

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Rocky Linux are competitors in the enterprise Linux distribution category. RHEL seems to have the upper hand due to its proprietary features and commercial support, appealing to businesses needing those attributes.
Features: RHEL includes comprehensive security capabilities, an extended support lifecycle, and integration with Red Hat’s suite of enterprise tools and services. Rocky Linux emphasizes community-driven development, maintaining binary compatibility with RHEL, and offers free access to its source code without subscription fees, providing flexibility and cost-saving benefits.
Room for Improvement: RHEL could improve by offering more open-source features and reducing the cost of its proprietary services to attract more budget-conscious businesses. Rocky Linux might enhance its customer support with more structured service options and strengthen its enterprise tools offering to better match RHEL’s capabilities.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RHEL is known for its robust deployment model with streamlined installation, comprehensive documentation, and extensive technical support. Rocky Linux benefits from its compatibility with RHEL, allowing straightforward deployment, but leans heavily on community support without formal service level agreements, resulting in less structured customer service.
Pricing and ROI: RHEL's pricing involves subscription fees covering updates, security patches, and support, resulting in higher costs but potentially higher ROI through reliability and support. In contrast, Rocky Linux offers a zero-cost alternative with no subscription costs, appealing to enterprises aiming to minimize expenses while being comfortable with a community-supported model.
A long lifecycle is key to having a good return on investment.
Being able to transform common manual tasks that previously took all day into processes that take an hour, half an hour, or even less, demonstrates clear value.
I invest effort and money in RHEL 8, expecting the system to be secure and reliable when serving my clients.
When it comes to return on investment, a lot of money is saved since we moved from a purchased license to the open source provided by Rocky Linux.
We save time through fewer environment-related issues and more consistent QA and deployment processes.
I have seen a return on investment since there was definitely money saved at the time due to the lack of need for licensing since Rocky is available openly.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) support is great, as they go beyond their duty to help resolve issues and provide solutions even for third-party software such as XRDP.
When we do contact customer service, they are generally very knowledgeable and well-versed in our size.
Usually, I send the information, and they have something for me within hours, sometimes even minutes.
The support level is extraordinary, providing on-time assistance.
Rocky Linux has a great community, and it is usually easy to find documentation, forums, and RHEL compatibility solutions while troubleshooting the most common issues, making it straightforward to solve problems.
Customer support for Rocky Linux is excellent.
Many of our applications scale really well, with some having several hundreds of VMs, which we couldn't accomplish on Windows.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well with the growing needs of our company.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) handles increases in users, applications, or data smoothly, which is why we use it for all our projects, as it provides us with confidence.
Even if the server is not responding and we want to attach the volume on another instance or a temporary instance, it is very easy and straightforward with no hiccups.
Particularly in virtualized and containerized environments, allowing us to scale resources without introducing major OS-level issues.
It has handled growth or changing needs well.
It works consistently with minimal downtime and very few bugs or glitches.
It just works, and that's really the key factor; I can't remember the last time we had a system go down and had to restore it due to a bad patch.
We've not had a service outage with Red Hat in six years.
Rocky Linux is stable.
Rocky Linux is stable, scalable, and it is very much easier to use.
Rocky Linux is stable and reliable for workloads, especially for QA and development environments.
Addressing these limitations would significantly enhance the operating system's flexibility and efficiency.
The built-in security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux were insufficient for our needs, necessitating the implementation of supplementary security measures.
By providing pre-installed, native automation tools within the operating system, Red Hat would streamline processes and improve user efficiency.
More practical examples and clearer error guidance would help solve these issues faster.
When we use the DNF functionality to search the affected RLSA or RLSA with CVE IDs, it's not working as expected, and the mirrors or the XML files need to be updated similar to Red Hat, which would help us keep our environment more secure and make maintenance easier.
Having REST API or SNMP-based protocols would be beneficial, as we want to integrate Rocky Linux for monitoring with our DataMiner platform.
It may be considered expensive compared to other solutions like CentOS or Ubuntu, which offer some of the same features without additional costs.
Windows Servers base their cost on the number of users and have high licensing fees, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers free versions alongside its paid, supported versions.
Compared to cloud-based platforms like AWS or Azure, which offer flexible pay-as-you-go options, RHEL's subscription-based model can become cost-prohibitive for those with limited budgets or smaller-scale projects.
We switched to Rocky Linux because of the license price, and in our business, we don't need to have a higher cost as that is not a good idea.
There is no extra cost for a license if we are purchasing Rocky Linux from the AWS Marketplace.
Rocky Linux is free, and I can download it and deploy it in whatever environment I have, whether it be H3C, VMware, or Hyper-V.
It also has strong security features, is OIS and FIPS certified, and has built-in Linux security configurations.
There is also no downtime.
The operating system allows for the simple addition of kernels, modules, and other applications, making it highly adaptable to various needs.
Compatibility has made the biggest difference, allowing me to reproduce production-like, RHEL environments for QA and catch deployment and configuration issues earlier, reducing environment-specific failures.
Enterprise-grade stability refers to the fact that it uses the RHEL source code, ensuring compatibility, and is suitable for servers, production environments, and critical applications, built to be a reliable, long-term support OS.
The long-term predictable updates make it a clear choice because I know that whatever I'm implementing now is guaranteed to receive updates in the long term.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) | 6.7% |
| Rocky Linux | 5.9% |
| Other | 87.4% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 100 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 52 |
| Large Enterprise | 320 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 5 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 1 |
| Large Enterprise | 16 |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is known for its strong security, stability, automation, and support, making it a choice for entities aiming to improve operational efficiency and integration with cloud services.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers robust tools like Ansible for automation and SELinux for security, with efficient package management using YUM and DNF. It is preferred for critical applications, databases, cloud infrastructure, and virtualization due to its minimized downtime and performance enhancements. Despite its advantages, improvements are needed in pricing, documentation, and the complexity of licensing. Challenges in integrating third-party tools, Kubernetes, and cloud environments are present. Enhancement in live patching, backward compatibility, virtualization, monitoring, and storage is also necessary.
What are RHEL's key features?Red Hat Enterprise Linux is implemented across sectors like telecommunications, finance, health care, and education, often supporting critical environments with rigorous security and management needs. Its compatibility with automation and management tools like OpenShift allows for efficient handling of enterprise demands.
Rocky Linux provides enterprise-grade stability and seamless Red Hat compatibility, coupled with extensive community support. Known for easy setup and minimal maintenance, its open-source nature ensures cost-effectiveness, making it ideal for critical systems.
Rocky Linux is an open-source operating system valued for its compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, making it an attractive choice for organizations migrating from CentOS. It focuses on stability, security, and long-term support, crucial for critical systems. Users benefit from seamless integration with automation tools and its strong community backing. While it offers ease of setup and package availability, areas like software availability and faster updates need enhancement. The system's UX design supports productivity, with potential improvements in documentation and security integration helping to maintain competitive advantages.
What Are the Key Features?Rocky Linux is widely implemented across numerous industries as a server platform and backend OS, supporting web hosting, big data projects, and cloud infrastructure. Companies in IT environments like Nutanix data centers and high-performance computing choose it for its compatibility with open-source tools, making it favored for automation with Ansible and monitoring through Prometheus.
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