Flatcar Container Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comparison

Kinvolk (acquired by Microsoft) and Red Hat are both solutions in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category. Kinvolk (acquired by Microsoft) is ranked #27, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Kinvolk (acquired by Microsoft) holds a 0.7% mindshare in OSB, compared to Red Hat’s 8.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Kinvolk (acquired by Microsoft) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Flatcar Container Linux

Read 1 Flatcar Container Linux review

646 Views
620 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Read 364 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reviews

19,554 Views
19,358 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Flatcar Container Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Flatcar Container Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business.

To learn more, read our detailed Operating Systems (OS) for Business Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 868,787 peers since 2012

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

Flatcar Container Linux

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

27th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Flatcar Container Linux is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 8.6%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Operating Systems (OS) for Business Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)	8.6%
Flatcar Container Linux	0.7%
Other	90.7%

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

Featured Reviews

Yogesh Deore

Senior Consultant at Capgemini

The solution is stable and allows us to make needed changes

The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net I have eight years of experience with Flatcar Container Linux. The version of Flatcar Container Linux that I am using is stable. The scalability of this product is fine. It allows us to make the needed…

Read full review

Bruce Lundberg

Linux HPC Systems Administrator at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Flatcar's support is good. The version I am using is stable and allows us to make needed changes."

"I have used a lot of different Linux distributions, and one thing that I like about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the support. The support from Red Hat is very good. They offer excellent customer and vendor support."

"It helps our customers save money and do things quickly."

"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."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%."

"One pro is that at the operating system layer, like, RHEL has better support from Red Hat, and if something goes down, I found many resources for troubleshooting and stuff online."

"It has improved our organization. It has standardized processes."

"Security, packages, and updates are valuable. There is also the possibility to do unattended installations. This way you can define how you want the installation to behave and be configured whenever you do the deployment."

"The knowledge base they offer has proven to be quite efficient and we haven't encountered any significant challenges."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pros

Cons

"The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net."

"They can allow more access to their training and their products' testing. There are ways to do it now. You might have to get a certain type of account to test their products. It might be easier if you can just download the product and test it out."

"We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with RHEL six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux should be available in a free version that developers could try on their own machines before deciding to implement the enterprise edition. It would be nice to have a community version available with all the features so developers can become more familiar with RHEL."

"To become more competitive, they might consider changing their licensing model, for instance, by offering an instance-based payment for cloud computing services."

"The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved in terms of applications to interact better with the operating system for monitoring, control, and a better administration interface, though I don't work in the technical department."

"I would probably focus more on a rolling release schedule. Instead of a long-term operating support of ten years, I would just have one release and keep rolling it."

"I wish that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) had more free options available; there are similar Linux distributions, but in terms of training and certification, I think it would be beneficial if there were a better free trial, allowing users to gain better experience with the platform itself."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The licensing is tricky to understand. Enterprises want to be beyond reproach when it comes to licensing. We would rather over-license than under-license. However, that can be complicated with a high-performance development team who may need multiple operating system instances or want to experiment with spinning up many machines to see if something works or sticks."

"We still have a few with one-to-one standard server licensing, but we are utilizing the virtualization host licensing. We license it based on the host, not based on VMs, which is cool. I was very happy that there was certain licensing with SAP to have access to SAP repos. Its cost was the same as the regular one, so I was happy about that."

"Lowering the cost of enterprise-level offerings could attract organizations seeking operating systems or Kubernetes solutions, as these tools are essential for many businesses in the region."

"We used to get our own license model. We purchased a license through Red Hat."

"From a management point of view, it's quite good, but everyone is complaining that it's more expensive than the other operating systems."

"The solution is moving away from its open source roots and licensing is a little bit of an issue."

"I have purchased the license via hyperscalers and transferred it as well. I purchased the license from the marketplace and also from Red Hat. Pricing is something that can always be better."

"I have limited information regarding Red Hat Enterprise Linux pricing and licensing, but our managers appear satisfied."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Comparison Review

it_user281973

Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

25%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	84
Midsize Enterprise	47
Large Enterprise	249

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Ubuntu Linux vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 44% of the time

Alpine Linux vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 23% of the time

CentOS vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 9% of the time

Debian vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 7% of the time

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Flatcar Container Linux

Compared 6% of the time

More Flatcar Container Linux Competitors

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 18% of the time

Windows Server vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 14% of the time

Rocky Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 12% of the time

Ubuntu Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 9% of the time

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

September 2025

Download Flatcar Container Linux product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

September 2025

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL

Overview

Flatcar Container Linux is a lightweight, secure, and reliable operating system designed for running containers at scale with automatic updates and a minimal attack surface. The solution is easy to use and manage and has a simple and intuitive command-line interface and a powerful set of tools for managing containers and clusters.

It supports various container runtimes, including Docker, Kubernetes, and Mesos. It can be deployed on various infrastructure platforms, including bare metal, virtual machines, and cloud environments. Flatcar Container Linux is an ideal choice for organizations deploying containerized applications in production environments.

Kinvolk (acquired by Microsoft)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is recognized for its stability, security, and performance, serving diverse industries with its robust support and seamless cloud deployment capabilities.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides comprehensive server applications across cloud environments, featuring tools like Ansible for enhanced user experience. It integrates OpenShift, Identity Management, and automation, supported by extensive documentation. Users seek easier upgrades, enhanced network virtualization support, and improved live patching.

What are the key features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Stability and Security: RHEL is designed to provide a stable and secure environment, backed by consistent updates.
Cloud Deployment: Easily deployable across cloud platforms, enhancing flexibility.
Integration with Ansible: Enhances operational efficiency with powerful automation tools.
OpenShift and Containerization: Supports modern app development with integrated OpenShift features.
Extensive Documentation: Offers comprehensive resources for users to troubleshoot and optimize.

What are the benefits of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Reliable Support: Benefit from extensive support options for seamless operation.
Enhanced Security: Built-in features ensure data integrity and protection.
Increased Flexibility: Suitable for diverse deployment environments, including on-premises and cloud.
Operational Efficiency: Tools like automation and cloud navigation improve productivity.
Training and Resources: Access to comprehensive training contributes to smoother implementations.

In sectors like finance, telecommunications, and education, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is crucial for running stable, secure systems. Its application spans web servers, data management, and containerization through tools like Kubernetes. Organizations adopt it for on-premises, virtualized, and cloud environments, ensuring robust infrastructure management.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

CISCO, mettle, Microsoft, Upguard, GMX

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

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

September 2025

Download Free Report

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our list of best Operating Systems (OS) for Business vendors.

We monitor all Operating Systems (OS) for Business reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.