Our use case is mostly for application servers. We are not really using it for any of our file servers. We have a storage department who usually just deals with NAS and things like that. However, this solution is primarily for application servers.
Sr. Systems Engineer at Fiserv
It's reliable and dependable. It stays up.
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "Among the other distributions of Linux out there, I would rate it as 10 out of 10."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
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 use Red Hat Satellite. The integration between Satellite and RHEL works well. Satellite is mostly used to manage the repositories from a secure standpoint. We also use IBM, which is for identity management and user access, and that also works well. From an operational standpoint, it works great. We are able to manage user access with IBM, and there has not been an issue. We make role and user groups as well as host groups so different groups have access to different servers, for whichever servers are in different host groups. For example, the database team may have a user group who has access to all the database servers listed in a host group. So, the access works well.
What is most valuable?
The best feature is its dependability. We have had some situations where some RHEL servers have been up and running for five years. So, it provides reliability and dependability. It stays up.
It provides flexibility for us to come up with solutions to speed up deployment, which is great. It allows us to use it in different environments and works well with different applications. For our virtualization platform, we will just probably deploy through VMware. We are able to script and code all of the hardening procedures. If we wanted certain applications installed for deploying images, it just gives us the flexibility.
The deployment and management interfaces for non-Linux users and Linux beginners are pretty robust. It works pretty well. I know the servers themselves have a UI that is a management front-end, where you can basically do everything using the UI rather than doing anything with the command line. That is definitely good for non-Linux users and Linux beginners.
The consistency of application and user experience, regardless of the underlying infrastructure, is great. It works well. The more that they add to make it a little simpler to work with the tools and applications that they provide, the better.
The solution enables me to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal, virtualized, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments. If it was a scale of one to 10, 10 being the best, I would say nine because there is always room for improvement. It is definitely up there as far as its reliability.
What needs improvement?
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.
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
September 2026
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2026.
916,582 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
Since 2005, I have worked at various companies who have used this solution.
My current company was using it even before I came.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Once it is up and running, it is solid and stable. It has a stable OS. I haven't had any issues with it.
How are customer service and support?
Usually, if there is any particular issue and it gets to a point where we need to open a ticket, then we will open a ticket and just generate a dump file. We then upload it and wait for them to respond.
The technical support has been great and awesome. They have been able to assist, provide solutions, and root cause analysis for different issues. I would rate the technical support as nine out of 10. There is always room for improvement.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before 2005, I worked as a Unix engineer for Solaris and Sun Microsystems. Once I left that company who was working with Solaris, that is when I started being more like an administrator for Red Hat Linux for different companies.
How was the initial setup?
Most companies go with some sort of way to deploy an image. I have done standard, straight installs, installing the solution to laptops. That would be the equivalent of installing it to bare-metal.
It takes maybe 15 to 20 minutes to deploy a server. That is just with all the automation that we have added as well as having to deploy a base OS image, hardening, and adding all the software that we want. For a company-base installation, it takes about 20 minutes.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
This solution is definitely one of the best versions of Linux out there to use, especially if you are looking to use Linux in an Enterprise fashion. This is mainly because it has the best support out there. It is also stable and dependable.
We use outside monitoring tools, not the ones that come with RHEL.
We are using other tools to deploy base images to our private cloud. So, we're not exactly using Red Hat tools for this use case.
What other advice do I have?
They are a great company overall. It is hard to say where they could improve. They have user groups. They put out a lot of messaging and information. The solution is easy to learn and get to know their products and what they do. From a personal standpoint, I have everything that I need.
If I wanted to run multiple versions of Node.js, there are ways to do that without using AppStream. More recently, I have been working with different versions of Node.js, having it in different versions on one machine. It works well. Just the fact that I have the capability is great.
Among the other distributions of Linux out there, I would rate it as 10 out of 10. If I have to compare this solution against everything else out there, this solution is at the top of the list.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Cloud Architect at Vision Bank
Runs our whole production workload, easy to manage and troubleshoot, and very stable
Pros and Cons
- "It is a well-established operating system. We have tried to implement almost every feature of a version in our environment, and it has been very reliable. We are not facing many production issues on a day-to-day basis. They have well-documented articles on their documentation site and a knowledge base on their website. When we need to implement anything, we are able to find information about the best practices and the solution."
- "It is very stable, and you can easily run a lot of production workload on RHEL."
- "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."
- "The vulnerability assessment part should also be improved. We do a lot of patching regularly."
What is our primary use case?
It is used for our production system. We are running multiple web servers and multiple databases on RHEL operating system platform. We are also running some of our OpenShift containers on it. We have a lot of applications that are running on RHEL versions 5, 6, 7, and 8 in our environment, but the maximum number of applications are running on RHEL 7 and 8.
How has it helped my organization?
RHEL provides features that help speed up our deployment. We are using OpenShift to speed up our container implementation and container orchestration.
It is good in terms of consistency of application and user experience. It works consistently regardless of the underlying infrastructure. For the features we are using, we are getting the output according to what they have mentioned in the portfolio. We are not facing any unpredictable issues. It has a predictive analysis feature for troubleshooting. It uses AI and ML algorithms to give us the issues that will eventually come if something prolongs. If we are managing our environment very well and are following the best practices, our end-users also don't face any issues, which improves their user experience.
We use RHEL's tracing and monitoring tools. They have given a lot of metrics, and we do use these tools to trace our application. They provide a lot of benchmarks and metrics if we are planning to do a tech refresh or if we are planning to migrate any solution. So, we use them to calculate, and then we do the documentation.
Its integrations are very reliable. We have a Satellite Server for patching, and we are using Ansible for configuration management. We have a lot of API integrations with the RHEL for third-party integrations. We do a lot of testing before integrating the third-party services into RHEL. We first try them out in the test environment, and then we deploy them on the dev environment, and after that, we move them to the production environment.
What is most valuable?
It is easy to manage. It is also easy to troubleshoot. The subscription and the support from the RHEL are also good.
It is a well-established operating system. We have tried to implement almost every feature of a version in our environment, and it has been very reliable. We are not facing many production issues on a day-to-day basis. They have well-documented articles on their documentation site and a knowledge base on their website. When we need to implement anything, we are able to find information about the best practices and the solution.
What needs improvement?
Their support service can be improved. They are able to help us, but in some cases, there is a delay in getting a root cause analysis from their side for Severity One cases.
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using this solution for more than eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is awesome when compared to other products. We have multiple Unix flavors running in the environment, but we are running production workloads only on RHEL. Previously, we were running the production load on other Unix flavors, but we had a lot of production issues. That's why we migrated the whole production workload to RHEL.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is according to each product. They have predefined scalability ratios. It works fine according to that ratio. We are able to scale applications and databases. It is easy. Before deploying an application, we check the scalability of each product, and we plan accordingly. So, there are no issues. It is easy.
We have Oracle Databases with 30 to 40 terabytes database size running on RHEL. We also have some HPC systems running on RHEL. We are running a workload of around 250 terabytes on RHEL, and we are planning to extend our environment and increase its usage.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is good, but there are some delays in giving a root cause analysis for critical Severity One or S1 cases. I would rate them an eight out of 10.
How was the initial setup?
It is straightforward. It is not much complex. Previously, we used to do everything manually. Now, we have multiple scripts and multiple tools that make it easy to deploy.
The first deployment took a few months because we were new to RHEL. We had to do a lot of homework from our side as well as on the product side, so it took us a few months to implement it. Now, we are well-familiar with the product. We know how the product works, so we plan accordingly, and we are able to finish according to a deadline.
RHEL has accelerated the deployment of cloud-based workloads. We also work with a local partner of RHEL, and they give us professional services. They do have some customized tools for partner deployment, and their professional services team is able to help us to accelerate all the workloads to the public cloud by using those tools. This acceleration time depends upon the workload size and whether we are going for a normal Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Platform-as-a-Service. It also depends on how we are migrating our monolithic application to the microservices application.
What about the implementation team?
We are a local government organization. We have an account manager from RHEL, and we also have a local system integrator and a local partner. They are providing us local help for our requirements.
For purchases or subscriptions, we don't have any issues. We have multiple subscriptions for multiple products. Our local Red Hat partner takes care of all requirements. We just send the requests to them, and they take care of all subscription-related things for us. The whole process is streamlined.
What was our ROI?
We have been using it for a lot of years. Our business is happy with its total cost of ownership and its return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is more expensive than other vendors in terms of pricing and licensing, but because of its stability, I have to go with it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In terms of the operating system features, scalability, and stability, RHEL is better than other Unix flavors.
We do a lot of technical evaluation before migrating or implementing a new application or solution. For example, we evaluated Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift. We went for OpenShift because RHEL had the support for it. For patch management, we are using Red Hat Satellite Server. We used some other third-party tools such as ManageEngine, and we also did manual patching. As compared to others, Red Hat Satellite Server is much better.
What other advice do I have?
It is very stable, and you can easily run a lot of production workload on RHEL. Red Hat products are well established. They have been around for many years. Red Hat is dealing with multiple products and applications and is constantly doing research to develop new products according to industry trends. With RHEL, you can get an end-to-end solution with their multiple products, which is something not available through other vendors.
Red Hat's open-source approach was a factor when choosing RHEL. We are utilizing a lot of open-source solutions in our Test and Dev environment before going into production. We are able to get a lot of information in the open-source community, and we also have local community support in our region.
Its newer versions enable us to deploy current applications and emerging workloads across bare-metal, virtualized, hybrid cloud, and multi-cloud environments, but the older versions are not supporting these features. They have included more features in the newer versions to integrate and merge with other applications that are on-premises, in the cloud, or in a hybrid cloud setup. In the older versions, we faced some issues in moving some of the applications from on-premises to the cloud, but in the newer versions, it is very easy to move or merge to the cloud. The applications that we have deployed across these environments are very reliable, except for the bare-metal. They are not much reliable if we are using a bare-metal solution on-prem. For virtualization, we are not using the native RHEL virtualization. We have VMware for virtualization, and it is okay in terms of directly deploying some of the applications to the public cloud. It is quite reliable.
It doesn't simplify adoption for non-Linux users. For non-Linux users, it is somewhat difficult to manage this solution or have this solution. However, as compared to other Unix platforms, RHEL is okay.
We are not using RHEL to run multiple versions of the same application or database on a specific operating system. In a specific operating system, we are running an application according to our end-user features requirements. We go through a lot of documentation and do multiple PoCs for deploying an application on the RHEL platform. We have a lot of user acceptance test procedures for each application in terms of how we have to do benchmarking and what are our requirements. So, we are managing with an individual operating system and not using the whole centralized solution.
We use automation tools to move to the cloud. When we are planning to move to the cloud, we do multiple cloud assessments for which we have third-party tools as well as in-built RHEL tools. Each vendor has a different way of migration and automation for moving the on-prem workload to the cloud workload. Each vendor gives you different tools, and we follow the best practices given by them while moving the on-premises workload to the cloud.
I would rate RHEL an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
September 2026
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2026.
916,582 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Technical Architect at Linux on Support
Adapts well to varying needs, and it's very stable and cost-effective
Pros and Cons
- "It helps our customers save money and do things quickly."
- "Nowadays, delays are common with their support, and it often takes time to get assistance from experienced engineers."
What is our primary use case?
My customers primarily use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for application hosting and small databases. It is used for hosting Java applications and small web servers.
How has it helped my organization?
Cloud-based Red Hat Enterprise Linux deployments provide cost savings. If customers are purchasing a physical server, they need to have a proper setup. They need to have a data center, cabling, and a lot of other things. For cost-saving purposes, they are going for a cloud. As an operating system, it offers the same functionality on-prem or on the cloud.
What is most valuable?
It saves money for company owners. It helps our customers save money and do things quickly. They can build servers quickly. There is a menu where they can fill in the VM name and other details and attach storage. In ten minutes, they have a server ready.
I am Red Hat certified. I train people in corporations and educational institutes. Red Hat's material is very good. Their testing system is awesome. If someone is certified in Red Hat, you know that they know it well. There are millions of videos on YouTube, but they are not always updated. On the Red Hat site, the documentation is very clear. You just need to focus and study for two to three months to get certified.
What needs improvement?
Nowadays, delays are common with their support, and it often takes time to get assistance from experienced engineers.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for seven to eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is an excellent product, and its stability has improved significantly over time. It can operate for extended periods, like six months to one year, without issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux scales well with increasing user demands or infrastructure size. It is easily available and efficiently adapts to varying needs.
Most customers host medium-sized applications on the cloud. Storing a big application can lead to higher costs.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support from Red Hat has declined over the past four or five years. It could be because there are not many skilled people. When we raise a case, it is attended by junior people or new people, which wastes two to three days. We might even have to raise the severity of the ticket. However, when senior people take ownership of the case, the support is awesome. They give proper support. This was not the case earlier, so whenever we raised a ticket, we got an immediate response from Red Hat.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is smooth.
We have Cloud-based deployments. We are using AWS, GCP, Azure, and other cloud platforms. We also have on-premises deployment. Some customers also have a mixed deployment with the cloud and on-prem but in such environments, I have seen problems in terms of performance. For example, if my database is on-prem on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and I am storing my application on the cloud on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, whenever someone hits the website, there will be latency issues. I sorted out such issues for a customer. I suggested they migrate their server from the cloud to on-prem because their database was quite big. With a mixed setup, they were having a lot of issues in terms of performance and storing data. It was very slow. After they moved it on-prem, it was much faster. This is not a Red Hat-related issue. From the operating system side, no improvements are required. However, cloud providers need to improve their facilities.
For patching, I use Red Hat Satellite, and for configuration, I use Red Hat Ansible. Leapp upgrades are also awesome. A month back, I upgraded Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. I created detailed documentation about the procedure. There were about 14 steps. It was straightforward.
With Red Hat Insights, we can see the security threats. Red Hat Insights is integrated with Red Hat Satellite. It will be helpful from the patching point of view. It lets you do subjective analytics of servers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I did some research on pricing a long time ago, and at that time, it was much cheaper than Windows. I do not have current details about pricing, but it is affordable.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
At Kaizen Gaming Site Reliability Engineer (Stoiximan & Betano) at a recreational facilities/services company with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable, stable upgrades, and good support
Pros and Cons
- "It is a very stable operating system. We are not afraid to upgrade it."
- "The biggest challenge that we had was the migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but after some tests, it was easy."
What is our primary use case?
We have Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our staging and development environments. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for our production servers. It is the only Linux operating system that we are using in our company. I do not think we will change it. We will stay with it.
How has it helped my organization?
We started with CentOS, so it is quite similar. We have various features, and it is stable. The updates and upgrades are stable. This is the most important thing for my company. We are a gambling company. Reliability and performance are the most important for us. We like to press the update button and have an updated operating system after one, two, three, or five minutes. The most important thing about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that it is a stable operating system.
We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for containerization projects. Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Docker daemons have been running for years without any problems. It is very stable. We are happy with it.
Every time we did an update or upgrade for the operating system or some dependencies, it worked well. It was very fast and stable. We are not afraid to press the button. We are happy with it.
The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux keeps our organization agile. We are running some Docker applications. They are not our production applications. We are running some containers. It is very quite easy.
We use Red Hat Insights, and we are happy with Red Hat Insights in urgent situations due to security issues, noncompliant settings, or unpatched systems.
Red Hat Insights provides us with vulnerability alerts and targeted guidance. We have not had any problems.
What is most valuable?
It is a very stable operating system. We are not afraid to upgrade it.
If I want GUI, its GUI is better than other open-source operating systems. I prefer it for package management for sure. I am happy with it.
What needs improvement?
At the moment, I am happy with it. I cannot think of any areas for improvement. We have everything. The biggest challenge that we had was the migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but after some tests, it was easy.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We plan to increase its usage.
How are customer service and support?
We are partners of Red Hat. We have support, so we are good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using CentOS. The architect in my company chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we were already partners with Red Hat.
How was the initial setup?
We are mostly on-prem. We are trying to migrate our applications to the cloud. We are using Azure Cloud.
The main data center that we have is in Ireland, but we are serving a lot of countries. We have small data centers for some countries. We have 2,000 VMs in Ireland, and we also have VMs in other countries. We have almost five data centers. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux in all of them.
Migration from CentOS to Red Hat Enterprise Linux was a big challenge, but Red Hat had software to migrate and convert all CentOS VMs to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It was an adventure in the beginning, but after some tests, it was easy. We migrated and converted almost 2,000 VMs in two to three months, and we had only ten cases where the migration failed, but it was our fault. We were happy.
For migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we created a template and made the changes that we wanted. We ran some Ansible Playbooks, and we created the VMs.
What about the implementation team?
We used a consultant from Red Hat the first time.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
To a colleague who is looking at open-source, cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would advise going for Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of support. There would be someone who already knows about your issue and can help you in a couple of hours. There is no need to spend time fixing the issue by yourself. Imagine running Ubuntu and having a production issue. You need someone to guide you.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not enabled us to centralize development. Our company is based on the .NET language. Our developers do not care about our infrastructure. They develop their applications, and we deploy them in OpenShift. We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for other services, such as MongoDB, Postgres, and our logging infrastructure. We use it for Elasticsearch, Graylog, and Docker services. Our applications do not run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems. They are running on CoreOS for OpenShift.
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a ten out of ten. It is stable. We are not afraid to upgrade it. We are happy to use it. This operating system is for us.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Sr. Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
A stable and mature solution that offers cost efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "The tool's most valuable features are stability and maturity. Linux offers cost efficiency. Red Hat comes at the top of other Linux vendors. I am very satisfied with RHEL's maturity."
- "We had issues migrating from the old to the new RHEL version in the virtual environment. It forced us to spin up a new virtual environment to have the new RHEL version."
What is our primary use case?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to host website content.
What is most valuable?
The tool's most valuable features are stability and maturity. Linux offers cost efficiency. Red Hat comes at the top of other Linux vendors. I am very satisfied with Red Hat Enterprise Linux's maturity.
What needs improvement?
We had issues migrating from the old to the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux version in the virtual environment. It forced us to spin up a new virtual environment to have the new Red Hat Enterprise Linux version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over 15 years.
How are customer service and support?
My experience with Red Hat's support team is positive. They are a lot better than our cloud CMS vendor.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Sun Microsystems and Unix on on-prem.
What other advice do I have?
The product supports our hybrid cloud strategy well.
We move workloads between different clouds and data sandboxes.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux's knowledge base is quite extensive. It is free, which helps us to advocate the product. I would like it to continue and rate it positive.
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux web console was helpful and offered visibility through dashboards. It helped us see what was going on with our system.
I rate it a nine out of ten.
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Systems Administrator at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Offers tools that provide valuable visibility and transparency regarding vulnerabilities, packages, and infected systems
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of RHEL is the Ansible Automation Platform, closely followed by Satellite."
- "RHEL could be improved in several ways, especially regarding transparency and communication of new features."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is to set up and manage servers for various application teams, especially those dealing with hospital ADT applications. These applications handle critical data related to patient admissions and management within healthcare facilities.
While configuring Red Hat Enterprise Linux and its associated tools can be complex and sometimes frustrating, I have found that leveraging the support and resources provided by Red Hat is invaluable. Through collaboration with Red Hat's support team and a better understanding of the intricacies involved, we have significantly improved the speed and efficiency of managing our extensive infrastructure, making the process smoother and more manageable than before.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux has improved our system's security.
While measuring uptime is important, what matters most to us is improving the value and efficiency of patch and reboot cycles. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's tools, including Satellite and Ansible, provide valuable visibility and transparency regarding vulnerabilities, packages, and infected systems, helping enhance security and patch management.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the Ansible Automation Platform, closely followed by Satellite. These two tools are integral to our environment.
Satellite helps with provisioning, managing metadata, and licensing, while Ansible ensures uniform setup across our extensive environment, making the management of our infrastructure much smoother and more efficient.
What needs improvement?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux could be improved in several ways, especially regarding transparency and communication of new features. Enhancements could include better documentation and quick reference materials for various user groups, including developers, system administrators, etc.
Additionally, there could be improved visibility for new and improved commands within Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Many users still rely on outdated commands when newer, more efficient alternatives are available. Providing frequent updates and maintenance for resources like the admin blog would help improve communication and transparency regarding Red Hat Enterprise Linux's capabilities and features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 11 years.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten. There has been a noticeable improvement in their support, particularly after their acquisition by IBM.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux was initially complex because we were not aware of all the available tools to streamline the process. We had to learn, but now we are more proficient.
Tasks that once took a month can now be completed in a week. We worked directly with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, without an integrated reseller or consultant.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. By transitioning applications to the Red Hat Linux platform, we have been able to reduce our data center footprint and associated costs, such as electricity. This cost savings in other areas has been a clear benefit of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
What other advice do I have?
Our upgrade and migration plans are focused on a balance between stability and staying current with the latest and most secure versions of Red Hat.
While there is a desire to be on the cutting edge, we must consider what is currently in use by our clinicians and staff who rely on our hospital systems. We aim to strike a balance between these factors and leverage a sandbox environment to test the latest versions before deploying them in our production environment.
We have been thoroughly impressed with Red Hat Insights and are currently in the process of exploring Leapp, which has shown great results in our evaluations. The web console has been invaluable for us, particularly when collaborating with application custodians who may not be familiar with the command line interface.
We use Ansible for managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems for provisioning and patching, which has improved visibility and reduced issues compared to third-party solutions. Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
DevOps Engineer at Hitachi Vanatra Corporation
Helps with security and patching
Pros and Cons
- "We are a Managed Service Provider. Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us not to be worried about vulnerabilities, security, and patching."
- "We need to have more flexibility on the developed versions. Not everybody is ready to subscribe to enterprise versions. They would like to test the tool without subscriptions."
What is our primary use case?
Our use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is for production applications.
How has it helped my organization?
We are a Managed Service Provider. Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us not to be worried about vulnerabilities, security, and patching.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the subscriptions and upgrades.
What needs improvement?
We need to have more flexibility on the developed versions. Not everybody is ready to subscribe to enterprise versions. They would like to test the tool without subscriptions.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of its security.
What other advice do I have?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux with AWS. We started our practice with AWS, and most customers use it instead of GCP or Azure. We use the product in a hybrid environment, mostly when shifting the containers or existing workloads from legacy systems.
Most of the customers use Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it is the only approved OS. The tool's knowledge base is good but is limited to subscriptions.
The upgrade migration is straightforward. For the initial projects, we used to execute CLI scripts. We plan to upgrade the system if everything works well in the lower environment.
I have used the image builder feature. I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Sr. Systems Admin at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Hardware-independent, cost-efficient, and saves maintenance time
Pros and Cons
- "It is hardware-independent. We can use Dell, HPE, or any other hardware. It is also more reasonable than the other operating systems."
What is our primary use case?
We host our applications and database servers on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
We mostly have an on-premises setup. We also have Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on a virtual machine.
How has it helped my organization?
Compared to our previous Unix distro, it is pretty easy and less time-consuming to do patching and maintenance. It saves a lot of time during maintenance.
What is most valuable?
I started with Solaris 10, and then we migrated to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Apart from local zones and a few other things, its features are similar to Solaris 10. It is getting our job done. It is hardware-independent. We can use Dell, HPE, or any other hardware. It is also more reasonable than the other operating systems.
It integrates closely with other products of Red Hat, such as Ansible, which makes it more efficient.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since 2010.
How are customer service and support?
We are getting all the support that we need on a timely basis. In the case of any issue, we are getting all the support needed to bring the production back online. I would rate them a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Solaris 10. We moved to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it is cost-efficient and hardware-independent.
How was the initial setup?
I am a part of the team that does the OS deployment. Its initial deployment is straightforward. We use automation for deployment. We have a kickstart to deploy the OS. Once we create that kickstart configuration file, the deployment is straightforward.
In terms of our upgrade and migration plans to stay current, we upgrade it before the OS is end of life. It is pretty straightforward. We are pretty satisfied with Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems when it comes to provisioning and patching.
What about the implementation team?
We deployed it on our own.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is cost-effective.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There were not many options available.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Consultant at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Reduces risk, enhances security, and is easy to use
Pros and Cons
- "The solution provides more detailed control."
- "It could be simplified. I'd like to see them introduce PDFs or documents to better explain technicalities to new users."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution for research purposes.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution provides more detailed control.
What is most valuable?
The product's built-in security features when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance can be a tedious topic. It varies from user to user, however, it offers a lot of rapid releases. It helps us to simplify risk reduction and maintain compliance.
The portability of applications and containers built on the product when it comes to keeping your organization agile is good. It's easy to use.
It enhances our security. It helps us comply with company regulations.
When it comes to ensuring availability across physical virtual and cloud infrastructure, it's been okay so far.
It helped us to avoid emergencies due to security issues.
What needs improvement?
I consider the solution to be sufficient. I do not use it too much and therefore do not see any underlying problems with the solution.
It's sufficient and it doesn't need new features. However, as new technologies enter the market, I hope they will keep up with the changing market.
From a product point of view, it's very efficient for servers. However, the solution is complex in terms of its architecture. It could be simplified. I'd like to see them introduce PDFs or documents to better explain technicalities to new users.
Memorizing commands can be a bit tedious.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product has been stable so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is deployed to the data center, which is managed only by a few teams.
About 150 people are using the solution. We also have 45 to 50 administrators as they are managing different areas.
The solution is scalable. However, I'm not sure if we plan to scale further in the future.
How are customer service and support?
I have not interacted with support very much.
How was the initial setup?
I was involved in the deployment. The initial setup was very straightforward.
The deployment is fast and the process is efficient.
What about the implementation team?
I did a lot of the implementation myself.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not evaluate other options.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten.
I'd advise new users to learn from someone who has done everything before. It's much easier than trying to learn by yourself from scratch. They should also have their own environment for testing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT Infrastructure Manager at Linuxfault
We get great support, and stability, and it helps us save costs
Pros and Cons
- "The support and the stability are Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable areas."
- "Upgrading between versions needs to be easier."
What is our primary use case?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to run our GS and PSP applications.
How has it helped my organization?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us avoid cloud vendor lock-in.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux helped us save on costs.
What is most valuable?
The support and the stability are Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable areas.
What needs improvement?
Upgrading between versions needs to be easier. For example, if we have Red Hat Seven running now and a Java exploit is found on Red Hat Seven, we need to be able to upgrade to Red Hat Nine online without any downtime in the environment. This is because it is not possible to reinstall the environment from Red Hat Seven to Red Hat Nine in production without causing downtime to the applications. Red Hat needs to have tools that ensure that we can upgrade from Red Hat Seven to Nine online without any issues.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is extremely stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable. We have around 1,790 end users.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is quick to respond.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Proxmox and switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of the price.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward because it is well-documented. The deployment time depends on the application. A small application can take around 20 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost is based on each organization's budget and infrastructure.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of ten.
The ease of moving workloads between the cloud and our data center depends on the application architecture. If the application has a monolithic infrastructure, it may be easier to move to the cloud. However, if the application is already running mostly in the data center, it may be more difficult because we would need to recreate all of the infrastructure and topology from scratch. This is because there are so many parts to consider when migrating a microservices-based application to the cloud.
For someone who wants to use an open source Linux operating system, I would recommend Rocky Linux. However, they should be aware that open source solutions do not come with the same level of support as Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Four network team members are required to maintain Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
The Red Hat knowledge base is good and well-documented.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the only Linux solution that is supported for enterprise-level organizations. I recommend this solution for large organizations that want professional support for their Linux systems.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Updated: September 2026
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