to communication. They are building solid products, and quite often, people do not find out about them until two or three years have passed."
"Writing SELinux policies is sometimes very hard if you want to deploy a new application on it."
"The solution's licensing sometimes could be a little bit confusing for someone who's not a full-blown system admin and doesn't have a lot of experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
"The solution's front-end GUI is not great and could be improved."
"Sometimes we just don't have a web interface available for repetitive tasks. It would be nice to have a web-based tool for Red Hat Enterprise Linux since we don't always have access to a web browser."
"I am still trying to figure out the features it has. There is so much that it can do."
"I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The solution's audio integration for virtual machines could be improved."
"In terms of improvement, Rocky Linux needs to clarify its identity and target audience."
"Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort."
"One of the potential issues is that if you don't pay for support, you may need to manage certain aspects on your own and rely on the community for assistance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost is based on each organization's budget and infrastructure."
"I do not know enough to give a comprehensive answer, but other operating systems are in use at my company because they have more favorable licensing terms."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is only affordable for large organizations."
"We still have a few with one-to-one standard server licensing, but we are utilizing the virtualization host licensing. We license it based on the host, not based on VMs, which is cool. I was very happy that there was certain licensing with SAP to have access to SAP repos. Its cost was the same as the regular one, so I was happy about that."
"The pricing is suitable for midsize to large companies, though small enterprises might struggle. It is comparable to Windows licensing."
"We have to pay for the support and features."
"Its pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a yearly subscription cost for the licensing that includes maintenance and support."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three."
"Compared to the market prices of other tools, the solution has a very competitive pricing."
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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%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
University
12%
Educational Organization
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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)?
Though a bit expensive compared to competitors, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is still recommended because it works effectively and delivers value for its pricing.
What do you like most about Rocky Linux?
It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are.
What needs improvement with Rocky Linux?
Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort.
What is your primary use case for Rocky Linux?
I use the solution in my company to do some automation stuff to run Ansible, and it has an administration server to provide all the Linux control like a client node can be connected to that master ...
 

Also Known As

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.