Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

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.

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are everything from research computing to hosting websites. We've run a gamut of different things with RHEL. 

I used to use it a lot for a healthcare company and healthcare software. Now predominantly, it's research that is very statistically intensive. So anything where we have to do data computations, data rates, we need to synthesize data, aggregating it from instruments all over the world or within the lab itself. We take all of that, and we also use it to produce applications for people, whether it's just interacting with it via a website or an actual homegrown application where they can go through, search, look at the data, and do their own data manipulation.

My favorite feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the ease of use; it is streamlined, making it very intuitive to do things. 

The ease of use of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reduces time for my company. It reduces the time to do things, allowing us to do very complex tasks in a very short period, since it is very straightforward and makes it easier to get things done. 

It has been around for so long, and it's such a standardized platform that the knowledge base from the employee perspective is usually pretty high compared to other enterprise Linux distributions. Therefore, the overall time savings with RHEL is huge.

Our upgrade or migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve adhering to a rule: once a version reaches end-of-life, we do not enter the extended life cycle. We plan that out ahead, ensuring that all of our systems get migrated and updated about a year before the end of life of any version. Some systems get migrated to the latest version while others remain and just get updated to whatever is current. It depends on the application and its external dependencies, but it's just a solid plan we follow.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us mitigate downtime and lower risks, as we've utilized virtual machines and process load balancing to minimize issues. While we've had downtime with any systems, there tends to be a lot less with RHEL. We have had some systems running just for fun for three years without any downtime, which reflects their stability. I would say that RHEL has reduced risks by at least 80% compared to open-source distributions based on experiences in recent years.

To improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the biggest thing is the availability of some tools that unfortunately have to be paid for. While I understand that you have to pay for resources, it would be nice to have a centralized location where you can easily find those tools.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for close to 20 years.

Regarding the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have systems that we've kept running for years without any downtime, so I have never had a problem with stability or reliability.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has scaled right along with our growing company needs; the only exceptions to that are with supercomputers, but that's a whole different animal.

My experience with customer service and support from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good so far. I haven't needed to use it often, which goes back to its reliability. Whenever I've had issues reaching out, they've responded quickly with appropriate information.

We have looked at other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), such as Debian, Ubuntu (a Debian spinoff), FreeBSD, and some others, however, we keep going back to RHEL due to its reliability and available resources.

The deployment experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been very easy; we've been doing it for years. The automation that they've built over the years to do the deployments just makes it easier and easier every year, transitioning from kickstarts to using things OpenShift. I'm excited to see how this Image Builder works with that, too, so it has continuously improved.

The biggest return on investment for me from using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is just overall time saved. 

We have looked at other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), such as Debian, Ubuntu (a Debian spinoff), FreeBSD, and some others. We keep going back to RHEL due to its reliability and available resources.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall at least a solid ten 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.

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at the enterprise level to host various applications. RHEL is our enterprise strategy for the Linux operating system, and it helps us host most of our mission-critical applications.

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate the most is the security features. The security features of RHEL protect our environment. By having strong security hygiene with RHEL, we are able to provide business value back to our stakeholders.

I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) migrations and upgrades. I would describe the experience of RHEL migrations as challenging since it's not an easy task to migrate thousands of machines in one major release window. RHEL has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risks, as we keep RHEL current with patching.

The image model that is currently being deployed with RHEL 10 is going to be a way of improving RHEL. I'm using CICD pipelines to manage the OS, just as we do applications. We don't have specific metrics on how much less risk has been lowered or how much downtime has been mitigated, howrever, we do keep our systems patched within 30 days of CVE being released, so our risk exposure is quite low.

To make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten, addressing the enterprise management tools, such as SELinux policy management and firewalls, would bring it much more in line, especially regarding security features and overall operations management.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for approximately 14 years.

The stability and reliability of the platform are excellent.

We have scaled both in the data center as well as in the edge with over 15,000 devices.

We have a very good relationship with Red Hat for support and customer service. We have a TAM service, so from a support perspective, our cases are handled very efficiently.

Positive

I considered other solutions while choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and we have a combination of RHEL and open-source free versions of RHEL. The biggest difference between RHEL and those open-source versions is support; at the end of the day, it's the partnership for support from Red Hat versus the binaries where it's self-managed and self-maintained.

Currently, we deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on-premises and we use open-source technologies to provision and deploy both bare metal and virtual.

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the whole ecosystem and partnership with Red Hat.

We have enterprise contracts with Red Hat, and regarding pricing, we have a good deal. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) an eight.