Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Logo

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pros and cons

Vendor: Red Hat
4.4 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1

Pros & Cons summary

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.
Get the report

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is praised for its stability and reliability, ensuring systems run seamlessly with minimal downtime.
RHEL offers outstanding security features, including SELinux, which helps maintain compliance and protect against vulnerabilities.
RHEL's customer service and technical support are rated highly, providing fast responses and comprehensive assistance.
The integration capabilities of RHEL, especially with tools like Ansible and Satellite, enhance automation and ease management tasks.
RHEL's extensive documentation and knowledge base provide valuable resources for troubleshooting and best practices.

CONS

RHEL's technical support is criticized for being slow and not always responsive, especially in regions like India.
Pricing for RHEL is often seen as high and not competitive, with licensing sometimes being confusing and cost-prohibitive for small to medium enterprises.
There are challenges with migrating from CentOS to RHEL and issues with upgrading between major RHEL versions due to compatibility problems.
RHEL's documentation is frequently described as fragmented and difficult to navigate, causing frustration for users.
The complexities of SELinux and patch management in RHEL pose significant challenges for users, impacting usability and system management.
 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Pros review quotes

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 24, 2017
Red Hat has improved the mission critical environments running Oracle databases, while CentOS has improved our web environment and MySQL.
it_user715155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Aug 7, 2017
Stable Linux OS. The stability of the OS is very important for the computer system.
it_user806466 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Jan 23, 2018
Enterprise support is available for our customers.
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AL
Software Engineer at a security firm with 10,001+ employees
Feb 14, 2018
The GUI for network adapters and built-in tools provided by RHEL, such as the Mozilla browser, have been valuable. Since they come built-in, it saves the time of having to install them, and you have everything necessary with the installation itself.
it_user840444 - PeerSpot reviewer
Growth Incubation Leader, Poland and Baltics at IBM
Mar 19, 2018
Open architecture allows for accelerated growth while secure repositories guarantee stability.
FL
Systems Analyst at Intraservice/City of G̦teborg
May 27, 2020
The solution has features that simplify adoption for non-Linux users. There is an interface that you can activate on RHEL systems, and on other Linux systems as well, so that you will get a graphical user interface instead of just a shell. It's easier for an administrator who is used to only working on Windows.
FA
Linux Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dec 21, 2020
Its security is the most valuable. It is very stable and has many features. It also has good performance. Some of our clients were using Windows servers and products. I suggested Red Hat Linux to them and described the features. They switched to it, and they really loved it. There were around 50 servers in my last company, and they switched all those servers from Windows to Red Hat. I used to manage those servers.
IS
Associate Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jan 14, 2021
Customer support is valuable.
reviewer1486413 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Analyst - AIX and Linux at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Feb 9, 2021
The integrated solution approach reduces our TCO tremendously because we are able to focus on innovation instead of operations.
it_user1571253 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
May 18, 2021
We find the Red Hat Satellite deployments very useful. It integrates well with other solutions.
 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Cons review quotes

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 24, 2017
The licensing valor is too high and must be improved
it_user715155 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Aug 7, 2017
Many areas in version 5 are obsolete such as filesystem ext2, ext3, while the new versions (v.6, 7) support ext4, Btrfs, ZFS, etc.
it_user806466 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Jan 23, 2018
I only had to engage support once for an escalated issue and their support team tried to pass the blame onto our Hypervisor vendor, when it was indeed an issue with a Red Hat package.
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.
AL
Software Engineer at a security firm with 10,001+ employees
Feb 14, 2018
I really think that the upgrade policies between the major versions, like from from RHEL 5 to RHEL 6, should be much easier, similar to what is in place for upgrading from RHEL 6 to RHEL 6.8.
it_user840444 - PeerSpot reviewer
Growth Incubation Leader, Poland and Baltics at IBM
Mar 19, 2018
Workstations: More applications for graphics.
FL
Systems Analyst at Intraservice/City of G̦teborg
May 27, 2020
Sometimes they don't have new versions for applications like Apache or PHP. I understand it's because they have to have support for them, so they can't have the latest version all the time, but that's the main thing I see that could be improved.
FA
Linux Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dec 21, 2020
It is mostly better than other solutions. However, it is sometimes difficult for disaster recovery, so we have to plan accordingly.
IS
Associate Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jan 14, 2021
Their pricing and documentation can be improved.
reviewer1486413 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Analyst - AIX and Linux at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Feb 9, 2021
Linux overall needs improvement. They cannot go much beyond what Linus Torvalds's kernel implementation can do. I come from AIX, and there were very cool things in AIX that I am missing dearly, e.g., being able to support not only adding, but also reducing memory and number of processors. That is not supported on Linux right now, and it is the same for the mainstream file systems supported by Red Hat. There is no way of reducing a file system or logical volume. Whereas, in AIX, it was a shoo-in. These are the little things where we can say, "Ah, we are missing AIX for that."
it_user1571253 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
May 18, 2021
It could be a bit more user-friendly. It could also be cheaper.