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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs Rocky Linux comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
7.1
Number of Reviews
364
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocky Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.0%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocky Linux is 14.9%, up from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)9.0%
Rocky Linux14.9%
Other76.1%
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.
Jetsada Malaisirirat - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancements in package management elevate user experience
I have been using Rocky Linux for three or four years. It is used for HPC, online assessments, and Ceph storage The solution is free and open source. The OS choice in my project is quite specific. It is based on customer requirements, as they might want to use Rocky Linux or Ubuntu, depending on…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With Red Hat, the community is so robust. Most of the time, while waiting for a Red Hat engineer to call us back, the solution to the issue is already provided."
"Time has been saved since using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and the application performance has improved after using it."
"I find the most valuable aspect of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is its stability in working with other enterprise devices, such as firewalls and centralized storage."
"I like RHEL's clustering capabilities and high-level architecture. It has high availability, built-in disaster recovery, SSH features, and scripting."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well with the growing needs of our company, as we can spin up instances quickly whenever we add new environments or data centers."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linunx's most valuable feature is patching."
"The containerized platform will help us use ROSA."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is certainly more secure than AIX, which is what we had. It's also better than Solaris. It has improved from that perspective. We can handle the vulnerabilities better. It's more secure."
"The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward."
"I haven't needed to use customer service or support, which speaks volumes about their product's reliability and ease of use."
"It helps us keep our workstations in sync and ensures consistent settings across most of our machines."
"It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability."
"The solution is free and open source."
 

Cons

"One challenge we've faced is with databases. Configuring and implementing DBs is much easier in non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, especially in Microsoft."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux's SELinux can be challenging to manage and troubleshoot, often causing frustration."
"The licensing cost of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is high and could be improved."
"They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way."
"Overall, I am happy with it, but I believe, security-wise, it could be better."
"We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with RHEL six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux analytics are cryptic."
"It could be simplified. I'd like to see them introduce PDFs or documents to better explain technicalities to new users."
"The package versions can be quite older compared to other distributions such as Ubuntu."
"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."
"I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"I am not involved in the budgetary aspect, but from what I understand, the pricing is competitive, similar to what we paid for SUSE."
"The licensing is a bit odd because we need to procure the licenses from a third party."
"My company has acquired five to ten licenses from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)."
"We transferred our license to the cloud because we were originally a VMware on-prem shop. So we're just transitioning some of our workloads to cloud licensing. Also, I have opted for a subscription."
"It is expensive. Everything is. I was happy to get a three-year Red Hat Enterprise Linux contract for our initial rollout."
"Pricing is something that needs to be worked out with the vendor. The more you have, the less you pay. That is the model nowadays in IT, but it is very cost-effective. You get what you pay for."
"The licensing model of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good, but lower prices are always preferable."
"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
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
11%
Educational Organization
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business84
Midsize Enterprise46
Large Enterprise248
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise4
 

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)?
I can say about pricing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is maybe a two on a scale where ten is a high price.
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?
If I find something which is strong with virtualization with Rocky Linux, it's an alternative that I can study and spend time learning about, trying it, making tests, validating, and perhaps ultima...
What is your primary use case for Rocky Linux?
I am responsible for virtualization and networking, and other services related to the systems including Linux and Windows, but the security part is actually the responsibility of the French team in...
 

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: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.