My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mainly all of our business applications, as they all run on RHEL.
Senior Director at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Security and reliability boost confidence and support growth strategies
Pros and Cons
- "Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security mainly."
- "The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day."
- "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."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security, mainly.
Feature-wise, what I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is security; it's much more secure, and I don't have to patch it that much. For us, security is a very key aspect of our operations, especially since we are even more security-conscious due to what happened with us in the past, so having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in our environment makes us much more confident. When we deploy new applications, it's RHEL by default; we don't even consider another operating system right now since it keeps our environment secure and our business stable.
Security requirements are always a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the cloud since it is much more secure than other operating systems and has a proven track record of being compliant and secure for many years.
When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, it's about 50% manual and 50% automated, and we are currently starting a project with Ansible to fully automate it end-to-end. Right now, it's all semi-automated, and we want to make it fully automated.
For us, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy mainly through seamless migrations from on-premise to cloud, which has been really helpful. Frankly, we don't use the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that much; our team prefers to get help from Red Hat support directly.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 20 years.
Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
June 2025

Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with my company's growing needs, as we are increasing our footprint in both on-premise and cloud, with all new deployments on Linux without any scaling issues.
How are customer service and support?
In terms of customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it has been good in general, although we have recently faced some challenges around domain authentication where support is lacking.
At this point, I would rate customer service and technical support a solid eight out of ten due to recent issues; I would have given a nine otherwise.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both in the cloud and on-premise.
The deployment has been great. I've never had any issues either patching or upgrading it. We are right now on Red Hat 9. I saw that Red Hat 10 has been announced. Our team has been able to manage the entire life cycle from starting at Red Hat 4 until now. It has not been a problem at all.
I am involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades all the time; we are currently in the process of upgrading from Red Hat 8 to 9 for all of our environments. Upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has its challenges; we had a couple of hiccups in a couple of cases. Overall, about 95% of the use cases have been issue-free, with just 5% of cases occasionally encountering problems.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comes from security, as we experience fewer incidents, more stability, and less business impact, without outages resulting in revenue loss.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good; the licensing isn't very expensive compared to other products we're using.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we still consider other solutions as we do have other operating systems, however, for business-critical applications, we usually prioritize RHEL.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 21, 2025
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Service Delivery Engineer at Gulf Air
High-level support team ensures strong system reliability and simplifies critical system management
Pros and Cons
- "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."
- "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."
- "They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way."
- "The Asian support could use improvement."
What is our primary use case?
I am a system administrator using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for handling applications and databases. The machines I manage handle applications and databases, along with some JBoss.
How has it helped my organization?
Ever since IBM has come into the picture, Red Hat and Ansible have been developed very well. The reporting and workflows have become very good.
What is most valuable?
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. We need a solid platform that provides one spot for vulnerability fixes, unlike Ubuntu, CentOS, etc. They only provide low levels of support.
The management is fine. We're doing regular patches with Satellite. We're happy with it. It is manageable.
We can manage a hybrid cloud environment. Red Hat doesn't come fully into our picture with our environment since we're using the Amazon environment and VMware for virtual machines. Red Hat is just an OS, and it is easy to set it anywhere with no issues.
What needs improvement?
They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) documentation is good, yet not as good as other products such as IBM. Oracle, on the other hand, is the worst; they are very limited in sharing their documentation with engineers.
The Asian support could use improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have total experience in Unix/Linux of 25 years, which includes five years of Solaris, IBM HP-UX, IBM AIX, and HP-UX, along with Sun Solaris, while the other 15 years is with Linux.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We never faced any issues with stability, and we never faced any limitations.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We never faced any issues with scalability, and we never faced any limitations. For our company, it is more than enough. I'd rate scalability nine or ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
Red Hat support is good, actually. It depends on the region. I have dealt with several regions including Asia, Middle East, and Europe. The majority of European support is excellent. I would give it nine to ten out of ten. In the Middle East, it is between seven to eight out of ten, while in Asia, very rarely do we get nine or eight out of ten. I'd rate it five out of ten there.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have moved to another technology since we are no longer working with Dell EMC or Networker. With Veeam, we are currently working for that vendor. We are using Veeam exclusively nowadays.
We're working with 80% Linux, 10% Unbuntu, 10% Oracle.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very simple.
Management is fine, since we have the Red Hat Satellite, which allows us to do regular up-to-date patches. We are happy with the Red Hat Satellite. It is manageable.
What about the implementation team?
I am handling the storage, backup, and operating systems of Linux flavors personally.
What was our ROI?
This question of ROI would be unfair for me to answer. We are not using the full range of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) products and are depending on other things. However, Ansible is doing very well with the new version, and in terms of workflow, it is easy to manage. Ansible has been performing very well, especially after IBM acquired Red Hat. IBM has enhanced Red Hat and Ansible very well, as they are famous for reporting and managing workflows.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is very simple. Compared to something like IBM, Red Hat is the cheapest.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Without something to compare it with other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I cannot do a direct comparison. However, compared to Unix products such as Oracle Linux or IBM, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is less expensive.
What other advice do I have?
Regarding Linux Image Builder and system roles, I have tried both, however, cannot recall which one I downloaded. The last time I built it was more than five months ago.
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Jun 18, 2025
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Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
June 2025

Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Solutions Architect at InfoTech Business Solutions
Built-in security features and comprehensive support streamline user management
Pros and Cons
- "It makes my system more secure, which is another important point since no one can have direct access."
- "Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%."
- "Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card from Iraq is blocked by Red Hat."
- "Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card from Iraq is blocked by Red Hat. The Red Hat website works for Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, VMware, etc., and we can purchase learning and vouchers. With Red Hat, it's blocked, so I have to travel to Dubai to buy it outside the country."
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are for the core banking systems. It is a much more stable OS than other competitor operating systems, especially with Databases.
Most banks in Iraq use Linux, whether it is free like CentOS for a UAT environment or enterprise like Red Hat.
What is most valuable?
The Red Hat Satellite makes my life much easier when it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching. Before few years ago, each server had to have internet access to make updates or deployments. After joining the Satellite, it's just one push, and all the patching is done. And all the datacentres prohibit having external access. So we can create a local repository at our Red Hat Satellite and then push it to other servers, with the option of choosing a specific version to push for all servers.
Furthermore, the IDM, which is FreeIPA, is great. I appreciate how it makes the management much easier for me, even when managing more than 500 users same time. Like when someone leaves the company or someone joins, it's easier for me to onboard or respond to other things. It makes my system more secure by monitoring all the user's activity, which is another important point since no one can have direct access to the server without being authenticated and authorised by the IDM.
The Red Hat Satellite makes my life much easier when it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching. At first, we had to access each server to make updates or deployments. After joining the Satellite, it's just one push, and all the patching is done. All this distribution also helps us as we use it on-prem, and all the data centers prohibit external access. So we can create a local registry at our Red Hat Satellite and then push it to other servers without issues regarding version changes.
I am a big fan of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) built-in security features, which simplify risk reduction and maintaining compliance, and I would just say we achieve 99% success. I remember a few years ago when there was a zero-day attack. Red Hat was the fastest company to respond. We found out about it at six o'clock PM, and the next day at eight AM, they had some fixes and pushed updates. So we could respond directly and implement the fixes. Any security breach with Red Hat, I do not want to speak about others, since we face worse responses from other companies.
My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve understanding the concept of OpenShift, which has not yet become very popular in Iraq. I try to keep pushing the client to understand the concept of containers and other things. It will take some time, however, it's a good feature to move ahead with OpenShift containerization. Even with the Central Bank regulation, we have to remain on-prem, thus OpenShift supports this point and offers a flexible solution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%.
I am a big fan of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) built-in security features, which simplify risk reduction and maintaining compliance, and I would just say we achieve 90% success. I remember a few years ago when there was a zero-day attack. Red Hat was the fastest company to respond. They had some fixes and pushed updates in few hours from discovering the security breach. So we could respond directly and implement the fixes. I don't like to mention the other competitors, since we face worse responses from other companies.
My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve understanding the concept of OpenShift, which has not yet become very popular in Iraq. I try to keep pushing the client to understand the concept of containers and other things. It will take some time, however, it's a good feature to move ahead with OpenShift containerization. Even with the Central Bank of Iraq regulation, we have to remain on-prem, thus OpenShift supports this point and offers a flexible solution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%.
What needs improvement?
I can't pinpoint something specific to improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I feel they are doing good. I haven't thought much about what they could enhance to become even better for me.
Currently, I manage an issue not related to the OS. It's more about how to purchase vouchers or training from them. Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card issued by a bank inside Iraq is blocked by Red Hat without a clear reason.
While other vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, VMware, Veeam, Nutanix, etc., we can purchase learning and vouchers directly without any issue. Only Red Hat it's blocked, so to solve this, I have to travel to Dubai and buy it outside the country. This is a significant issue for me and all Red Haters in Iraq, and that's why I also develop myself with non-official content and stopped pursuing their certification since I must travel each time I need it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding stability and reliability, I didn't face any issues with that. It's 99%. Any issue I face with it is due to some mistake from a colleague or something pushed the wrong script, yet I haven't faced a sudden crash.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales to my company's growing needs very effectively; I didn't face any issues with scalability. Before working in my current company (Red Hat partner), I was a work at a payment gateway company. And we made a successful story by scaling out our datacenter and migrating the version from 6 to 8 without any major issues. Also, we did clustering with Enterprise Linux and other things, and all scalability was good, just requires specific knowledge. That said, it's manageable.
How are customer service and support?
In my six years working with Red Hat, I only remember opening cases three times since the technical documentation on the Red Hat site is so comprehensive that if you carefully check it, you often won't need further assistance.
The support itself is satisfactory, and they solved my issues. They understood my concerns about the side effects of some changes, however, and they were perfect in their response.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did consider other solutions before or while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), including Ubuntu, CentOS, and Debian. I am a big fan of Red Hat. This is why I will always choose them. When you love something that much, you just stick with it. That's why I will consistently recommend it to clients as a Red Hat partner.
How was the initial setup?
For the first time, it was a little bit complicated. However, once you know how it works, it's very easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) it's a little bit higher. I suggest that if they could make the price more affordable, it would be great. Some clients are just startups and when opening a budget with Red Hat, it doesn't cover what they need. Perhaps they could create a specific version for startup companies or offer discounts for first-time users.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partnership
Last updated: May 22, 2025
Flag as inappropriateSystems engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Built-in security features streamline compliance and vulnerability management
Pros and Cons
- "RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates."
- "The customer service is amazing."
- "When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible."
- "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition."
What is our primary use case?
We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the operating system on our systems. Everything is built on it.
What is most valuable?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points. It keeps us easily compliant from my perspective with security compliance and streamlines everything in a multi-system environment.
The OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is what I appreciate most about RHEL. We benefit from that tool specifically due to the fact that RHEL is under the recommended operating system mandate. Through that, they have their security requirements, and RHEL's OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is a really good automatic scanner to scan for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our system. The way it produces reports is really nice and it's better than the old vulnerability scanner that our system used.
My assessment of RHEL's built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance centers around OpenSCAP. It's better than any other tool I've seen. I've seen two or three other ones. It is really streamlined and nice. It feels professional when using the product.
When it comes to managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, our software team handles it efficiently. We maintain a close connection with our Red Hat account managers and representatives who are extremely helpful with any Linux or Red Hat level issues.
RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates. Given our 30-year-old product, making current updates would be almost impossible on Solaris. The maintenance and updates for today's requirements can really only be executed with a Linux architecture, making it essential for our operations.
What needs improvement?
One of our current issues is that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition. Red Hat is working with us on this matter.
There's a high barrier to entry for getting into Ansible and automating things on a system level from my perspective. When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been at my company for two years now. The entire time has been heavily involved with using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to meet the needs of my company and its growth. I credit that to the Linux architecture that can scale to our requirements. We have a unique configuration. That said, my company primarily runs on Linux, and it has scaled very effectively.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service is amazing. The accessibility of the support team and their responsiveness is consistently impressive.
I would rate the customer service and technical support as nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were previously on Solaris before switching our in-house systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7. We actually skipped RHEL 8 and are transitioning from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9. We are not yet on RHEL 10.
How was the initial setup?
We have had issues with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'm actually really focused in on one of our current issues where Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11. All of our machines run on X11 Window Manager. And that's a huge issue that we're transitioning. It totally breaks everything we have, and we're working with Red Hat to figure that out. It's nice they're working with us. Yeah. However, it is a big problem during our transition.
What was our ROI?
Regarding the security features and vulnerability scanner with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have not yet seen a return on investment as we haven't proposed it to the organization. We are currently working on scanning and fixing vulnerabilities. We are confident the the organization will be pleased with our improved compliance using the RHEL scanner, which should lead to a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have much insight into the pricing, setup costs, and licensing. I know we are licensed and have maintained a good relationship with our account manager.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as our operating system, we do consider other solutions for specific features. We have alternatives available for various tools, however, we prefer to default to Red Hat since it's the organization-wide preferred operating system. In the past two years, we have been increasingly transitioning to RHEL tools.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 22, 2025
Flag as inappropriateProject Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Reduces downtime and works well for enterprise deployments
Pros and Cons
- "It enables customers to deploy any type of application. A lot of enterprises are moving to the Linux environment from the Windows environment. When it comes to development, it saves time because, unlike Windows, you don't require a lot of different things and licenses."
- "When it comes to development, it saves time because, unlike Windows, you don't require a lot of different things and licenses."
- "There is one feature that could significantly enhance our time to market: enabling AI capabilities. For instance, if you have a fleet of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers, potentially thousands running, they can incorporate a built-in agent that monitors key metrics. This agent would allow us to easily query and track the CPU and memory status of all clusters. Instead of generating traditional reports through Insights, we could leverage AI to curate this information directly."
- "Insights is specific to individual clusters and does not offer a single pane of glass for multi-cluster environments."
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases for Red Hat OpenShift revolve around telco environments, where we deploy telco applications using container microservices architectures. We have around 32 to 35 OpenShift clusters, with multiple worker and master nodes running on them, totaling more than 500 nodes across pre-production, test, and various production environments. We onboard different applications onto these OpenShift clusters, which primarily operate in private data centers on bare metal rather than in VMs, since the motive of this client project is to align the telco environment with a cloud-native approach.
What is most valuable?
It enables customers to deploy any type of application. A lot of enterprises are moving to the Linux environment from the Windows environment.
When it comes to development, it saves time because, unlike Windows, you don't require a lot of different things and licenses.
I appreciate the features of OpenShift, particularly its built-in capabilities such as operators and integration with multiple identity providers. Operators eliminate the need for creating helm charts, and considering Kubernetes, which Red Hat OpenShift is built on, the enhancements make OpenShift a preferred choice for many enterprise customers.
What needs improvement?
The documentation and knowledge base for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are quite good, allowing for effective searches, though I would prefer something more interactive.
I have tried the Insight features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which provide a good overview of clusters, but most customers at the OpenShift level do not opt for the Insights feature for two reasons. Firstly, Insights is specific to individual clusters and does not offer a single pane of glass for multi-cluster environments. Having a centralized Insights feature for multiple clusters would be more appealing, especially for customers managing a fleet of 50 or more clusters.
There is one feature that could significantly enhance our time to market: enabling AI capabilities. For instance, if you have a fleet of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers, potentially thousands running, they can incorporate a built-in agent that monitors key metrics. This agent would allow us to easily query and track the CPU and memory status of all clusters. Instead of generating traditional reports through Insights, we could leverage AI to curate this information directly. If such features could be included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it would be a game-changer. There would be no need for external AI solutions; just an integrated AI agent would suffice. This enhancement could help minimize operational costs. From a customer perspective, while capital expenditures (CapEx) are already being handled through Red Hat solutions, we need to focus on reducing operational expenditures (OpEx), especially related to reporting. Even when Insights are generated, someone still needs to analyze them. By incorporating this advanced capability into Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), they can streamline processes and deliver valuable insights more efficiently.
For how long have I used the solution?
We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for our customers. We have been using it at the infrastructure level for more than 10 years. However, we have been using Red Hat OpenShift only for the last two to three years as our container platform.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It helps reduce downtime. Overall, it's stable, but it also depends on the type of workload you are running.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. For example, creating logical volumes and extending disks is straightforward. This process is quite easy.
How are customer service and support?
Red Hat's support is generally good, but sometimes they take a long time, which can be frustrating for customers, particularly when dealing with products still in development, such as new versions of Red Hat OpenShift. When bugs arise that lack solutions, both customers and Red Hat are searching for answers, leading to delays until new releases are issued.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used Ubuntu and CentOS. I find Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) better than Ubuntu and CentOS.
How was the initial setup?
Its deployment is easy. The number of people required and duration depend on how many servers you're deploying.
We utilize a hybrid environment with some of our customers operating in the public cloud, allowing us to manage both on-premises and cloud infrastructures.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Last updated: Jun 13, 2025
Flag as inappropriateDirector, DevOps at Lightedge Solutions
Seamless deployments and responsive support enhance operational efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "The Podman feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very valuable; that's probably the core of it—just a simple containerized solution that allows us to stand it up in a server really quickly."
- "Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well with the growing needs of our company, as we can spin up instances quickly whenever we add new environments or data centers."
- "I'm interested in seeing some of the image incorporation with RHEL 10, as that might improve some of our upgrades and help in moving to the newer versions."
- "It can be improved overall. Specifically, I'm interested in seeing some of the image incorporation with RHEL 10, as that might improve some of our upgrades and help in moving to the newer versions."
What is our primary use case?
Our use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve a lot of infrastructure; we run Ansible on it, and we run any other containerized utilities we're using on Podman. We run OpenShift as well, so I don't think we have any RHEL workloads on there, but we definitely use RHEL for a lot of our internal infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
The Podman feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very valuable; that's probably the core of it—just a simple containerized solution that allows us to stand it up in a server really quickly. This feature and other features benefit our company since we are able to quickly deploy containers to support our infrastructure with minimal management needs from our engineering team.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points such as automation, as well as supporting other file servers using NFS and other kinds of development workloads we're running on it.
My experience with RHEL has not been too complicated; most of our stuff is on RHEL 9 now. A lot of times, our security team comes to us for some of the patching and upgrades, so we're following their lead, however, it hasn't been too difficult for us. We manage our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching using Ansible and Terraform a lot, so we've been happy with that management experience.
My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features is that using SC Linux is helpful for us to lock things down, and our security team is pretty happy with it whenever they're doing their vulnerability scans. From a security standpoint, we're happy with it.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk. If there ever is a problem, it's quick to stand up a replacement system.
It's pretty lightweight, so I'd much rather deal with a RHEL system any day versus a Windows system. If you compare it to a Windows system, which has a much bigger attack surface, there's a big reduction there.
When it comes to our security team having to scan for vulnerabilities and such, there is a lot less vulnerability scanning that needs to be done, so it's been a better fit for us for our infrastructure.
What needs improvement?
I am interested to see how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved. It can be improved overall. Specifically, I'm interested in seeing some of the image incorporation with RHEL 10, as that might improve some of our upgrades and help in moving to the newer versions. I'm eager to learn more about that.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in my company for ten-plus years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has been very reliable and stable; I have not had any major crashes or outages with RHEL.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well with the growing needs of our company, as we can spin up instances quickly whenever we add new environments or data centers.
How are customer service and support?
I have been pretty pleased with the customer service and technical support; it's infrequent that we have to engage support, but when we do, they've been responsive and we've gotten some answers, so we've been happy. I would rate the customer service and technical support as eight out of 10.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have considered other solutions before or while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We've considered other Linux distros in the past, however, the ability to have a fully supported platform allows us to reach out to support from Red Hat if needed, which is the reason why we've stuck with Red Hat versus others.
How was the initial setup?
In terms of deployment, it's been good standing it up and then maintaining it with patching through Satellite. Upgrades have been not time-impacted. They're pretty quick to get patching done. Everything is pretty easy. Migrations aren't too complicated.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is certainly the ease of use for the engineering team; they can get things done without taking a lot of their time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platform has been pleasing; it's pretty straightforward and we haven't had any major concerns with costs on it compared to others, so we've been happy.
What other advice do I have?
Currently, we don't have any upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as far as moving to RHEL 10; that's going to be coming, I'm sure. Most of it involves keeping on the latest versions, and sometimes it's just a driver for keeping Podman up to date whenever Ansible needs to run, as Ansible is core for us.
I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten overall.
What could make it a ten comes down to us being able to have time to dig into some of the features we're not using, so it's probably just on us to get wowed by some of the stuff we're not doing today.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 21, 2025
Flag as inappropriateSenior Infrastructure Systems Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Efficiently manage data growth with seamless partition and storage expansion
Pros and Cons
- "I would describe my experience with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very easy."
- "I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten overall."
- "The only improvement I can think of for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that I'm unsure how their migration tool works to go to the next version. I've heard people say it doesn't work properly."
- "If the migration process was seamless without backing up data and restoring data, that would probably be the biggest improvement, as managing over 3,400 servers manually is quite substantial."
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve running a lot of applications that run on Linux, as my company is more Linux-based than Windows, so we prefer Linux over Windows.
What is most valuable?
The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most is the logical volume feature as it's so easy to increase partitions and disk space. This logical volume feature benefits my company as sometimes we have a client whose data storage needs are unknown at the outset, allowing us to start small. As things increase, we can easily increase it without taking the server down, and we can do it seamlessly while the server is online.
One of the pain points that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve is security, as RHEL is more secure than Windows. I have migrated from RHEL 6 to RHEL 7 to RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, however, it's just been a manual install; while Red Hat has a tool to use for migrations, I've never used that and have just reloaded to the new version. The upgrade wasn't bad at all; it was actually a smooth upgrade.
When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems for provisioning and patching, I use Ansible Tower, and I'm very satisfied with that. It allows me to schedule jobs and go to sleep while looking at the email in the morning. That's a very effective and efficient product for me.
My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve starting eventually, especially since I work in the government world, where we use their tools to harden the system. When those tools are available, we'll start looking to migrate to the next version of Red Hat. When those tools are ready, we'll start putting RHEL 10 into our development environment to start testing.
What needs improvement?
The only improvement I can think of for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that I'm unsure how their migration tool works to go to the next version. I've heard people say it doesn't work properly, however, I haven't looked at it myself. If the migration process was seamless without backing up data and restoring data, that would probably be the biggest improvement, as managing over 3,400 servers manually is quite substantial.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since 2002.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
RHEL it is very stable and very reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales effectively with the growing needs of my company, as all our developers can develop code and software on a Linux-based system using RHEL without any complaints about functionality.
How are customer service and support?
Their support is fairly good, as they work to resolve issues, though sometimes it takes a while due to time zone differences affecting ticket responses.
I submit tickets that might get answered early morning, and I only reply once I get to work, which causes some delays. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) support is great, as they go beyond their duty to help resolve issues and provide solutions even for third-party software such as XRDP.
I would rate Red Hat's customer service and technical support an eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
When I first started, it wasn't really my choice to make. I originally used CentOS. Ansible is the best product when it comes to Linux.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very easy, as I use a kickstart file to deploy an OS in about ten to 15 minutes, and Ansible is another very significant feature that Red Hat provides to accomplish many tasks quickly across multiple servers.
What about the implementation team?
I'm not really sure how to assess Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features in terms of simplifying, risk reduction, or maintaining compliance.
What was our ROI?
The biggest return on investment from using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is due to the feature Ansible, as before we started using it, I was manually updating all systems. It definitely saves me a lot of time since I can set things up in Ansible Tower and let them run without having to manually log into systems or watch processes.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We aren't currently considering another solution; we do use a little bit of Ubuntu; we prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
What other advice do I have?
I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten overall.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 20, 2025
Flag as inappropriatePresident at Asvesot C.A.
Security and performance improve transaction handling and deployment efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "Red Hat Enterprise Linux is known for its performance, ease of deployment, and flexibility."
- "I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux as ten out of ten."
- "The valuable features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for on-premises are its flexibility and compatibility; it works exceptionally with JBoss."
- "The price for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more expensive than other operating systems, especially when compared to other cloud versions."
- "The price for Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more expensive than other operating systems, especially when compared to other cloud versions."
- "In the last years, we have tried to quote a project using JBoss, but the license on cloud was cheaper than the on-premise license."
What is our primary use case?
I use it for a commercial platform for a bank in Ecuador. We have a product development for development in JBoss. We can have multiple channels on the left side in TBM and ES.
I have a product in development that serves as middleware. We have multi-channel on the left side and multi-database on the right side. We don't use an AMQ yet. It's broad.
What is most valuable?
The valuable features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for on-premises are its flexibility and compatibility; it works exceptionally with JBoss.
We find that the performance of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very good, and the deployment is very easy. On YouTube, for example, they processed nearly 10 million transactions over nine years.
Security is important, and it performs efficiently and is confident compared with a firewall and WAF, or whatever you use as a firewall to protect our deployments. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps with uptime and security; with every deployment, we evaluate security and apply vulnerability scanners, covering every vulnerability without any problem.
What needs improvement?
I don't know where Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can improve; I just know that I don't use the cloud version, but I know the price, and I think it has many similar features to use JBoss with old features.
In the last years, we have tried to quote a project using JBoss, but the license on cloud was cheaper than the on-premise license.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating system since 2016.
How are customer service and support?
I use documentation and community forums for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). There's plenty of knowledge in many forums, and when I have trouble, I can find a lot of support on the web; there is a lot of information we can find.
Depending on the support I have to use, we didn't have a problem; we have a local reseller who helps with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) support directly. We use a partner for direct support with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Our business in Ecuador is a local partner, and the name of the partner business is ASAP. Mr. Jimmy Rodriguez provides support and attends to our needs very efficiently.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is more expensive compared with WebLogic, and I prefer JBoss against WebLogic. The main differences between the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating systems and Windows and Solaris are concerning performance; the best performance is in the order of Linux, Solaris, and then Windows.
What other advice do I have?
Achieving security standard certification is necessary for my business, and I'm always recommending Red Hat Enterprise Linux to my clients.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
Last updated: Jun 19, 2025
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