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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs Rocky Linux comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
337
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocky Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.2%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocky Linux is 15.3%, up from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Bruce Lundberg - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Jetsada Malaisirirat - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancements in package management elevate user experience
I have been using Rocky Linux for three or four years. It is used for HPC, online assessments, and Ceph storage The solution is free and open source. The OS choice in my project is quite specific. It is based on customer requirements, as they might want to use Rocky Linux or Ubuntu, depending on…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Why I like it in general is that I know what it is doing. I can figure out what it is doing, and I can make it do what I want. I am not delving into arcane registry things."
"The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good. It is easy to parse through all of the knowledge base."
"We find the Red Hat Satellite deployments very useful. It integrates well with other solutions."
"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."
"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."
"It's more stable than the other operating systems."
"The most valuable feature is the reliability of Red Hat's support."
"The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) allow our company to standardize our fragmented ecosystem, which consists of a lot of Windows systems and different development environments, so that we can move away from the 'it works on my machine, it doesn't work on your machine' issues."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability."
"It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are."
"The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward."
"The solution is free and open source."
"I haven't needed to use customer service or support, which speaks volumes about their product's reliability and ease of use."
"It helps us keep our workstations in sync and ensures consistent settings across most of our machines."
 

Cons

"Their pricing and documentation can be improved."
"One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux should provide more training because many people are not very familiar with Linux's user interface."
"Red Hat could enhance its user experience by incorporating built-in automation tools, eliminating users needing to install, set up, or configure external applications."
"We have experienced some issues with the support."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux training and certification opportunities for engineers and administrators could be improved."
"Support for older versions of the operating system could be improved. If people can't afford to upgrade, or if they have servers that are outdated, they need to be able to provide back-field support for those."
"I'm not sure how the support is being changed in terms of needing to pay for it. That's an area that can be improved. They should offer support without charging users for it."
"In terms of improvement, Rocky Linux needs to clarify its identity and target audience."
"The package versions can be quite older compared to other distributions such as Ubuntu."
"The solution's audio integration for virtual machines could be improved."
"One of the potential issues is that if you don't pay for support, you may need to manage certain aspects on your own and rely on the community for assistance."
"Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort."
"I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We purchased it directly from Red Hat. Compared to open source, it's very pricey, but you get the support, which makes it much better."
"I like my developer account. The free sixteen licenses that they give with the developer account are great because that gives me the ability to keep using it at home instead of trying CentOS or something like that."
"It is more expensive than other vendors in terms of pricing and licensing, but because of its stability, I have to go with it."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers a compelling value proposition for corporations due to its robust support infrastructure, which is essential for maintaining enterprise-level systems."
"The licensing is a bit odd because we need to procure the licenses from a third party."
"My company has acquired five to ten licenses from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)."
"RHEL is expensive. We have changed the cloud provider's subscription to a pay-as-you-go model."
"The cost has been pretty stable over the years for what you get."
"Compared to the market prices of other tools, the solution has a very competitive pricing."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three."
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
11%
Educational Organization
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
The licensing cost for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is comparable to SUSE for premium support. For approximately $2,000 per year, you can get premium support for one subscription which allows yo...
What do you like most about Rocky Linux?
It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are.
What needs improvement with Rocky Linux?
If I find something which is strong with virtualization with Rocky Linux, it's an alternative that I can study and spend time learning about, trying it, making tests, validating, and perhaps ultima...
What is your primary use case for Rocky Linux?
I am responsible for virtualization and networking, and other services related to the systems including Linux and Windows, but the security part is actually the responsibility of the French team in...
 

Also Known As

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.