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Oracle Solaris Reviews

Vendor: Oracle
4.3 out of 5
730 followers
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What is Oracle Solaris?

Oracle Solaris is a trusted business platform that provides consistent compatibility, is simple to use, is always secure, and is designed to help you run your modern and legacy enterprise applications. The solution is the most recommended enterprise operating system for Oracle Database and Java applications and is engineered for large-scale enterprise deployments.

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Oracle Solaris is the #9 ranked solution in top Operating Systems for Business. PeerSpot users give Oracle Solaris an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. Oracle Solaris is most commonly compared to Ubuntu Linux: Oracle Solaris vs Ubuntu Linux. Oracle Solaris is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 66% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 14% of all views.
Buyer's Guide
Oracle Solaris
March 2025
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Oracle Solaris mindshare

As of March 2025, the mindshare of Oracle Solaris in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category stands at 2.6%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business

PeerAnalyst reports based on Oracle Solaris reviews

TypeTitleDate
CategoryOperating Systems (OS) for BusinessMar 27, 2025Download
ProductReviews, tips, and advice from real usersMar 27, 2025Download
ComparisonOracle Solaris vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)Mar 27, 2025Download
ComparisonOracle Solaris vs Ubuntu LinuxMar 27, 2025Download
ComparisonOracle Solaris vs Oracle LinuxMar 27, 2025Download
Suggested products
TitleRatingMindshareRecommending
Ubuntu Linux4.314.5%95%139 interviewsAdd to research
Oracle Linux4.212.0%92%112 interviewsAdd to research
 
 
Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

Valued for its built-in virtualization, high availability, and powerful Oracle Solaris Zones, Oracle Solaris performs exceptionally on high-end servers. Users appreciate the ZFS file system, incremental backup, and robust security. It offers user-friendliness, stability, and ease of setup. Its performance, particularly with database hosting, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, is highly regarded. The system's seamless upgrades, resource partitioning, and comprehensive built-in features eliminate the need for additional purchases, enhancing flexibility and reliability.
  • "Oracle Solaris has a graphical interface that is user-friendly, especially with its use of dark colors."
  • "We are able to deploy new environments very quickly and securely. Using the virtualization features, we can migrate the environments very flexibly between our servers."
  • "One of the main advantages is the rock-solid reliability. It works. The stability is very good. It has a very good track record in the data security database."

Room for Improvement

Oracle Solaris needs a more user-friendly interface and improved backend management. It should transition from command-line to graphical administration and support various hardware better. Performance and compatibility with other operating systems should be enhanced. The cost is high, documentation is lacking, and monitoring tools and version updates are insufficient. More flexibility, simplified clustering data, and better package management are required. Users experience issues with specific hardware and lack of widespread adoption.
  • "Oracle Solaris needs to improve its compatibility with office tools like Excel."
  • "Patching without downtime would be nice."
  • "One of the drawbacks is Oracle itself. Oracle has its good and bad they are not putting resources into the development."

ROI

Users have indicated that Oracle Solaris significantly improved operational efficiency, reducing downtime and lowering maintenance costs. The enhanced security features contributed to fewer vulnerabilities and data breaches. Additionally, seamless integration with existing systems expedited deployment, leading to faster time-to-value. Many users experienced substantial long-term savings from reduced hardware expenses due to better resource utilization.

Pricing

Oracle Solaris is free to use, with no licensing fees, but support costs apply based on hardware. When used on non-Oracle hardware, support requires a reasonable annual fee of around $1000. Some users find the licensing model difficult, especially with multi-core CPUs, leading to higher costs. While the product is technically robust and widely used, many organizations find it expensive and are moving to more cost-efficient alternatives.
  • "We don't use an authorized license."
  • "As a private user or individual, I wouldn't recommend it to others, considering it is a costly product."
  • "It is an expensive product. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten."

Popular Use Cases

Most users employ Oracle Solaris as an operating system for databases, core banking, and critical applications across various sectors, including finance, telecom, and energy. It supports compute storage, web, and database servers and is favored for its virtualization capabilities. Oracle Solaris is also utilized in external data centers, legacy systems, and for hosting applications on platforms like SPARC and Intel x86.

Service and Support

Oracle support is praised for being responsive, knowledgeable, and effective, though some find it expensive. Patches are released regularly, aiding system updates. Users appreciate the stability of Oracle Solaris, hence making few support calls. Some encountered difficulties in reaching support or found it slow at times. The support team is often rated highly yet could improve in expertise. Many issues are solvable via the knowledge base, reducing the need for direct assistance.

Deployment

Many found Oracle Solaris's initial setup straightforward, easy, and similar to Linux or Unix installations, especially with Oracle's documentation. Some experienced complexity, requiring two or three engineers and taking days to complete. Installation times varied from 30 minutes to two months, depending on experience and support received. For some, Oracle Solaris came pre-installed, simplifying customization. Although easy for experienced users, others struggled with technical aspects. In complex environments, the setup was complex.

Scalability

Oracle Solaris is highly scalable, supporting a wide range of processors and cores. Users report its strength in vertical scaling and its ability to handle large databases and applications. Scalability depends on hardware, with users ranging from small to large deployments in various sectors. Many find it suitable for medium to large businesses due to easy resource adjustments. It supports newer technologies and offers flexible scalability options both on-premise and in virtual environments.

Stability

The stability of Oracle Solaris is highly praised, with users noting its reliability and minimal failure rates. Many highlight that it rarely encounters bugs, crashes, or freezes and remains unaffected by viruses. SPARC hardware contributes to this robustness. Regular updates and patches enhance stability, and users often rate it ten out of ten for this aspect. However, some users mention occasional issues during booting that require rollbacks to previous versions.
These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.
Download our Oracle Solaris Buyer's Guide for additional reliable information.

Review data by company size

By reviewers
By visitors reading reviews

Top industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
University
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Healthcare Company
4%
Retailer
4%
Media Company
3%
Hospitality Company
3%
Energy/Utilities Company
3%
Insurance Company
2%
Real Estate/Law Firm
2%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
2%
Performing Arts
2%
Transportation Company
1%
Non Profit
1%
Construction Company
1%
Legal Firm
1%
Recreational Facilities/Services Company
1%
Logistics Company
1%
Wholesaler/Distributor
1%
Outsourcing Company
1%
Consumer Goods Company
1%
Pharma/Biotech Company
1%

Compare Oracle Solaris with alternative products

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Learn more about Oracle Solaris

Oracle Solaris Features

Oracle Solaris has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

  • Application binary guarantee
  • Unified archives
  • Rich selection of DevOps tools
  • REST-based configuration and monitoring
  • Software security assurance
  • Automated installer
  • Image packaging system and ZFS boot environments
  • Simplified system life-cycle, application life-cycle, and cloud capabilities
  • Constraint packages
  • Fault diagnosis
  • Service management facility

Oracle Solaris Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Oracle Solaris. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

  • Portable and scalable
  • Interoperable and compatible
  • Simple to use
  • Infrastructure designed to scale on large systems without code
  • Supports a wide range of hardware
  • 24 x 7 support from Oracle
  • Portability across different architectures
  • Supports tools optimized for Oracle hardware devices
  • Guarantees binary compatibility for your applications across various Oracle Solaris OS releases
  • Supports programming languages such as Perl, Ruby, and Python
  • Mitigates risk and easily proves compliance
  • Reduces costs
  • Helps reduce planned and unplanned downtime

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Oracle Solaris solution.

A CEO at a computer software company says, “The most valuable feature is virtualization. They have attained virtualization and it's quite simple to create the Oracle Solaris zones. The solution is quite powerful. Oracle Solaris is great due to the fact that it actually is meant for high-end servers. The high availability is great. You can clone and you can do quite a number of things with them. There's also the ZFS File system which is very good. Is one of the best file systems that there is.”

Diego A., Oracle ACE - Specialized in Systems Technologies at Telecom Argentina, mentions, “The most valuable features for me are virtualization (Containers, Zones, Security, PDOM's, LDOM's) and Performance, ZFS, Debugging with Dtrace.”

A Service Manager at a tech services company expresses that the solution is “Stable, scalable, and has easy installation.”

PeerSpot user Marcel H., Oracle ACE Director "Solaris," CEO, Enterprise Consultant at JomaSoft, explains, “Solaris includes two virtualization solutions: LDoms for SPARC and Solaris Zones. Both solutions can be combined to create private clouds. Solaris Zones is ideal to separate applications and to migrate from older to current hardware. LDoms is very efficient because it uses the hardware hypervisor of the SPARC servers. Both technologies increase Security, because they separate the applications from each other. Using the Security Compliance Framework we are sure the systems are set up properly.”

Shafiq K., Senior Manager IT Operations at a financial services firm, states, “The reliability of the solution is excellent. The security has been very good overall. We've found the solution to have good availability. The backup capabilities are quite good. The solution has proven to be quite stable so far. The product can scale. The solution is 100% free to use. It doesn't cost a company anything as it's embedded in the hardware.”

Oracle Solaris was previously known as Solaris 11, Solaris.

Oracle Solaris customers

Siemens, IVV

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Oracle Solaris reviews

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PeerSpot user
System Architect at a consumer goods company with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Sep 2, 2016
Product version discussed: 10 and 11
Oracle Solaris 11 is highly scalable and fault-tolerant.

What is most valuable?

In Solaris 11, Network Virtualization, LDOMs, Zones, ZFS, and Live Upgrade are the most valuable features to me. In Solaris 10, the most valuable features are the Live Upgrade, ZFS, Zones, and SVC Feature.

How has it helped my organization?

It helps a lot in data center consolidation, P2V, and with LDOM live migration. It reduces required overall downtime, and is highly scalable, especially with T5 architecture.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (358 words)
DA
Oracle ACE - Specialized in Systems Technologies at Telecom Argentina
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Dec 17, 2020
Product version discussed: - all of them
I've worked with different flavors of Unix, but I chose Solaris. I like the constant innovation in the software and hardware.

What is our primary use case?

I work with Solaris Operating systems since a lot of years, every day, as technical support specialist 

How has it helped my organization?

I've worked with different flavors of Unix, but I chose Solaris. I like the constant innovation in the software and hardware.

I've worked with servers E10k, E25k, T7-2, T5, M5, M5-32 and some other older servers. All of them have excellent performance in virtualization, zones, and LDOMs.

Solaris lets you isolate zones and migrate them to other servers. You can also move old releases of OS's from obsolete hardware to containers installed in new hardware.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (858 words)
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Zandile Mushi - PeerSpot user
Network Administrator at Mzansi Security and Fire
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Mar 15, 2024
Offers good security features and reliability

Pros

"The product's initial setup phase was easy."

Cons

"The tool is quite complex and difficult for anyone trying to use or study it."

What is our primary use case?

In my company, Oracle Solaris is linked to our CRM, which serves as a database of information. For security companies, we have monthly subscriptions to check their credit scores and everything, and the tool is also linked with the Home Affairs department for verification since it is a database that pulls up the details of the users or whoever is trying to join the company.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of the solution are its security features and user-friendliness. It can be hard to use but is a reliable and understandable tool.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (627 words)
DF
Infrastructure as a Service Manager
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Aug 5, 2019
Product version discussed: 2.5.1-11.4
Improve flexibility, automate DR process, and speed up recovery time using Zones

Pros

"The ability to manipulate the zones and the files within the zones from a global OS provides us flexibility that no other virtualization can match."

Cons

"Oracle customer service is slow at times."

What is our primary use case?

I have worked for multiple large enterprise environments and one small environment.

I have touched every Solaris OS from 2.5.1 to Solaris 11.4. In my time, I have maintained Sparc 10 workstations and M8 servers, as well as everything in between.

Businesses I have worked for include Manufacturing (large SAP and Oracle DB shops), Outsourcing, Military, and Logistics companies.

I have extensive knowledge of how the OS performs and its capabilities.  

How has it helped my organization?

We were able to use zones to reduce the hardware footprint by seventy percent in my time at one company. Using zones, we're also able to automate our entire DR process, taking it from a twelve-hour Recovery time (with three people) to a forty-minute Recovery Time (with one person).

The ability to manipulate the zones and the files within the zones from a global OS provides us flexibility that no other virtualization can match.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (643 words)
PeerSpot user
CEO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Sep 29, 2020
Powerful with high availability and very stable

Pros

"Oracle Solaris is great due to the fact that it actually is meant for high-end servers. "

Cons

"Currently, there are two variants, there's SPARC and there's x86. I would have wanted a scenario where they're all just one product."

What is our primary use case?

Clients mainly use the solution as a database operating system in many environments. Most who are using it are financial institutions, telecoms, or companies in the energy sector. 

What is most valuable?

Of late the most valuable feature is virtualization. They have attained virtualization and it's quite simple to create the Oracle Solaris zones.

The solution is quite powerful.

Oracle Solaris is great due to the fact that it actually is meant for high-end servers. 

The high availability is great. You can clone and you can do quite a number of things with them. There's also the ZFS File system which is very good. Is one of the best file systems that there is.

*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
Read full review (1001 words)
Abdul-Salam - PeerSpot user
Sr. Manager - System Analyst (Datacenter Infrastructure) at Sohar International
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Feb 5, 2023
Flexible with helpful support and great virtualization

Pros

"We like that the virtualization is built in, so you don't have to spend extra money on buying licenses for a hypervisor. "

Cons

"If it could support other file systems, it would be better."

What is our primary use case?

We are running Oracle Solaris on Sparkbox.

Oracle Solaris can run on Spark. You run Oracle Solaris as the operating system, and you can run Oracle Solaris on Intel x86, also. 

We are using it for our core applications.

What is most valuable?

We like that the virtualization is built in, so you don't have to spend extra money on buying licenses for a hypervisor. When you buy the box, you are getting everything, including the Virtualization.

It is one of the most flexible predictive systems.

The setup is easy.

It is stable and reliable. 

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (330 words)
PeerSpot user
Manager - Systems Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Aug 22, 2016
Product version discussed: 11
The most valuable features to me are ZFS, Automated Installer, and Kernel Zones.

What is most valuable?

In, Oracle Solaris 11, the most valuable features to me are ZFS, Automated Installer, and Kernel Zones. In Solaris 10, they are ZFS, SMF, Live Upgrade, Zones, and JumpStart.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvements in user adaptability, the poor UI, and in the packaging of the applications. Solaris should look like Linux and the end user should not be afraid of using it. It's way different than linux.

It should have POSIX compatibility with Linux.

*Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Read full review (372 words)
PeerSpot user
Senior Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Verified user of Oracle Solaris
Nov 20, 2023
Exceptional stability, scalability, and efficiency, offering a robust operating system and reliable support

Pros

"Solaris Zones and Containers are my favorite features."

Cons

"The primary drawback with this product is the lack of version updates."

What is our primary use case?

I manage a wide range of systems, from low-end to high-end, including Super Clusters, totaling around 250 physical and virtual systems.

What is most valuable?

Solaris Zones and Containers are my favorite features.

*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Read full review (416 words)