Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for servers. We have deployed application servers and database servers on it. We run Oracle Database, WebLogic, Apache, and JBoss on it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is very important for our organization. We are very sensitive to security.

It is not difficult to move workloads between the cloud and the data center using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Mostly, our teams use file servers centrally, and then they use scripts so that it is done automatically in the background. Initially, they may get problems while connecting due to the security or firewall, but once the connection is established, we do not see any problem with that.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has helped to avoid cloud vendor lock-in. I am not sure how much our organization has saved in costs by avoiding cloud vendor lock-in, but we would have saved a good amount.

It is very stable and robust. My team is very comfortable working with it for all end-to-end activities. They can work with it very easily. They prefer working through the console rather than the GUI.

Its resiliency is good. There is no doubt about that.

I don't prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux for desktop over other options. 

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for a good amount of time. It has been eight to ten years.

It is very stable. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of stability.

It is very scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of scalability. It is highly available and scalable for servers.

It is good. I do not see any challenges. I would rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

We choose an operating system based on the needs and the use case. We use different operating systems for different purposes, so they are not comparable. For example, for desktops, Linux is not the best. For desktops, Microsoft Windows is the best. Similarly, if you are using any Microsoft products, such as SQL Server, Microsoft Windows is the best option. However, nowadays, we also have Microsoft products installed on Linux.

I am not involved in its deployment and maintenance. We have a separate team with 40 to 50 people around the globe for that.

We most probably have both on-premises and cloud deployments on a private cloud, but I am not sure. Our infrastructure services team takes care of that.

We have got a good ROI, but I do not have the metrics. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of ROI.

Its pricing is good and competitive.

I would recommend it based on the use case and the budget. If it meets your needs and budget, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the best option.

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

RHEL is a phenomenal operating system for three primary reasons: 

• Support compared to the rest of the Linux ecosystem
• Cohesive ecosystem 
• Application platform

The combination of these three aspects has proven to me from an advising perspective that it is key in decision-making.  

Our clients purchase the use cases via cloud provider and hyper-scale. It's a combination of both. Mostly, new clients prefer going for hyper scalers. Whereas the clients with Red Hat licenses, predominantly those from the banking sector, transfer the licenses to the cloud depending on their hyper scaler plan.

The main benefits my clients have seen are the supportability, maintenance of the operating system, security, and the ecosystem that ties it all together.

The solution has a phenomenal operating system. Its support features are best compared to the rest of the Linux ecosystem. Generally, applications don't rely on operating systems per se. When combined with the container ecosystem, security is the paramount feature that is most asked for.

The problems our clients try to solve by implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux vary. The main ones include containerization, cloud transformation, and visual transformation in terms of how you get to the cloud in a hybrid mode. The key aspect that I give advice about is how for the operating system in terms of the scalability to bridge the cloud to the on-prem world, so where they could have the OpenShift ecosystem that it runs into and helps them manage both systems together. 

The solution's operating systems are phenomenally resilient and stable. The good part is that Red Hat has backing and support. Also, combined with IBM, it gives more confidence to my customers.

The solution's ecosystem is good but it would be better to create cohesive components in all of the development tools. 

A developers' hub feature would help. 

OpenShift already provides excellent visibility, but bridging the gap with Kubernetes would be key because Red Hat Enterprise Linux drives OpenShift.

I'm a big open-source user. I've been using different forms of Linux for quite some time. For my enterprise purpose, I use the RHEL for other purposes and a few other different Linux operating systems. We have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for more than ten years.

I have experience working with Ubuntu, Fedora, Canonical, etc. From that perspective, the solution's stability is good. The security feature plays a key role in terms of the pace at which it receives updates for operating systems to maintain it.

In terms of the architectural perspective, the nature of the solution is scalable.

The solution's technical support is very good. My clients generally manage it, and I have received positive feedback. They have a responsive support organization to communicate with.

I have used Canonical and Ubuntu. In comparison with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu's ecosystem consists of multiple operating systems and container platforms like MicroK8s. The partnership with hyper scalers in terms of deployment is one of its benefits as well. On the flip side, it has some drawbacks regarding licensing and export control, where Red Hat shines well.

The solution's pricing and licensing are good. Although the open-source space is becoming more competitive, Red Hat brings value in terms of support. At the same time, different operators like Canonical Kubernetes are catching up. Thus, the price would become the differentiation factor regarding packages for support, and container ecosystem combined with Ansible. All these key elements would add more value to the pricing.

The solution's key element is its cohesive ecosystem between hybrid and cloud environments. It helps clients such as giant banks create a single space for managing workloads in different hyper scalers. This way, it helps in cost management and visibility. It creates a single platform to manage work. It helps in saving costs, especially with subscription plans. It provides them with a consistent cost structure. Also, being an open-source solution has benefits that fit within the ecosystem.

I rate it an eight out of ten, primarily for the support and licensing terms. It helps some of our enterprise clients navigate open-source licensing and export control complexities.

There are areas of improvement, such as the cycle of updates and the ecosystem as a whole. Also, the elements like Ansible are priced separately. For automation, there is an opportunity to combine everything. Even though they are different products, they shouldn't be charged separately from the ecosystem perspective.

My main and only usage of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is for the on-premise workload. We use it for running Red Hat Ceph Storage and running automation using Ansible. Other than this, I use it for doing any auto test that I would like to do on a Linux-based machine.

From a security perspective, the most valuable feature is SELinux. SELinux provides good security. It's doing a good job of protecting my real estate.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is great.

It has its own ups and downs. Most of the time, it's pretty stable, but sometimes, you'll find some weird bugs that could affect the availability of your running machine. Red Hat can improve its operating system by making it better from the quality assurance perspective. Users do find bugs, which they, of course, shouldn't encounter. A better QA would probably make the job a lot better. It would make the product a lot more stable than it's today.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over three years.

It has its own ups and downs. The operating system itself is pretty much stable, but there could be some bugs that could affect your availability. While running the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system, I did experience some bugs from time to time that did affect the availability on my machine.

Overall, it's pretty stable, but when you do something more hardcore or special, then its stability could be affected. I can't recall anything that I faced in the last few weeks or months, but as you go around production with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and have lots of machines running on it, you can get stability issues or kernel issues. A machine might suddenly be rebooted for no reason. That's my experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux's stability.

It's deployed at multiple locations. Approximately, there are 200 people using this solution.

The support in Israel from the guys sitting in Israel is great, but when contacting the support engineers across the globe, the support level just decreases, and the reliability decreases as well. The support guys locally in Israel are great, but the support guys worldwide aren't that reliable. Overall, I'd rate them a seven out of ten.

Neutral

I used Ubuntu and Fedora, but mainly Ubuntu. Ubuntu was a great operating system. We had to change from Ubuntu to Red Hat Enterprise Linux due to subscriptions. The enterprise had more and more need for container orchestration, so we ended up purchasing the Red Hat OpenShift container platform, and the use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux in the organization grew significantly.

The security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are aligned with the entire industry. They do not have any higher advantage over other competitors, such as Ubuntu from Canonical, so security-wise, it's okay.

It was pretty much straightforward. Deployment of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system didn't take longer than two days.

It was deployed in-house. Three to four people were involved in its deployment.

In terms of maintenance, it just works unless you do anything special with it.

It's pretty expensive, but I'm not familiar with the pricing of other vendors for their operating systems. I'd rate it a seven out of ten in terms of pricing.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's main advantage is the support that you get by purchasing their subscriptions. 

We looked at OpenSUSE, but we eventually ended up with Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of the support that Red Hat has in my country. In Israel, Red Hat is a lot bigger than OpenSUSE, so we ended up going with Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of the available support in the country.

If you're evaluating this solution, I'd recommend having your own architects discuss your architecture with the local Red Hat personnel in your state. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a good product, and it could be even better if you know how to integrate it based on the preferences of your organization. So, my advice would be to have your guys discuss your IT architecture with the local Red Hat people and then decide how to specifically integrate your IT infrastructure with the Red Hat software.

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

We prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux as our operating system due to its excellent support. If a business wants something, we deliver it and we prefer a Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based system because of the support. It can be a simple application to a big system. It doesn't have pre-defined roles. It's a go-to operating system. 

Our use cases for it vary from plain operating system management to handling specific tasks such as running Oracle databases or other similar applications. They include quite a broad spectrum of requirements. Also, they are not limited to predefined roles but encompass the entire operating system infrastructure.

The solution's SELinux feature is a gold standard for security. It also has the best ecosystem. 

In addition, its automation platform, ITM, is a good product and works well for us.

Some of the solution's features need to be automated. We encounter the hassle of registering the system and attaching a subscription. Our company has development teams, and we have to develop subscriptions for them. Here, having the solution up and running on the developers' machines is a bit of a hurdle. Although we can run it on platforms like Red Hat Connect but, it needs to be somewhat more accessible so developers can just download it and start with the work.

I have been using the solution for 10-15 years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable when combined with automation features. I rate its scalability a nine.

The solution's customer service is good.

Positive

I have used Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, and macOS. Initially, I worked as a Red Hat Certified Administrator in RHEL 5. Later, I began to work for its partner company. That is how I switched to the solution. It was not a conscious choice. It just evolved that way.

The solution's initial setup process is straightforward. You have to follow the steps, copy the template and multiply it.

The solution's price is reasonable. If you have a license for the support, they provide excellent services. The support team is always available for help in case of errors or system downtime issues.

RHEL’s built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance are good. If you keep SELinux on, it is all good. If you have a system with SELinux off for a long time, it could get you in trouble. The system will make many changes, like restoring files could break your application later. In case you resolve the problems simultaneously, it is fine. 

The troubleshooting feature of Red Hat is excellent. It can solve many issues on the machine right away. In addition, if you have an external scene, then Red Hat Insights is on. I sometimes go to this feature to see its status and what is happening. 

I don't do this on a daily basis and only check it every two weeks, but it's nice to have. I mainly oversee the high-level view of all the systems. This way, I know if the clients' machines need a patch system. 

There are some missing modules for SELinux in Ansible, like the playbook. It becomes a genuine hurdle to manipulate SELinux at the moment. I have to go to the machine, take a file to the repository, and deploy it.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for OpenShift. We run KVM and then deploy OpenShift under it. Additionally, these are my customer's use cases. 

We run it in-house for prototyping applications. Moreover, my customers utilize it to port older Solaris applications to Linux. I also use Linux on Z.

The customers would benefit from quickly identifying vulnerabilities as they arise and being able to fine-tune machines if certain features are not properly fine-tuned. 

Since we use it for virtualization, KVM has been quite valuable. It's been very solid running OpenShift under KVM. The toolset has been pretty good.

By implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the customers were getting off older hardware like Solaris. They're trying to migrate their applications off those boxes and also cost savings. They were migrating over to consolidate onto Z.

However, none of my current customers use Red Hat Insights. I'm trying to encourage them to adopt it, but since they operate in air-gapped environments, Insights needs an internet connection. I mainly work in the Federal space.

Personally, I like the terminal-based tool called Tusa for certain activities. Sometimes we just don't have a web interface available for repetitive tasks. It would be nice to have a web-based tool for Red Hat Enterprise Linux since we don't always have access to a web browser.

The stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is solid. It performs well and handles the workload effectively.

It scales well on my platform. We are running OpenShift and other machines on it, and it scales without any issues. Although, it's largely due to the platform itself.

The initial setup can be complex in certain cases, particularly when dealing with a fed customer that operates in an isolated environment. But, in other installations, it has been mostly straightforward. Red Hat Enterprise Linux could still work on making it a little more streamlined in terms of deployment.

There have been some issues we've had with portability, picking it up and moving it somewhere else.

In terms of simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good. The customers I work with don't use them extensively. However, during the machine building process, we apply some security features at build time rather than later on. We take measures such as applying a stake during the build process. While I keep pushing the customers to use the provided tools, some of them operate in air-gapped environments, preventing them from accessing the internet for the latest rules.

The portability of applications and containers built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux is pretty good. We actually build applications on one platform and successfully deploy them on another, so that's pretty good. Overall, using Red Hat Enterprise Linux is definitely a strong set for my customers.

My customers definitely see an ROI. Especially when running it on Z platforms due to fewer processors and, consequently, fewer licenses required. They have experienced a return on investment. 

When I previously worked in a Linux shop using Tusa, it was more expensive. But I think Red Hat Enterprise Linux has become more competitive, particularly for Z platforms.

One example is the consolidation of their infrastructure, getting off of Solaris, and not paying high maintenance costs. Consolidating onto Linux, specifically Red Hat, has been helpful for one of my customers.

There are not many choices available on the system they use, probably only two or three options. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the preferred choice, especially since it is widely used in the enterprise.

The other two choices are SUSE and Ubuntu, which are commercially available systems. Honestly, no one is going to use Ubuntu because it's not popular enough. So it's really a choice between SUSE and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. SUSE has been around longer on my platform and system settings. But I think people are shifting over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as it runs on Intel and is more enterprise-oriented.

Overall, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten.

We installed the product at a very large hospital as their underlying operating system for Kubernetes, but it is not OpenShift. We use it for one-off servers and lab machines.

Copious documentation is probably the best feature of the solution. If you have a lot of high-quality documentation in one location, it is easier to search and get exactly what you need. It's more efficient when I get stuck on a problem or need help configuring something. It saves us time searching through Google or looking through GitHub Issues to solve the problems. It is a top-notch solution.

If the solution were easier to use and understand, it would not get disabled as often as it does. The solution should be made more secure. The changes made to CentOS make it hard for somebody to spin up and test it without having a preexisting relationship and license. 

If somebody wants to get something going quickly and is trying to settle on Red Hat, they don't have a free version to go to. Ubuntu and SUSE provide such platforms to the users. It is one Achilles heel in Red Hat at the moment. 

Even if Red Hat would enable a full version trial for people to test it, it would be less than what others are doing. Others are giving it away for free until you actually need support, and then you can choose if you need to buy it. With SUSE you can install it with SUSE Leap. It's pretty much the same thing. When you want support, you must enable support, and it becomes SLES.

There's nothing in Red Hat where I can run along on the free version for as long as I need to, and then when I want support, activate support on the same product. I have to reinstall it if I want Red Hat. Even with CentOS, it still wasn't possible to just activate it for Red Hat and make it become Red Hat Enterprise Linux. That's been something that's long been lacking in the product.

I have been using the solution since 1996 or 1997.

I have no complaints at all about the stability of the product.

As time goes on, the solution gets better. It adopts new features. I would say that it does a pretty good job.

The few times that I've encountered support, it was great. I don't really go through support channels. However, when I reach out and ask a question to the people I know in support, I get answers pretty quickly. I find that they have a good deal of product knowledge.

Positive

When I first started using the product in the 90s, it was just Red Hat. So I used Red Hat, and I used IBM Slack. I've used quite a number of different Linux distributions. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has been around longer than Ubuntu. I still use other solutions along with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Typically, the initial setup is pretty straightforward. If it's virtualization, it is really easy because we have an image already, or we can create one. We can use Kickstart. I used to run a 5000-node HPC cluster in the early 2000s based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We used a combination of SystemImager and Kickstart for it.

It's the default posture of a lot of the third-party vendors that you should just disable and leave them off. With containerization being prevalent everywhere, portability is across the board. Red Hat Enterprise Linux adopted Podman as opposed to Docker. Podman is a good tool, and I like it. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the standard on which many others have based their platforms.

Using SELinux is largely misunderstood. If used properly, it provides a great platform for us. Red Hat is a big corporation, and we have people we can reach out and talk to. The same goes for SUSE. For Ubuntu, I have always gone straight to NVIDIA for support. I personally don't know of any great differentiators between all the products. I know Red Hat. It's been around longer, and I've had a long history that makes me comfortable. 

I wouldn’t recommend one over the other. It would come down to the use case. If someone wants Kubernetes on-prem, I would probably guide them toward OpenShift. I do have customers that don't run OpenShift on-prem. I often find that the customers already have a preference because they already have a license. So it's never really a decision that falls on me.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses firewalls, so configuring a firewall is easy. I have deployed the solution in multiple places. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for deploying middleware applications and many different applications that we have, like the ones we can use in the marketplace with different users. We use other kinds of solutions in many of the applications we develop. But in general, we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Benefit-wise, the product is very stable. The product is also very compatible, and many people want to use it.

There are a lot of features in the solution. Red Hat Insights is one feature that we rely on currently.

The model, specifically the consumption model, is an area that needs improvement in the solution.

We had a really big challenge striking a chart between on-premises and the public cloud. The approach is that you pay as you go in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In general, you pay for whatever you use instead of preparing for a full year.

At times, language is a barrier when it comes to support. That's one of the aspects I would like to improve about the solution.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for six to eight years. My company has a partnership with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat's support is good. Sometimes cases take a little bit longer to resolve. If you are clever enough to upgrade the case and put it at a very high level of priority, then it gets resolved faster. In general, the support is good. I rate the support an eight out of ten.

Sometimes, a customer doesn't speak English or we need people who speak Spanish for the case to be easier to understand. In those cases, we lose time. I can't push all my engineers to learn to speak English. My customers and our engineers speak Spanish.

Positive

We've been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux since the beginning.

I was involved in the deployment a long time ago. The setup process is easy. The solution is also easy to use.

Regarding the time taken for deployment, we can do it with a machine at this moment using Ansible. In our orchestration, we passed more or less, creating one machine for Red Hat and the entire environment. It took us eight days and an hour. At this moment, we can deploy it on a machine in an hour with all the security. If a developer comes to us and tells us that they need a new machine or new instance, we can provide that in an hour on-premises. In the cloud, we have to use a lot of tools.

I have purchased the license via hyperscalers and transferred it as well. I purchased the license from the marketplace and also from Red Hat.

Pricing is something that can always be better.

We have not evaluated other options since we trust Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I am running my workloads on-premises and on the cloud. I mainly use AWS.

Resiliency-wise, the solution is very good. It's good because we don't have a problem with our environment at this moment. When we don't have a problem, we don't need to explain what is to be improved in the solution. It is reliable and doesn't break or bring us any problems.

Regarding how easy or difficult it is for me to move workloads between the cloud and my data center using the solution, we don't have problems. In general, it's easy.

We are talking about moving applications from on-premise to the cloud. We need to see if that represents any cost savings. We would need to go through a migration process, and that would be an extra cost.We would need to see if that is beneficial.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten.

We are running databases and applications on it. We are also using the Squid proxy server, NGINX, and Apache, so we are running multiple services on the servers.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux eight and nine. We also use Red Hat Satellite and Red Hat Ansible Tower.

I've mostly worked with the telcos and banking sectors, and they mostly have on-prem setups. We do have a hybrid environment where we have multiple machines running on AWS. I am based in Saudi, where they are using another cloud called Din. They are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Din as well.

Their trainings should be free.

It's more stable than the other operating systems. That's why everyone is using the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform instead of Windows on the server side.

They regularly send us updates regarding patches and security vulnerabilities. We patch our servers quarterly. Mostly, we do patching every three months. They always send us updates on our official email, so it's quite good.

It would be very good if we can easily migrate from CentOS to Red Hat. We are about to move from CentOS to Red Hat. It would be great if they can give us a free version. Otherwise, we need to purchase licenses, which are quite expensive.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for five to six years. I have only been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux over these years.

Its stability is quite good. I'd rate it a nine out of ten.

I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of scalability. It's being used in the banking center, and they are running their applications and databases on it. 

We have LVM configurations, so according to the application, we can increase the disk size. The environment is quite good for my use.

Their support is quite good, and they're responsive, but they first send us to the platform to check the issues. They don't provide direct support immediately. For a new engineer, it can be quite difficult. It would be good if they put us directly on the call in case of an emergency.

Some of the newer engineers require support in a quick manner. Those of us who have experience of six to seven years don't require the support, but in the beginning, we required support, and their support was quite good.

Positive

The product selection depends on the company. Telco companies have the budget, and they are using licensed products, whereas small companies usually use the free versions of Linux. They go for Oracle Linux, CentOS, etc.

We are using CentOS and Ubuntu on some of the machines. The company wanted to go for a free product, but I told them that for any support in the future, we need a licensed product, and they are now migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

It's best in terms of security features. We configure the templates and then we implement the CIS controls, security features, and complete patching of the server.

In terms of maintenance, Red Hat provides us with the details about the security vulnerabilities, and the engineer needs to implement all the security on the servers.

We did it on our own.

We haven't seen an ROI.

From a management point of view, it's quite good, but everyone is complaining that it's more expensive than the other operating systems.

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