Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We have general use cases.

It's a well-supported OS. I don't know what we'd use if we didn't have it.

Moreover, the last time I had an issue flagged with the vulnerability, I was able to go to the Red Hat website and find a patch. It worked pretty well.

The built-in security worked well when it came to solidifying risk production and maintaining compliance. The uptime or security of our systems has been pretty solid.

It helps us maintain our security standards and keeps us up to date on security. 

One of the most valuable features is the package manager because it makes it easier to keep everything up to date.

The package compatibility between different releases is a little confusing sometimes.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 10 years. 

We've also used Ubuntu. 

It's a matter of certain servers that need to be kept secure, so we chose Red Hat. 

When I order a server in our organization, it comes installed, and then they spin it up.

I am involved in the upgrade processes. The upgrades weren't complex but required some downtime. We don't normally upgrade until a particular OS version becomes end-of-life and the new one starts.

Our in-house IT department did the deployment. We have a separate IT department that leverages the training provided by Red Hat.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten because most of the information I need I could find on the Red Hat website.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux as an operating system for hosting Oracle databases.

Compared to Windows as a server operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux seems more secure, and we've had fewer intrusions onto our systems. That one, for us, is the single most important thing. In a few instances where we've had intrusions, we've been able to detect them very quickly and get patches that fix those security holes very quickly, thus preventing further intrusions.

In the cases of clients I've worked for, I've never been involved in a ransomware attack or a significant reportable data loss. That is why we continue using either Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Oracle Linux.

The most valuable features are its stability and resilience in that we rarely have to take down the systems completely to patch them.

The operating system configuration and function selection could be improved. Configuring the operating system and selection of options takes a lot of expertise. I'm now going to retire, and I've been doing this for many years. Trying to train people to make those choices is proving to be difficult. However, to get applications to run efficiently in those environments, those selections are absolutely crucial.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux should include simpler storage management.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for 20 years.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten for stability.

No system is infinitely scalable in a linear manner. As you scale up anything, the fact that you're scaling adds overheads. If I were to compare Red Hat Enterprise Linux to Windows, I would give Windows a seven because you run out of scalability much faster on the Windows side.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten for scalability.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's technical support team is not that great.

Negative

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is expensive, but it's hard to quantify. Oracle doesn't have a license. You just download Oracle software and use it, but their support is way more expensive. So they're about the same. With these types of operating systems, you need to have some support. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you need to pay a massive upfront licensing fee in order to get support. You don't have to pay a licensing fee for Oracle, but then you pay a massive support fee to get the support.

They're about the same overall. I don't really make that choice for my clients. I ask them to ensure that they do have some support from someplace. If they suffer a breach and need someone to help fix the problem, they should have something up and running when it happens instead of running around trying to arrange it.

Most of my clients have particularly sensitive information. We tend to run on-premises rather than the cloud because of security issues for those highly sensitive databases. We disconnect those databases from the internet so they are ultimately secure. That is something that you cannot do in the cloud.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux doesn't have any particular standout security features, which the other Linux tools don't have. I've also used the Oracle version of Linux, which seems very similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Both seem to be as secure as the other. If I have to give a score in relation to stability, Oracle's version of Linux might be slightly more stable than Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

All the customers I've worked for have been using those operating systems for a long time. For instance, one of our customers has been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux since it was first available over 20 years ago. A return from that is difficult. They were using Unix rather than Linux. The applications they ran were ported from those environments, and migrating them to Red Hat Enterprise Linux was relatively painless. We did those migrations back in 1995 to 1997.

We tend to use the environment for running databases. So, we have very few real users directly connecting to the system. The people who connect to the system do so by applications.

We haven't needed any maintenance for a long time. My last company was a large organization, and we had the internal expertise to provide support. Some net contributors have fixed bugs themselves and contributed those bug fixes back into the Linux open-source community. It was a huge organization, and its IT department was as big as some software consultancies.

Overall, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a six out of ten.

The solution offers stable distribution and is very focused on security. It's very committed to delivering security fixes. That way, we don't have to keep moving forward with new versions. 

They are very focused on security and their products are well-designed in that regard. Their delivery of fixes for all products is great. It helps us maintain compliance and helps with risk reduction.

They provide satellites as an account management solution to deliver fixes. It helps us figure out where there are security gaps in our system. They offer good compliance out of the box.

We are starting to roll out container approaches for delivering new solutions. It's still early. We are using a very simple setup and we're beginning to test OpenShift. 

The product enables us to achieve security standards certification.

We can build with confidence and ensure availability across physical infrastructures. From the OS perspective, they do have a lot of reliability features. The virtualization is being phased out (their previous solution) and now they are moving to OpenShift. We're just starting to adopt it. 

We can automate security configurations. We're using the Red Hat security ecosystem to manage logical access and security. It delivers a lot of information with regard to security and hardening and how to use its products properly with regard to security, and we try to follow those guidelines. 

Overall, they are doing a good job. We're hoping that they continue to onboard open-source products into their operating system.

I've been using the solution for about seven years.

Technical support is pretty good. It's one of the main reasons we chose Red Hat over competitors. 

Positive

We've been working with CentOS. It was used in a very limited scope. We've also used Oracle Enterprise Linux for a limited scope. Red Hat has a more solid community and certifies its products more effectively. 

We're quite experienced with the initial setup at this point. For us, the process is a standard procedure.

The product does require some maintenance. There are about four people dedicated to the technology at this time.  

They are becoming very competitive. There has been more pressure based on competition, which is healthy. They could continue to work on their pricing model. The subscription model for some products needs improvement. The automation shouldn't be combined with managed hosts. Pricing should be based on socket and not endpoints. 

We evaluated Oracle Enterprise Linux. 

I'm a customer and end-user. 

We do not use Red Hat Insights just yet due to some restrictions around sending sensitive information off-premises. We're quite limited in terms of using that feature at the moment.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

I use the solution for research purposes. 

The solution provides more detailed control. 

The product's built-in security features when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance can be a tedious topic. It varies from user to user, however, it offers a lot of rapid releases. It helps us to simplify risk reduction and maintain compliance.

The portability of applications and containers built on the product when it comes to keeping your organization agile is good. It's easy to use.

It enhances our security. It helps us comply with company regulations.

When it comes to ensuring availability across physical virtual and cloud infrastructure, it's been okay so far.

It helped us to avoid emergencies due to security issues.

I consider the solution to be sufficient. I do not use it too much and therefore do not see any underlying problems with the solution. 

It's sufficient and it doesn't need new features. However, as new technologies enter the market, I hope they will keep up with the changing market.

From a product point of view, it's very efficient for servers. However, the solution is complex in terms of its architecture. It could be simplified. I'd like to see them introduce PDFs or documents to better explain technicalities to new users. 

Memorizing commands can be a bit tedious.

I've been using the solution for two years. 

The product has been stable so far. 

The solution is deployed to the data center, which is managed only by a few teams. 

About 150 people are using the solution. We also have 45 to 50 administrators as they are managing different areas.

The solution is scalable. However, I'm not sure if we plan to scale further in the future.

I have not interacted with support very much. 

I was involved in the deployment. The initial setup was very straightforward.

The deployment is fast and the process is efficient. 

I did a lot of the implementation myself. 

I did not evaluate other options. 

I'd rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

I'd advise new users to learn from someone who has done everything before. It's much easier than trying to learn by yourself from scratch. They should also have their own environment for testing. 

We use the product to host operating systems, applications, or infrastructure for our customers. Our customers use the product as a long-term solution that they don't have to upgrade every other year. They can get people that know the solution from the get-go.

The biggest feature is the longevity of the distribution. Compared to any other product, Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a stable backported solution for a long time. It is important because we have moved a lot of software containers. We want to update it but don't want to unless we have to. So it's great to have something stable for a long time.

The biggest thing that the solution could introduce is an even slimmer version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are moving to containers, but we also have a lot of void loads that don't go into containers. It would be nice to have an even thinner operating system. Even if you choose minimally, you still get a lot of useless stuff you don't need.

I have been using the solution for 20 years.

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability a seven out of ten.

It's really difficult to get to someone that knows something. When you get to the right people, support is really good. But there are a lot of people that can only answer first-level questions.

Neutral

We're using a lot of different OSs. We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux because we are a partner.

It's pretty simple to install the product. However, some tools required to install it are missing.

The pricing is great for virtual systems. The pricing for physical systems is way too high.

The overall costs depend on the project and the company.

We continuously evaluate other options. The main difference between Red Hat Enterprise Linux and other solutions is the complete ecosystem's longevity and possibility. Other products may present something similar, but they don't have the ecosystem around them.

We probably purchased the solution from a cloud provider. We are using versions 5 to 9 currently.

The solution’s built-in security features are pretty good, but it's not something that I would take as a major selling point. The portability is good because we have a stable baseline for applications and containers. Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s security posture is pretty good. I don’t know if it's the strongest selling point, but it's up there.

In some ways, Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables us to centralize development. However, that's not mostly what we focus on. The primary output from Red Hat Insights is targeted guidance. Targeted guidance has not affected our uptime much.

It makes sense to go with a stable distribution compared to others. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use it to host applications, services, and backend databases. We aren't using it on the cloud. Most of my customers are DoD or some type of government agency. If it's not classified, it's siloed in some way. We don't get to use a lot of the functionality that makes Red Hat cool. It's all disconnected.

In terms of version, currently, mostly everything is on versions 7 and 8. I've started pulling up some of the things from version 9, but that won't go into production for a while.

We use it because it's stable. That's half the reason, and the other half is because the DoD standardizes on it because it has a support contract, so even though we're forced to use it, it's a very good product, and it's on-prem. We probably would use it anyway.

We needed to host applications, services, and backend databases. We have a lot of Java-based applications, and we wanted something that we could deploy in different places around the world and that everybody standardized. Windows didn't really work for us on that. Most of the time, we're not connected to the Internet. We find that Red Hat or Linux in general works a little bit better for us than macOS or Windows.

It's also across the board a little bit cheaper for what we're using it for. That's a benefit we're getting from it.

We get our compliance from DISA, which is the defense information service agency. They put out security technical implementation guides. There are specific ones for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and 8. The reason we're not using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is that there isn't one for it yet. In terms of how we harden the operating system we're using, it's whatever they tell us to do and then whatever extra we want to do. It's as good as any other Linux other than the fact that it's supported by the DoD. For example, SELinux helps us secure across the board with contacts across different directories and things like that. They tell us how standardized the SD-WAN layout should be. We're able to go a little bit deeper into that. Red Hat uses Podman, which has SELinux, and which by default helps us a lot. 

We run Satellite on a lot of these, so having a central repository that we can use for patch management and remote execution is huge. That's something that is very difficult in a Windows environment. We're very compliance driven, so to have that built into Red Hat is easy. We don't need an agent or anything like that to get a lot of work done, so Satellite and centralized automation are the most valuable features for us. We're dabbling into Ansible but not as much as we should be.

It's obviously a security-focused operating system versus some of the other operating systems that lay you down in the terminal as root. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, you can't even root. It's disabled by default now. Overall, they are definitely more security conscious, and that's also because of their primary customer space.

I've been using it for ten years or so. I've been using the solution since version 6. 

The stability of what we have deployed is good. The only time it crashes is if we do something or we try to configure a control that one of the engineers doesn't fully understand, which then breaks it. A lot of it's just like us breaking it ourselves or a customer asking for something that wasn't initially planned. Just pure deployment is good.

Its scalability is good. It's what they excel at. If we have 10 machines or 100 machines, they have the platforms to scale that up.

Overall, the customer support is good. It's better than Microsoft support. They are above and beyond that. They are better than others in terms of response time, getting somebody who knows what they're talking about, and not spinning their wheel. Usually, within the first response or two, people figure out what we're trying to troubleshoot here. We're not going from one queue to another queue or anything like that.

I'd rate them a ten out of ten. I've never had an issue with it. 

Positive

We had CentOS systems. When they changed upstream, we had to pivot some systems. We pivot some systems to Oracle Enterprise Linux, but then those eventually got transitioned to Red Hat as well.

The main reason for the switch to Red Hat was for the government customer and having a support contract. You can do Oracle Enterprise Linux without a support contract, but if you're going to buy one, you might as well get Red Hat at that point for the added benefits.

We use Kali for a couple of other use cases, and we probably won't replace it with Red Hat.

We've used a lot of flavors of Linux. One thing that sticks out for me, even in just the home lab environment or deploying at work, is that if there's some backward thing that we weren't planning on going into, if I look for a solution, nine out of ten times, I'm going to find an article on Red Hat's website where somebody has either a verified solution or somebody is talking about it and there are comments that are relevant. I hate going on ServerStack, Ubuntu Stack, or something like that, where somebody has the exact problem that you have, but there are no comments and no answers. I find that to be less true with the Red Hat platform.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward but can be tedious at times because of the compliance things that we have to implement. 

I just sat in on the training or the demo for the deployment platform, and we're already planning on setting up the Ansible automation platform where we also want to look into setting up this deployment tool because we do a lot of ISOs. We do a lot of kickstarts. We don't do any of the cloud tenants. We probably will switch to using the on-premise disconnected deployment capability because we can preconfigure everything and then run Ansible after the fact to get it all compliant.

We're the integrators or implementors of the solution.

We're forced to buy the licensing, but it's also good. I and a couple of other staff members are all Red Hat certified engineers, and then we all have our own specialties, so we don't call them a lot, but when we submit tickets, it's definitely worth it.

The ROI is mainly in terms of needing to recover from any system downtime. If we don't have an engineer on a computer doing a certain piece of research, then we're wasting money or just not generating a product, so to have the support that we can call and then reach out to us in enough turnaround time holds value for us.

The pricing is fair. The workstation licensing cost is fair. If you're running enterprise-level deployments, depending on what you're using, the volume licensing is good. I personally am worried that if they get so successful, they can increase the price, and then it won't matter because we'll be stuck on them. Hopefully, their open source mentality keeps that from happening. Where it's right now is good.

In terms of the portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I don't know how much that applies to us. In our case, someone develops an application in a Podman container, and we ingest that and run it, but we're not doing much more than that. So, all of the Java-based applications that we run, are run within a couple of different containers, and that's about it.

I personally use Red Hat Insights in my home lab. We can't dial out for that for a lot of customer-based work, but I personally use it. It hasn't helped avoid any emergencies because it's super low risk for what I'm using it for, but I can see the benefit of it. In a more enterprise setup, such as health care where I used to work, things probably would have been interconnected, and we would have been using Insights, but we're not using it currently.

Overall, I'd rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a 10 out of 10. 

We run various application servers. We have application servers for Java and Python. We also run Postgres and different applications. We have Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm, etc. We have a wide variety. 

We weren't trying to solve a particular problem by implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We've used Red Hat Enterprise Linux for so long. We used to modify the Kernel in the early versions of Red Hat, but that's not needed anymore. We are currently using versions 7, 8, and 9. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has enabled us to centralize development in our hybrid cloud environment because the containers can be migrated from Red Hat Enterprise Linux to AWS. It's not an issue. There is also a Red Hat-supported programming tool called Skupper, which is a layer seven service. It's an open source product. It's supported by Red Hat, so we could use that to migrate our containers back and forth on the cloud and on-prem, which is very much needed.

Red Hat is pretty good at containing risks. We have a firewall, but we also use iptables and SELinux. SELinux has proved to be very valuable. We have certain tools where when somebody tries to break SELinux, we immediately get alerts.

We don't have a problem with compliance. We also use Red Hat Satellite. Our Red Hat Satellite server is helpful in terms of meeting compliance requirements.

We're able to modify and migrate containers and redeploy containers very easily. We do that on the Red Hat platform. We do it with other tools such as VMware. Red Hat API works very well with other vendors, so that's definitely a plus. In terms of changes, for instance, if we want to connect to ServiceNow to create a ticket in Ansible, we're able to do that without any problems whatsoever. We can create a ticket in ServiceNow. We can remediate it, and we can close the ticket on ServiceNow from Ansible. Ansible is a big part of Red Hat.

It's a rock-solid operating system. We don't need anything fancy from the operating system itself. What we need is something that doesn't crash, stays up to date, and provides the security features that we need to keep external players out.

The CVEs that come out for the vulnerabilities are very fast. We try to do patching in different tiers. Our regular patching happens once every ninety days, and then we have special iterations that need to be done, and those are on demand, or if there's a high-security risk and it's absolutely immediate.

The other thing that we like about Red Hat is the support for open source. That for us is a slam dunk.

They should work more on container documentation. The only issue that we have is that Red Hat specifically promotes OpenStack, and we don't use OpenStack. It's good if you're using OpenStack, but if you're not using OpenStack, and you're using Docker or something else, it isn't that good. Having more support for non-OpenStack would be very helpful, but, of course, as part of their business, we don't expect it.

I've been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for many years.

It's very stable.

It scales very well. We have about a thousand servers, but we could scale to five thousand servers without a problem.

Their support is good overall. It's better than some of the other vendors. The staff is very friendly. The people I've met hear and discuss issues. We're very much interested in open source, so we use a lot of open source. The engineers have been extremely helpful. 

I'd rate them an eight out of ten. I'm not giving them a ten. Some of it has to do with the time cycle, and some of it has to do with different levels of quality with the support. You could get a junior support person, and obviously, that's going to be a very different experience.

The knowledge base offered by Red Hat is very good.

Positive

Our environment is hybrid. Most of our Red Hat Enterprise Linux is on-prem. For the cloud, AWS is the cloud provider, but we are using a different distro for AWS. We use AWS Linux for that. For on-prem servers, we're strictly using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For desktops, we use Fedora.

The reason for using AWS Linux is that we only have AWS. If we use multi-cloud, for instance, if we use Azure and AWS clouds together, we would definitely need something other than AWS Linux. AWS Linux is very solid too, and our team likes it. We can download the AWS Linux version for on-premises too. I've done that. I tested it, but we're sticking with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

In the server space, nothing comes close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I know that Ubuntu is making a big push, and some people have gone ahead and migrated to Ubuntu, but I think those are going to migrate back. There's just no comparability. They're different. They're like cousins. They're very similar in some ways, but they're very different things. You can install SELinux on Ubuntu, but why bother and why go through the whole configuration? Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more suitable for servers.

We use certain tools from HashiCorp, such as Packer, so deploying it is very simple. We have a script that runs every night, and it creates via the CI, goes up to GitLab, gets whatever it needs, such as parameters, and sends it to Packer. Packer grabs the ISO, and it creates a very specific, customized deployment. It's done with a couple of right clicks. That's it.

We've absolutely seen an ROI. It's in terms of reliability, stability, security, and usability. You name it. The use cases are out there.

The licensing structure is very convoluted. It's very confusing. We have a Satellite server, and we license it through the Satellite server, but if we didn't, we'd have to buy individual Red Hat licenses. That would be a nightmare to maintain in terms of renewing it every year and things like that. 

Overall, I'd rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

Primarily, we use it for a couple of different servers. Some are doing data hosting, and some are doing network management-type functions.

We use it on-premises. We do not use it on the cloud. Because of government work, we're not cloud-based.

By implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we were mainly looking for stability. By having a lot of open source solutions, we ran into problems where there were too many flavors and too many variables. We ran into issues with ISO and other things where this particular site was a one-off from this site, which was a one-off from this site, which was one-off from this site. That became a problem for making sure that we stick to a consistent level and patch to a consistent level across the board.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been good. We do a lot of containerization and a lot of microservices. It has worked really well. It helped in keeping our organization agile. Our partners provided us with a lot of quick utilities and reuse of things. We can shut down a container and spin up a new container to introduce new capability quicker. 

The biggest feature that I have found valuable is stability. 

The way it lent itself to automation has been very invaluable for us. It makes the setups a lot more consistent and repeatable across the board. We're able to deploy the product quickly in a very consistent manner, which meets our timelines. A lot of what we do has very short spending dates, and they need a lot of product work.

It has been pretty good for us. I have no complaints as such. We just learned that we can get access to more support documents by going through the portal. I didn't know that. If it was something that was more known or advertised, that would have helped us to find out some of the information a little better.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about a couple of years.

It's a 10 out of 10 in terms of stability.

It's a 10 out of 10 in terms of scalability.

The customer service is good. There is a lot of support documentation out there for anything you're looking for.

Positive

We tried quite a few flavors of different things, but nothing provided the consistency that we are getting with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We tried everything such as Ubuntu, Mint, etc.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux stood out for its consistency and stability. We had several different problems with drivers on Mint. There were so many different flavors. We had one developer who built everything on one, and then another developer built on another, and none of that was coming together. It was not meshing, so we finally went to a common platform with stability and supportability. It was a lot better. It has allowed the developers to focus more on their code rather than having to worry about fighting the underlying things, such as drivers aren't on this one, and that one is not working.

It was very straightforward. We've pushed in further to make our own ISOs, so we're making sure that everything is getting the same applications and everything is deployed across the board, and we are able to virtualize in some cases. It has been good.

You definitely get what you're paying for. From what we've seen, it has been great. It has also allowed virtualization and making their own ISOs. We're able to package all that up, and it has worked consistently and repeatability. We've written our own Bash scripts so that we can automatically deploy that and stick it as part of the build. We're saving a lot of time and getting to a common platform repeatedly.

Overall, I'd rate it a nine out of 10. There's always room for a little bit of improvement.