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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
364
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocky Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
10
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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 8.6%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocky Linux is 14.3%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)8.6%
Rocky Linux14.3%
Other77.1%
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.
Massimiliano Adamo - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported seamless migrations and enabled running complex data workloads securely
The best features Rocky Linux offers include clustering and all the packages from Red Hat.Rocky Linux has impacted my organization very positively because we migrated everything from CentOS and Windows servers to Rocky Linux. Everything is clear, with good packaging, and now it's version 9.6, which is very important for us due to security problems since we are in Europe. Rocky Linux is very good for security and other aspects. Since migrating to Rocky Linux, I've seen specific outcomes such as improved security because CentOS stopped the project, and security patches aren't being released. We need to maintain a system similar to Red Hat, which is very stable and has many features such as file system, topology, and containers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's usually not that difficult; it's a couple of hours of work, and if any difficulties arise, it doesn't take long because we have a good community online to find solutions."
"We use RHEL in our infrastructure, which consists of VM and Linux. We use it to create clusters."
"The Red Hat command line interface is more user-friendly than the Windows command line interface."
"Red Hat support is pretty good. They're online, so you can look up things once you have support. Their AB integration has improved. It's easy to manage storage for moving, syncing LBM, etc."
"The solution has good availability and is easy to use."
"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 enables us to achieve security compliance. Our security team is quite happy, especially in terms of patching up our servers, etc. It's compliant with our security requirements."
"Its scalability and ease of setup and configuration are most valuable. When we have a hardware failure, we just save the configuration files, and in about half an hour, we have another server running with the same configuration. It is really easy to replace servers. This is the best feature."
"Rocky Linux has impacted my organization very positively because we migrated everything from CentOS and Windows servers to Rocky Linux, everything is clear, with good packaging, and now it's version 9.6, which is very important for us due to security problems since we are in Europe."
"It helps us keep our workstations in sync and ensures consistent settings across most of our machines."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability."
"The solution is free and open source."
"In my opinion, the best features Rocky Linux offers are stability, compatibility, and community support, all of which I think are extremely necessary and essential for the distribution, and I find that all three pillars are very supported by Rocky Linux."
"Rocky Linux provides us with extended maintenance, security patches, and support lifecycle aligned with RHEL, making it highly reliable for critical systems."
"I haven't needed to use customer service or support, which speaks volumes about their product's reliability and ease of use."
"The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward."
 

Cons

"For using third-party software, such as security scanners or patch management systems not from the Red Hat family such as Azure Patch Management, sometimes there could be improvements regarding support, as it can take a year or one and a half years to receive support for certain RHEL major versions, so partnerships on the Red Hat side and collaborations with Microsoft would help."
"It would be great if they're able to reduce the price. It will be easier to convince customers to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) instead of open-source solutions."
"The solution can be improved, especially for user-provided solutions; they could be vetted more thoroughly by Red Hat."
"We hope it will improve tasks we have found challenging in the past, like documentation searches."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux's ability to run containerized applications is not optimized and has room for improvement."
"The solution could provide more APIs and GUI interfaces."
"The cost could be lowered. We don't use RHEL in the cloud because Ubuntu is cheaper. Ubuntu factors support costs into the license when you're running it in the cloud, and it's a fraction of the cost of what RHEL is. I'm also not sure if RHEL supports open-source products. If they do, they don't advertise it. Adding stuff like Apache and other open-source tools like Tomcat to their support portfolio would help."
"The cost of this solution could be improved."
"I see some performance-related issues, but we are still checking on that, and we don't know if it is related to the OS or the resource; that is something still to be checked from our end."
"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."
"Rocky Linux could be improved by having more integration with Kubernetes."
"I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required."
"In terms of improvement, Rocky Linux needs to clarify its identity and target audience."
"Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Switching to Red Hat Enterprise Linux due to subscription costs can be a significant financial step."
"The setup cost is non-existent. With licensing, there was a little snafu because I misread something. There was a slight learning curve because we use virtual data center licensing. We had to understand how it all maps. We had to understand how that mapping works when the hypervisors are Red Hat or VMware. There is a slight learning curve, but it worked out. It ends up being easy."
"It's been good, but I don't really get involved with that."
"It is cost-effective."
"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."
"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."
"The licensing with Red Hat is on par with other organizations like Microsoft. We have a site license, which gives us a certain number of servers, perhaps 25,000, for the type of license that we have. That works really well for us."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is only affordable for large organizations."
"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
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
11%
Educational Organization
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business84
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise249
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
 

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)?
I can say about pricing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is maybe a two on a scale where ten is a high price.
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: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.