Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

All our infrastructure uses Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Every service we run is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Even containerization is on it.

It has improved our organization. It has standardized processes. Everyone uses it. 

The upgrades are straightforward which helps when you want to move a major version of an upgrade. It's done in a standard way.

Everything we do is all Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's security has been good because I have never seen any application going down due to security reasons. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us to achieve security standard certification. For example, we have a very tightly SCC-regulated company so there are many rules that we are to follow and we are able to achieve this using Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I have been using it for six years. 

We are all on-prem, but we also have some footprints in AWS but those images are also on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has supported our hybrid cloud strategy. We have a few things running on AWS. We have a few things on OpenShift. We are able to get all the basic images. It is easy to start and deploy anywhere.

One thing I like is the updates because when we patch it and upgrade it, we save a lot of time doing those upgrades and migrations.

Moreover, upgrades or migration to Red Hat Enterprise Linux have been straightforward in some ways. For example, we are currently migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and we have all our servers running on RHEL 7. We have scripts that are very easy to migrate.

For our implementation strategy, we go environment by environment. We start with our development environment. Once we are done with it, we test it. We have some automation test suites, test them, and we go to the upper environment.  

We worked directly with Red Hat for the deployment. We are already working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 migration. Every year, whenever there is a major version release, we migrate to the major version.  

We see a return on investment in terms of saving time. One thing I like is the updates because when we patch it and upgrade it, we save a lot of time doing those upgrades and migrations.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

My use cases are mainly limited to databases. I'm also involved in other ETL tools; I worked on migrations from older vendors, like Windows, and transitioning to RedHat Linux.

The most valuable features are security, performance tuning, storage management, and OS-level automation. If you wanted to automate while adapting with different vendor scripts or your own development because it's Linux, it's not like an operating system itself. It is always going to perform how you expect it to. IAQt's not like other operating systems. It is based on Linux. 

These are the main features. Storage management is another valuable feature that is very critical in an operating system. It works along hardware and software.

The most valuable features are security, performance tuning, storage management, and OS-level automation. If you wanted to automate while adapting with different vendor scripts or your own development because it's Linux, it's not like an operating system itself. It is always going to perform how you expect it to. IAQt's not like other operating systems. It is based on Linux.

Compared to other OS', Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the best from my 20-plus years of experience. It is well-suited for production environments. In 2003 and 2006 I worked with one of the vendors in another country. We were able to run a database instance on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for two years without restarting it. The database was located in a remote location, and the team could not be on-site to provide support. We installed it ourselves and it worked for two years. We restarted the database instance. We didn't need to touch it internally. It works like a charm.

If it works, it works. You don't need to attach anything at all. You just monitor them remotely. Nobody was there on-site. That's the beauty of it. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is great. I love it.

The GUI has room for improvement. It needs to be managed by many administrators. It has basic command lines. They could improve it with better automation. We'd like to be able to create a script, and then have the ability to deploy it where we don't need to write everything manually. That part can be useful for automating. 

We'd like it so that a coder wouldn't need to go through it, read it, go to GUI, and then generate a script. If they want to modify it, they could modify it. If Red Hat Enterprise Linux is going to build something, the REST API can be helpful instead of writing their own, starting from scratch. That would make it easier.

For future releases, there could be more integration. Regarding security, we used a different tool for scanning, but having a tool within Red Hat could enhance it. 

Support is essential for open-source software. If they improve aspects like prevention against hacking, it would be beneficial. 

Before, with a surge in hacking incidents, companies lost data, and once lost, it remains lost forever. You never know when it might be used. Improving security, especially in terms of prevention, is crucial. I would like to see ongoing improvement in this aspect.

I've worked with different companies. In my over 20 years of experience, in the last five or six companies I've worked for, all of them have been using Red Hat. They use it mostly for databases. 

I'm in the database sector, primarily working as a senior technical architect. End-to-end, we always find that Red Hat is best suited for Linux, especially for Oracle and other NoSQL databases. It's reliable, first and foremost, and it offers stability and performance. Performance tuning is crucial, and once it's set up, you can rely on it. 

With the cloud, it's moving into containerization, and most of them support the cloud. 

The customer service and support are really good. 

Positive

I have worked with many different operating systems in the past, including Windows, Linux, and RedHat Linux.

We switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it is a reliable and well-supported enterprise operating system. It is easy to manage, use, and upgrade.

We have seen a return on investment. 

As a consultant, I handle sizing, design, and optimization for new infrastructures and I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux to anybody considering it.  

Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to run our GS and PSP applications.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us avoid cloud vendor lock-in.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux helped us save on costs. 

The support and the stability are Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable areas.

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.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for almost seven years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is extremely stable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scalable. We have around 1,790 end users.

The technical support is quick to respond.

We previously used Proxmox and switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of the price.

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.

The implementation was completed in-house.

The cost is based on each organization's budget and infrastructure.

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.

It is for binding servers. It is for web servers, such as Apache and NGINX, and KVM virtualization.

We have servers running all time. We have not had any issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We have had issues with Microsoft products over time. Because of the updates, we had downtime, but that is not the case with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

It has been very productive for our organization. We have an online client buying or purchasing products from our website, which is available 24 hours.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good when it comes to building with confidence and ensuring availability across the infrastructure. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of stability and reliability. In the case of our web server, I have had availability issues with Microsoft, whereas, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we have not had many such issues. There has been only 1% downtime, whereas, with Microsoft, we have had a lot more downtime.

We have support. If we have any issues with the distro, we can call their support team. We have reliable packages from Red Hat.

Network management can be easier. It is getting more complex. They can also give more customization for the CLI.

I have been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for six years.

It is very stable. We have three websites running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

It works fine. We have had servers running for ten years. We have been just updating them, and we have not had any issues or downtime.

It is scalable. We can upgrade it, and the upgrades do not impact the product.

We have a team of five people who are using this solution.

We have premium support. It is excellent. We have not interacted a lot with their support. We have almost five engineers working in the team, so we did not have to contact them a lot. We did have any major issues with the hardware or software. 

Neutral

I also use CentOS for educational purposes. Support and regular updates are advantages of Red Hat Enterprise Linux over others. 

For directory servers, we always use Microsoft because it is easy to manage and easy to control. Implementing and managing domain controllers on Microsoft is easy, and we can apply policies by groups (GPO).

Its deployment is very easy. It does not take long. Its maintenance is also easy. We can expand the storage for the operating system or the web server.

To those looking into implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would advise making use of Red Hat's community. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has had some impact in terms of security, but we have other security measures and procedures. We have not used SELinux and other embedded security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

I'm a consultant, and our customers use this product. I work for a company that works with this product. I mostly work with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We do designs of infrastructure projects from the bottom to the top. We install Red Hat Enterprise Linux at the system level. Based on the application requirements, we design, configure, and update the systems.

Our customers use it as a basic operating system on which they deploy applications. They have enterprise application servers such as Tomcat or custom applications that need an operating system.

I've worked with it both on-prem and on the cloud. It depends on the client. On the cloud, the cloud providers are both AWS and Azure. This also depends on the clients, but it's mostly AWS and Azure.

Mostly, our customers use Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of its performance and security. They want to have an operating system that is supported and secure because they don't want to spend too much time supporting a Linux version that is not enterprise. They want an enterprise product that is secure so that they don't have to think about it all the time.

It isn't difficult for our customers to move workloads between the cloud and the data center using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The integration from on-prem to the cloud is quite easy because the operating system is the same. The operating system works the same in both places, so it's easy.

It has helped our customers avoid cloud vendor lock-in because they didn't need to buy a specific subscription from a cloud vendor or use a specific operating system from a cloud vendor and change the code of their application in relation to that. It's important to have a solution that avoids cloud vendor lock-in because they can move freely from one system to another system without any issues.

It has saved costs for our customers because it's a stable operating system, and they have no problem with security, patching, and so on. The operating system and the environment are stable. It works everywhere without any issues, so the development of the applications is not impacted by the system. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is easy to use and well-supported.

Support is most valuable. If a customer has a problem with a feature or a bug, we can open a support case for that, and the issue is resolved or taken care of. That's the main benefit of the product.

The resiliency of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is quite good. 

Some low-level aspects, such as the file system support, can be improved. There are a lot of file systems that are supported by other Linux distributions. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a little behind those. For example, BTRFS is a file system that is not supported by Red Hat.

Some of our customers use the image builder tool to build the golden image to deploy to the cloud or to build a custom image to deploy on the cloud or on-prem. The golden image created by the image builder tool is good. It's the golden image. It works without any issues. However, the build process of image builder could be improved because it's not up to the standard or at par with other tools that build the golden image. However, it's quite useful and quite easy to use. It's not a big problem, but it could be improved. There is not a lot of information about how to use it. The process is not as well documented as the other parts of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The knowledge base offered by Red Hat is very good, but it could be improved and made much easier to search. Currently, the best way to find an article in the knowledge base is by using Google Search. By searching on Google, we can find the right knowledge base article, but it isn't easy to find information by using the search option within the knowledge base.

I've been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the last four years.

It's very stable. I didn't have any issues with the stability of the product most of the time.

Its scalability is very good. It scales very well in the right infrastructure.

Their support is good. It's one of the best support in the IT world for a product because you always get a response for every bug or issue. Overall, I'd rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

They were using Ubuntu.

It's straightforward. It's pretty easy to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It can be difficult based on the workflow of the client, but overall, it's pretty straightforward to deploy on the cloud environment because all cloud providers support the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The golden image of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is compatible with every cloud provider. There is a feature in the cloud console for joining the Red Hat Enterprise Linux account with the cloud account, so you can create cloud images from the console. It's pretty easy from that.

Our customers have seen an ROI because after they choose Red Hat Enterprise Linux, they stay with the product and renew the subscription. It's a good investment for the IT department.

Its licensing is pretty confusing. There are a lot of subscriptions, and it isn't always clear which subscription is the best, but with their support, it's easy to find the right one.

Our customers sometimes buy it directly from the cloud provider, but most of the time, they have a hybrid infrastructure, so they already have some kind of subscription, and they use that subscription on the cloud.

We evaluated other options, but other options don't provide the support and stability that come with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

To someone who is looking at open source cloud-based operating systems for Linux instead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would say that if they are looking for an enterprise OS on a cloud environment and they want to have some stability and security, Red Hat is the perfect match for that.

Overall, I'd rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

Our use cases are pretty broad. We develop the automation that provisions the VMs, and then anyone in the company can request the VM for whatever intended purposes.

Red Hat Support is really good. Support has a fast response time. The product has good security. We deal with very urgent issues. The response time should be optimal if the issue requires Red Hat Support. 

My company is a utility company. Outages are a major issue for us. A faster response time is very important to get the applications back up so we can keep up with our production time. Red Hat's documentation is always really good.

As a software developer, documentation is very important to me. The solution should provide better documentation.

The solution is very stable.

The product is scalable. We're able to provide as many VMs as we like. We never run into an issue with how many VMs we are provisioning.

Support can always be improved. I rate the product’s support an eight or nine out of ten.

Positive

The solution can get pretty pricey depending on how many machines we're licensing but for a good reason.

We purchased the solution from Red Hat. We use Packer by HashiCorp to build our templates. I am a junior developer. I have been employed with my company for about five months. I don't know the initial issues that led to us choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux as our Linux solution. I speak from a developer’s perspective because I deal with Ansible.

The product has really good built-in security. The product provides good support, which helps us manage downtime and get the service back up and running, thus producing more money.

Overall, I rate the product a ten out of ten.

Most of our servers are low latency, and it's easier to have low latency applications run on Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux's installation is easy. We don't have to reboot Red Hat Enterprise Linux like Windows, where there are a bunch of system updates that you have to do. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is just easier to manage.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable feature is its stability.

We would like to have a better understanding of what to expect when we move to a different version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

A latency always gets introduced when we move to newer Red Hat versions. I wish we wouldn't see that as often as we do nowadays. It would be nice to know the changes upfront rather than when we have to open a case, go through a couple of months, and then find a good resolution. We want a better understanding of what we will see when we update the kernel from seven to eight.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 15 years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a pretty stable solution. Its stability is a lot better than most other operating systems.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's scalability is better than other competitors.

For the most part, Red Hat Enterprise Linux's support has been really good. Most of the time, we've had to escalate it to get a good response.

Neutral

Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s initial setup is pretty straightforward.

Whenever we see a compliance issue and need a patch, it's been relatively easy to get Red Hat Enterprise Linux to update it.

We have a mix of Windows and Linux. Around 80 percent of our systems are Red Hat, but we also have Windows. So it depends on the application.

Most applications are compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It's easier to tune on a Red Hat system than on another OS. We could pin applications to a core with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In terms of tuning, Red Hat Enterprise Linux performs better in the long run.

Overall, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten.

We are in a closed environment, so submitting a ticket can be painstaking as only a few of us have access to do so. We primarily use Red Hat for its stability, and it's one of the few Linux operating systems that meet our security constraints.

I find the satellite feature the most valuable. It allows us to manage disconnected workstations, keeping their patching, software updates, and bug fixes up to date. We can collect all the necessary updates on a connected system and then transfer them to a disconnected system. Each client thinks it's connected to an external satellite infrastructure, making management very easy.

The Image Builder feature seems very helpful. We currently use Kickstart to build systems.

The support can be lackluster sometimes, especially in our disconnected space where we have specific requirements. Occasionally, we encounter support representatives who are not familiar with our setup. So, in that space, personalized and tailored support based on each use case could be better.

In additional features, I would have said being more on the bleeding edge, but RHEL 9 was released, which is a nice push forward. So right now, I don't think there's anything specific. I find the product stack to be pretty decent.

I have been using this solution for three years. We are using versions 7.9 and 8.7.

It's very stable, but that's also why it falls behind at times. For example, if you have newer hardware like systems A and B that were released within the last year, there might be potential sleep issues, specifically with S3 sleep, that require manual patching and intervention in the kernel. It's because they are trying to support newer systems on a much older framework.

I believe RHEL 9 is supposed to mitigate that a little bit. It aims to provide a balance between the latest stable release and the older version that is, like, five years old. They're trying to meet somewhere in the middle.

We have around 30 workstations and approximately 60 servers.

The customer service and support team depends on the environment you are in. The support can be spotty. The support can be spotty; at least they've tried to be helpful. Sometimes they'll just point you to a documentation link, practically like Googling it for you, and it's like, "No, we've already looked at this. Can you please review the logs further?" And sometimes, I'll have to go and pinpoint specific areas to look at. And then it's like, "Oh, okay." 

It's not always very thorough. But it's hit or miss. So I think it's just a people thing. If you get somebody in support who really likes their job or enjoys fixing things, they're going to go out of their way, as opposed to someone who does the bare minimum.

Neutral

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's pretty easy to enable it. After weeks of setting up a Linux Kickstart, the whole system can be deployed. The whole bare-metal system can be deployed in around thirty minutes. So it's really fast, especially for a bare-metal image with a lot of packages installed.

When it comes to maintaining compliance, I think it's pretty good. However, for risk reduction, we have to rely on other software and tools. So I can't really say that Red Hat provides that specific functionality for us. But I think it's good for maintaining compliance is very easy, especially with satellite. It makes it easy for us to access package and vulnerability information, allowing us to identify and resolve any issues. Overall, it works quite well. If you use the right products, I believe you can have all the necessary components in one place.

The portability of applications and containers is pretty good, although there is one issue. With the transition to Red Hat 8, Docker was removed. As a result, there is an issue with using Podman, specifically related to certain types of authentication in a mixed Windows-Linux environment. Due to the way secrets and related functionalities work, Podman cannot be utilized in that scenario. Therefore, there are some challenges to address in this regard.

I believe Red Hat should have maintained compatibility with Docker or at least their own Red Hat Docker until they could bring their software up to speed.

We did the implementation ourselves. The documentation is pretty good.

I save at least a few hours weekly using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). 

We got the license through a third party. They buy licenses in bulk for us. We pay them, and they handle the licensing.

Moreover, Red Hat's pricing and licensing structure seems fine. There's not a huge separation. The licenses can cover everything without worrying about the core count, socket count, or similar complexities like VMware and other big companies. It's simple enough to figure out which support contract you want based on the level of support you need.

It's an open source product.

Overall, I would rate the product an eight out of ten. The product is good, and the documentation is really comprehensive. The support is satisfactory as well. Based solely on the product itself, without considering support, we find it stable and capable of supporting various architectures. The documentation is particularly good and stands out. It provides valuable resources, including bug fixes, to people with developer accounts, which are free. Having all that information available is very helpful and resourceful, especially when troubleshooting Linux-related issues.

The documentation is very good, making it easier to troubleshoot any peculiar Linux-related problems.