Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

Our main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include our shift from VMware Tanzu container platform to OpenShift container platform about three to four years ago. We are also starting to use the Ansible platform to automate some networking.

One of the main benefits was that we were able to integrate with Github and minimize deployment to minutes versus days. 

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I find most valuable is the Ansible automation platform, which is very user-intuitive, and there is abundant documentation and guidance available. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us resolve many automation issues that we are facing now, as we attempt to automate setups and restore through Git and integrate with GitOps. It is working for us, and we are still in the deployment phase. We have been working closely with Red Hat, and it has been effective.

Currently, I don't have any specific improvements in mind for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). One of the tools I'm examining is the automation platform, and it appears there is still room for improvement since it is relatively new. Red Hat is working on this, and it will improve, though there are some bugs present. 

To make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a perfect ten, improvements could come from newer features and software additions, such as Ansible. They are transitioning from Galaxy to the automation platform, which is new and has some issues, but this is expected. As the platform matures, it will continue to improve.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for approximately three to four years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very stable. We have been running it for approximately three to four years as our main container platform, and support is excellent. We can get people on the phone, and the response time is great. We haven't had to address any major issues.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales excellently with the growing needs of my company. It is easy to scale. With our OpenShift platform, downtime is close to zero when it comes to upgrades or scaling, and it is very easy for us, especially when integrating with GitHub.

The customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very responsive. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

We are deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on-premises. I have been involved in many Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades or migrations to on-premises, and it is straightforward. The documentation and how-to guides make it very simple.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from a technical perspective is minimal downtime for end users.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is superior to other solutions I've used in the past, such as VMware, primarily due to cost savings, which was our main reason for migrating.

When managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems regarding provisioning and patching, we use a cluster environment, so everything is cluster-based, and we use GitHub to perform upgrades and patches almost seamlessly with no downtime. 

Our upgrade and migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve upgrading our clusters. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us to mitigate downtime and lower risk with zero downtime achievement. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten overall, as I am still relatively new to it on an enterprise level, having previously worked on standalone systems.

My main use cases include running our application in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since all our applications are based on a Red Hat server. Everything we use is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

As SecDevOps Lead, I drove the adoption of Red Hat’s Ansible Automation Platform, which transformed our deployment process. Previously, manual scripts led to inconsistencies and delays; now, we achieve consistent, error-free deployments in under 10 minutes. Weekly RHEL patching, integrated into our CI/CD pipeline, has strengthened our security posture—critical for meeting regulatory requirements. These improvements have directly supported our business goals of agility and reliability.

A key area for improvement is the ability to apply patches without requiring a full server reboot. This would minimize downtime for mission-critical applications. I’m actively evaluating Red Hat’s live kernel patching solutions and advocating for their adoption to further enhance our uptime and operational efficiency.

I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for almost seven years.

I assess the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as good since I didn't see much downtime with the servers or any random problems coming up with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I would say it's good in terms of stability.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales well with the growing needs of my organization because whatever solutions we are trying, we are able to do in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It's coming along well.

I evaluate customer service and technical support as something I'm not sure about because I didn't directly work with them.

Neutral

I didn't consider any other solutions before Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and I haven't used any other solution to address similar needs.

My experience with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is nice, but I didn't deploy anything from a Linux perspective. Overall, I think it's a nice experience that I have with Red Hat.

When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, it has come up well over the years. Before, I think it took a lot of time to provision a server and patch it, including securing and hardening the server. Nowadays, it's very easy. I didn't work directly, but I have provisioned.

I feel that we've seen ROI since I'm not involved in purchasing, but I can feel that it's a good ROI.

My experience with pricing, including cost and licensing, is that I'm not sure.

I haven't expanded any usage of it, apart from using Ansible and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance is that it's pretty good from what I've heard when I talk with the team, even though I'm not directly working on that.As for my upgrade and migration plans to stay current, we recently upgraded to Red Hat 8. If we want to do another Red Hat 10, it's good.Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk as it allows provisioning servers very easily. In case the servers go down, it comes up very fast as well.I assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very good. Recently, I had a walkthrough of a trial, and it's pretty much simplified and whatever we need is there.My advice to other organizations considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is to just use it. It's easy. I gave this review a rating of 10.

Related to stability, security, and reliability, the absolute bedrock of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it uses rigorously tested, mature software versions. While not always the latest, this ensures zero unexpected changes, which is critical for systems that must run for years without failure. The security hardening includes tools such as SELinux, FirewallD, and SCAP.

I previously used Ubuntu workloads because they were a good option for another company. When talking about Linux or Unix environments, there are many open source options such as CentOS or Ubuntu that differ from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

In most cases, the workloads are running in AWS. We are natively performing and invoking the instances by auto-scaling group primarily on EC2 instances, some of Fargate, ECS, or Fargate workloads, and that is where I experiment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I am working mostly in cloud environments, but also on-premise. My work includes various DevOps and operation tasks such as provisioning, automating with Terraform and Ansible, performing patching tasks, troubleshooting web services, and other infrastructure tasks per day.

We are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in all our production workload environments, particularly in cloud adoption for AWS. We have very useful features from the marketplace for AWS that help us optimize our current workloads.

Regarding core Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and infrastructure optimizations, we utilize performance profile tuning and IDM profiles for database heavy marketplace back-end. We use throughput performance or latency performance for mixed workloads, deploying specific tune profiles with pre-configured kernel parameters. The system includes kernel parameters tuning, file systems to optimize virtual memory settings, and XFS by default for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Security enhancements include SELinux enforcement with custom policies. For architectural and application optimizations, we use containerization with Podman for Kubernetes workloads and orchestration with OpenShift with Kubernetes.

The workloads primarily run in AWS. We are natively performing and invoking the instances by auto-scaling group on EC2 instances, some of Fargate, ECS, or Fargate workloads, and that is where I experiment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about two years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is really stable. I have not experienced any downtime related to workloads or operating system issues so far. Regarding scalability, it has been rational, though I do not have extensive experience with particular use cases. The experience has been smooth overall.

The customer support is excellent. I reached out to them once about a monitoring matter, and the attention was really good. My rating would be nine out of ten.

Positive

The setup was very easy. While I am not in the finance department or performing license management, I believe it is really easy to use. I am not currently in charge of budget strategy, so I cannot provide detailed information about that matter.

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for production workloads in AWS or any cloud environment. In my case, it is AWS, and I have practical experience with critical workloads in on-premises solutions. The experience has been good, and I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to other customers or partners.

My company is a Red Hat partner. I was offered a gift card for providing this interview.

I use other tech products such as Scalr for FinOps in cloud environments, Splunk for monitoring, and AWS Backup for native cloud backup solutions.

The overall rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9 out of 10.

I used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for my past job where it was used for VMware. It was always on VMware, JBoss, or WebLogic for web-based apps and similar applications. In my current job, we use it as a base OS for AAP or for VSOS, for a Docker host, a pod host, or various applications.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is valuable for us since it's stable and reliable. 

Some of the new features they're adding to it, such as RHEL 10 and the AI, sound really helpful. The federal security features are also beneficial. Especially the AI feature sounds useful.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps simplify processes and having support is super helpful. When I have an issue and try to track it down without success, I can submit a ticket and get support. They're usually able to troubleshoot the issue, so having support is beneficial for me.

Our upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 for much of our infrastructure, while also deploying RHEL 9 for the past six months. Once RHEL 8 is deprecated, we'll probably start looking to migrate to RHEL 10 and building net new servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) definitely helps to mitigate downtime and lower risks through access to AAP. I've also heard you can do an in-place update for the kernel, which is something I'm curious to try but haven't had the chance yet.

Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) requires good documentation and having a way to onboard people for new technology they're introducing. The AI will be helpful for that since they have that now. The SE policy is not very clear on how it's supposed to be implemented, which they can improve upon, or perhaps I don't know where to look for that information.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in my job for probably ten years or more.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been pretty reliable from my experiences so far, with no major issues.

Customer service and technical support from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been pretty good overall. It has been fairly responsive, although I have had times when it was somewhat slow to respond to tickets and requests. I've had coworkers who have experienced that as well, so that could be improved. The response and quality of their responses could be better in some cases. In other cases, it's adequate for what we need.

Neutral

My experience of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in general has been pretty good so far. I use Image Builder, which is developed by Red Hat. I use that to create the image, and then satellite servers actually deploy it. For the most part, it's seamless and reliable.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), from my point of view, is having the integration between all of the various platforms, whether it's AAP, or satellite, and IDM. We use satellite, AAP, and IDM, and the integration between all of these has been super helpful.

We haven't had a need for other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) currently, but if something came up, we would probably consider it.

I have been involved with upgrading from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8 to RHEL 9, and from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8 because RHEL 7 has been sunsetted. In these cases, we build net new rather than doing in-place upgrades.

For upgrades, we use satellite to deploy, and AAP for our host provisioning and whatever we need to layer on top of the infrastructure. For managing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems regarding provisioning and patching, we use AAP. We have a written playbook that reaches out to the host and takes a snapshot of the host in VMware. Then it runs the patching and reports back if it succeeded or failed.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight out of ten.

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is server administration, so we provide a group that delivers server software from RHEL, including Ansible and Satellite.

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate most are the standard ease of use through Satellite and Ansible, which help us keep up with our demands. The benefits of those features for my company include managing compliance issues or demands we face for the business, so we need to keep up with patching on a regular basis, which is important.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved, and it appears 10 is a good way forward. Having been in this industry for so long, I don't have much on my mind, however, there is generally a barrier to getting used to it. The Lightspeed is improving it to help newcomers, so it seems a good idea.

My thoughts on RHEL's built-in security features are that they might be better; we haven't really gotten security to be very smooth, so we're not using much of it, and we have other tools to ensure compliance. At the moment, there is nothing I really miss from RHEL's features.

I have been using Red Hat's products since 1990. I've been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since 1996 or 1997; RHEL came in the 2000s.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks since we don't have much downtime when it comes to Red Hat systems; it's quite stable. The stability and reliability of the RHEL platform are good.

Regarding scalability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to the needs of the company; we haven't met any limitations yet, and we mostly deploy it with scale-out and scale-up strategies, but we haven't managed to scale up fully yet.

My experience with customer service and technical support is that they respond, which is good. Sometimes, the bug fixes take a little while, especially on their supporting systems such as Satellite. From one to ten, I would give the customer service and technical support a seven or an eight.

Positive

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I considered other solutions such as Ubuntu for client-side use; tying it into Microsoft software, such as Microsoft Entra ID, which was not possible at the moment when we started looking into it, could work even more with connections or using external vendors.

The deployment is very easy. I've been doing it for a while too. Satellite helps a lot. AIP helps even more.

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the stable environment it provides, along with the solutions going from A to B, from all the way from A to Z; we get the patches, it's updated, and it's alive.

The price is always an issue, and it depends on what you get; we have lots of development, yet I'm not economical and don't deal with finance, so it's not my area of expertise anymore. 

We haven't made any upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 since that's just released; most of our systems are running 8 and 9 at the moment, so it depends on the applications running on them, their dependencies, and we have many systems that can't be upgraded, however, we want to stay on track for the most important systems.

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

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for engineering simulation activities.

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) benefit our company as we're able to run the simulation software without question.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points. We design our engineering products and need Linux systems to design the products. 

The feature I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it's supported by our vendors that support the applications we run. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is fine; I don't know how it can be improved. I don't think they could enhance one of their features. 

When we go from version seven to eight, and eight's a little slower, or certain things don't work, they should ensure there's 100% improvement or stability; I don't want anything broken.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for one year.

The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are fine; I'd be surprised if it wasn't stable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales to my needs just fine.

The customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are okay; I would rate it a five out of ten. What could make it a ten are improvements in customer service to reach Dell quality. It might be an unfair advantage since Dell is all hardware, and the quality of their support is top-notch for hardware, while Red Hat's all software. It's a whole different situation; support is easier with hardware than it is with software. My only suggestion would be to get support to the right people. 

I don't want to go through two levels of support to get somebody who can solve my problem; I want to talk to somebody who can work with me around the globe. If I call and get someone who's in the UK on his shift when it's ending, give me someone in San Jose to pick up where he left off.

Neutral

I considered other solutions before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We were all open to CentOS, AlmaLinux, and similar options, which is why I've been using the open-source software for 15-20 years.

The deployment process of Red Hat is good. There were no problems.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for me is just its compatibility. We have one source of truth that's generally accepted in the industry for application software.

I don't handle the pricing or setup costs for my company as we've got a big contract.

I chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) due to the fact that when Red Hat bought CentOS, they eliminated the model; otherwise, we would probably still be using CentOS.

Our upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are limited by the applications we run, so I won't upgrade to version ten until the applications say they can run it; that's the number one thing. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us mitigate downtime and lower risk as we have plenty of extra systems. I don't have an application that's a 24/7 application that I can't shut down. 

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in general an eight out of ten.

Our use case involves modernizing applications for our clients. We take the application, extract the main functions and features, and modernize them to have those features in the cloud with a new customer experience. One way to do this is to prepare a new platform or solution in the cloud. Then we get the data from their on-premise services and move this data to the cloud. 

We mainly have customers from the public sector, telecommunications, and fintech, and these customers require many systems to modernize because most of them are 15 or 20 years old, and that's why they need to modernize for a better customer experience and journey.

It's almost a standard for us because all of the infrastructure in the cloud is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We are using OpenShift as an orchestration platform. We work with several orchestration platforms, such as Kubernetes and EKS from AWS. In the case of Red Hat, we are using OpenShift. The main feature of OpenShift for us is the continuous integration, continuous delivery, and security; the granularity of security is important for us. They have a lot of features on top of Kubernetes. 

Red Hat is a good partner for us, and the service and support guides are really valuable for understanding and improving our knowledge in this area.

The main benefit of Red Hat is the huge community. They are delivering better quality by constantly updating and adding features for different products. The stability and quality of their service are very good.

I believe they need to improve in terms of compatibility between services. I know that it's difficult to follow the different versions and maintain compatibility. For example, in OpenShift, they have several internal tools that are not completely compatible with the product, and that's an area they need to work on. Supporting different versions and ensuring compatibility between these versions is necessary for us to continue putting effort into this.

We started on-prem about 15 years ago, and we have been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the cloud for five years.

The quality of their services is high because they have people internally working on improving features every day.

Red Hat is a good partner. I would rate their support an eight out of ten.

Positive

Two of our clients switched to Red Hat because they have support from the organization. The management of their products, in terms of documentation and processes for installation and configuration, is well-documented. It's not like other open-source products in the market that lack the full support of an organization. This is the main reason they pay for licenses or subscriptions; there's an organization behind the products supporting them.

Upgrades or migrations are pretty straightforward and not complex, according to our experience.

We require a small team of between three and five people for upgrades or migrations. For such projects, we mainly have developers and cloud engineers. For the data itself, we also have data engineers.

Pricing is sometimes an issue for our clients because it's not a cheap solution. The different licenses have a high cost, and perhaps they could improve by offering different kinds of discounts or lowering the price to make this solution more appealing compared to other cloud providers.

Moving workloads between centers depends on the knowledge of the data and the frequency of synchronization. It depends on different factors, but normally, it is a matter of knowledge about the data structure and the different mechanisms and techniques for moving this data. It's not only a matter of tools; it's related to understanding how the data is structured and how often it changes.

We don't manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for provisioning and patching because we work with the cloud directly. These services are managed by AWS.

We move workloads between on-prem and the cloud using Red Hat Enterprise Linux. For this, we are using other tools, such as Divisio, which is also supported by Red Hat. We have Apache NiFi and Kafka for messaging delivery and integration between the services.

If you have a multi-cloud strategy, Red Hat is a better fit. However, if you only use one cloud service like Amazon or Google, I'm not sure if Red Hat provides great benefits compared to the cloud provider. Our clients have had only one cloud provider.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

My principal focus in using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) currently is as an integrator in Linux, where I have many services in consulting, deployment, installation, and troubleshooting in Linux. I have a recovery system, deployment clusters, databases, and work in any environment in data centers. At this moment, I am a senior consultant in the data center in open source.

The best features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) depend on the client because the client can decide to use RHEL, not me. The principal thing is the support for the clients because many clients are corporate and have a need for enterprise support. It's the principal focus and is different from using Ubuntu or Debian or any other Linux.

Other good things about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include the focus on system patching, upgrades, and security. The security advisories and authorization are very strong in Red Hat, and that is the principal focus—security.

I manage Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) by provisioning patching, new deployments, automation, and anything else needed.

I am satisfied with the management experience of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and find it satisfactory for this purpose.

I would rate customer service or tech support with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a seven, no more.

I give it a seven because of the time it takes for responding to problems; it takes too long.

For management, it is medium; it is not easy, it is a medium level.

I see a medium ROI with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because it has a high price. OpenShift may provide better ROI, but OpenShift is very high.

The initial setup of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is complex.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate it a five—medium complex.

A very expensive time is needed for deploying clouds with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

It takes a lot of time.

In many cases, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) does not help me save time because the principal problem is that in AWS, Red Hat Linux is not the natural Linux for deployment; the default deployment in Amazon is Amazon Linux, not Red Hat Linux.

In many cases, it does not depend on direct Red Hat support for saving time.

My thoughts on the knowledge base with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that it is good but it does not have it all because I have the medium and plus; it needs more knowledge base.

I have been using this for 20 years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has high scalability; it is high for horizontal scalability in any environment, and there are many solutions for scalability.

I would rate customer service or tech support with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a seven, no more.

I give it a seven because of the time it takes for responding to problems; it takes too long.

The initial setup of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is complex.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate it a five—medium complex.

I see a medium ROI with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because it has a high price. OpenShift may provide better ROI, but OpenShift is very high.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is less expensive than OpenShift, which is very expensive.

I am a reseller and a partner with Red Hat.

I am involved with Red Hat.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for my labs, so I am a reseller, partner, and user. I would rate this review overall as an eight.