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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
7.0
Number of Reviews
388
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
22nd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

RO
Server administrator at Northrop Grumman
Empowers collaboration through streamlined integration and extensive documentation
Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be tough, however, a significant area is collaboration tools. We have many Windows users that use Outlook and Skype or Teams to collaborate on our network. They want Linux desktops due to the fact that they want to use containers. Their biggest complaint is, 'I need two workstations to do my container work and one to collaborate.' If somehow RHEL can start introducing or collaborating with Teams and Outlook so their users can work with their Windows peers, that would be great. But I don't think that's available yet. Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, there needs to be more of an education piece to it. For instance, when purchasing 10 or 100 node licenses, they could suggest, 'We also offer this 1,000 node license instead, and it'll save you specific amounts.' Just more education on their offerings would be helpful, because usually, we're coming out with the requirements, and then they just provide it to us. They could inform us about saving by bundling it differently or using alternative approaches.
reviewer2775897 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Admin at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Runs consistently in production and supports reliable backend infrastructure workflows
Compared to any other offering in the Linux world, to me personally, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) is quite similar and doesn't really matter; it usually just works. The differences are usually in support and the Ubuntu Pro plan, which I do not have, but the same applies with Red Hat—you can run it free of charge, but then you lack the support, which is what I do with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) as well, so it runs the same as any other Linux distro. In terms of stability and reliability, I've had none worth mentioning or caused by something that wasn't in my own hands, so that's been fine so far. In my team, I have about seven people managing about 60 to 70 VMs across four different clusters and about 16 nodes. I spread them out very evenly and very thinly. User-wise, I don't really serve a company internally; I sell my service on the open market. I have no idea on the numbers of how many customers I have, but it's in the several thousands that use the machines or the service I host through my infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I value the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are the patching capacity and the patching capacity with Ansible."
"The most valuable features are stability and supportability... You want to have something that's up and running and stable, something that's not going to crash. But if we do have an issue, we can get somebody for technical support who can help us work through the problems."
"The support and stability provided by Red Hat Enterprise Linux contribute significantly to its value."
"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."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is really useful, very stable, and very versatile."
"Among all Linux flavors in the market, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a very high-level support developer team, which is important for our critical systems."
"The graphical user interface is useful. However, we prefer to use the command line as we can do many more things."
"I find Red Hat Enterprise Linux stable."
"Honestly, if I had to say the best thing about Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm), as opposed to other Linux distributions, is that there is a lot of software that explicitly recommends running it on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) rather than other Linux distributions."
"Infrastructure as code, especially with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) or any other Linux distro, is key; if you don't have your IaC, you're going to spend forever maintaining it."
 

Cons

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved with more shared storage capabilities."
"The solution's ecosystem is good but it would be better to create cohesive components in all of the development tools."
"We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with RHEL six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved with more shared storage capabilities. For example, I have multiple RHEL instances, and enhanced storage sharing would be helpful for transferring data between servers."
"Personally, I don't see good benefits from their support and paid licensing compared to completely free and well-documented Linux distributions, as I find RHEL excessively expensive."
"The improvements for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I suggest are mainly around increasing reporting on how patches are applied as it all revolves around Satellite."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved regarding security-side integrations that can be tightened with the releasing of images compliant with CIS controls or DISA STIGs, so they're built in and not an extra step."
"Red Hat could add some AI features. There's a lot of talk about AI nowadays, but I don't think will be in Red Enterprise Linux itself. The cloud applications benefit from AI, but I don't think that will be integrated into the OS yet."
"The only thing I would say maybe could see some improvement is that every once in a while it can be a little bit of a hassle keeping the NVIDIA drivers up to date to prevent any kind of crashes or issues with the NVIDIA drivers."
"I would like to see repository clearance and clarity in the repository, as if you try to get anything from the canonical repo, there tends to be ambiguity in the descriptions and especially the versioning, which makes very little sense."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is cost-efficient."
"The product is on the expensive side."
"The combined cost of implementing in hybrid and cloud environments to fulfill all our client's needs can be considerable."
"Our client has a direct subscription to Red Hat."
"One Red Hat license costs USD 131, which I find reasonable."
"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."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be expensive, but its cost is not a deterrent for many organizations willing to invest in its stability, security, and support ecosystem."
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business87
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise266
No data available
 

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)?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, the pricing is good; however, licensing is a bit confusing.
What needs improvement with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)?
Regarding room for improvement, I would like to see repository clearance and clarity in the repository, as if you try to get anything from the canonical repo, there tends to be ambiguity in the des...
What is your primary use case for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)?
I'm using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm). I've been working with Ubuntu for about seven to eight months now, and before that, I had a mix of Windows and Linux system administration, mainly with Red...
What advice do you have for others considering Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)?
My advice or recommendation for organizations considering Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) is to always automate. There is a reason I always push for Ansible, Packer, and similar tools. Many firms st...
 

Also Known As

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for AWS
No data available
 

Overview

Information not available
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
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