We performed a comparison between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows Server based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Users of Windows Server 2016 feel that it is a very user-friendly solution. Furthermore, they note that its active directory feature is highly valuable. They also note that it is highly scalable. However, many users feel that its security capabilities could be greatly improved. They also feel that the graphical interface could be better.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Red Hat Enterprise Linux seems to be a slightly superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers found Windows Server 2016 rather expensive to purchase and not as secure as it should be.
"I like the fact that most of the system configuration is Namespace so it's easy to get to and easy to configure, and most of it still uses text documents. Not all of it's a menu-driven-type entry. I also like the fact that it's a very standard file system layout so it's easy to navigate."
"One of the most important features is the package manager. It provides the ability to very easily roll back transactions when something has gone wrong. It is an easy-to-use tool that helps me in situations where something unexpected has happened. I found that this was one of the solution's major advantages over other distributions."
"RHEL enables us to deploy applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal and virtualized environments and I find those workloads to be extremely reliable. The reliability is so good that I rarely find myself calling Red Hat support any longer. Support is the first benefit of using RHEL, but the second thing is that the platform is so stable that the need to use support is negligible."
"This is a very robust product that doesn't require a lot of handling. It just works."
"The security features are better than many other solutions offer."
"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."
"We find the Red Hat Satellite deployments very useful. It integrates well with other solutions."
"We use this product's built-in tracing and monitoring tools such as syslog and SAR (system activity reporter) to provide us with greater insight and visibility into what's going on."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"We haven't had any issues with the server whatsoever. It's been very reliable."
"We use this solution for hosting applications on the server."
"The solution is stable."
"The scalability is okay."
"Most applications are compatible with this operating system."
"The features that I like the most are that it's easy to use and the integration."
"From the very beginning, I have been using a Windows-based OS so for me, it's very easy because it's GUI compared to command line or something Linux-based."
"Red Hat can be tricky at times, but all operating systems are. The moves to systemd and NetworkManager haven't made the product more user-friendly. Let's put it that way. The network management they had before was easier and somewhat more reliable than NetworkManager, which Red Hat forces us to use now."
"Linux overall needs improvement. They cannot go much beyond what Linus Torvalds's kernel implementation can do. I come from AIX, and there were very cool things in AIX that I am missing dearly, e.g., being able to support not only adding, but also reducing memory and number of processors. That is not supported on Linux right now, and it is the same for the mainstream file systems supported by Red Hat. There is no way of reducing a file system or logical volume. Whereas, in AIX, it was a shoo-in. These are the little things where we can say, "Ah, we are missing AIX for that.""
"The accessibility to the resources could be more widespread. We have to put a lot of effort into finding indigenous information on the site. For example, the license information is convoluted. This information should be easier for customers to access."
"I would like to see improvements made to the subscriptions and management of them."
"An area for improvement in RHEL has to do with security policies. I know they are doing something about this in RHEL 9, but I haven't worked with that version yet. When it comes to security policies in RHEL 8, it is a bit behind. It would be better if we could just enforce a certain security policy such as CIS Level 1. That was not available, out-of-the-box, in RHEL 8."
"The Authselect tool needs improvement. This tool is used to connect your system to an identity provider or directory service, e.g., openLDAP. There is documentation and descriptions. While there are a few use cases and examples described, it is sometimes hard to use these tools to set up the configuration that we need for our specific environment. I would like it if there was more general information about the tool, not just describing a use case. For example, here is how to do it and how to connect to some kind of openLDAP service as well as more information about when you need to configure certificate services and mutual authentication."
"The vulnerability assessment part should also be improved. We do a lot of patching regularly. They try to fix an issue very quickly, and we also end up facing bugs that are not properly documented. When releasing the general availability for a particular solution, they need to do a lot more work on their side."
"In the past and with older versions, you couldn't expand the root file system without rebooting the server or restarting the operating system. That is something that they have actually corrected now, which is great. They corrected that issue somewhere around RHEL 7."
"Security is the main feature that needs improvement"
"The solution needs to be more stable and secure."
"Security and vulnerabilities could improve."
"It would be nice if the solution was a bit cheaper. The product is a little pricey."
"The stability needs to be improved."
"It could be more secure. We can't compare it to other products because they have their own security and all those things. When it comes to email security, there are issues. Microsoft products used to get hacked all the time, but we're still comfortable with that."
"The solution could be more secure."
"Could use more features and more functionality."
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is ranked 1st in Operating Systems (OS) for Business with 26 reviews while Windows Server is ranked 4th in Operating Systems (OS) for Business with 137 reviews. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is rated 9.0, while Windows Server is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) writes "Feature-rich, good integration, stable, easy to deploy, and the security is kept up to date". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Windows Server writes "Easy to use, simple to set up, and scales well". Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is most compared with Ubuntu Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, Oracle Linux, Windows 10 and Oracle Solaris, whereas Windows Server is most compared with Windows 10, Ubuntu Linux, Oracle Linux, CentOS and SUSE Linux Enterprise. See our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Windows Server report.
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