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Flatcar Container Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Flatcar Container Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
275
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Flatcar Container Linux is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.9%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

YD
The solution is stable and allows us to make needed changes
The development teams could sharpen their skills.  They should offer applications on the net I have eight years of experience with Flatcar Container Linux. The version of Flatcar Container Linux that I am using is stable. The scalability of this product is fine. It allows us to make the needed…
Bruce Lundberg - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable patch management, high uptime, and incredible knowledge base
In terms of security, it does a lot of things that most people still turn off. SELinux is turned on by default. They have pretty good firewall rules in their defaults. The audit rules always take tweaking, but, overall, it comes out of the box not too bad. I used to write scripts to harden them from there. There are multiple ways to provision and patch. You have everything from local repositories to doing it by hand. Their knowledge base is incredible. There is so much information out there. It has never taken me longer than 30 minutes to find an answer to anything, even very tough ones. One company I worked for was a security company, and we did a lot of patching on everything. It was designed around security and email hosting, and uptime was pretty much whatever we wanted it to be. I have had a couple of times when the uptime was bad, but it was caused by a third-party solution. In fact, the Norton antivirus was definitely the worst. Red Hat had nothing to do with it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Flatcar's support is good. The version I am using is stable and allows us to make needed changes."
"Management is portable and easily automated so deploying or installing packages and running updates is seamless."
"I prefer it to Windows because of the level of configuration, level of control, and the ability to see the performance of processes on a given system. I prefer the control over logging and the ability that logging gives you to investigate a problem."
"Red Hat support is pretty good. They're online, so you can look up things once you have support. Their AB integration has improved. It's easy to manage storage for moving, syncing LBM, etc."
"This is a very robust product that doesn't require a lot of handling. It just works."
"We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Git apps in our closed environment to develop and run scenarios."
"One of the most beneficial aspects of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is its performance, combined with the flexibility to install a wide range of available packages online."
"Technical support is pretty good. It's one of the main reasons we chose Red Hat over competitors."
"The simplicity of patching Red Hat Enterprise Linux is most valuable."
 

Cons

"The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net."
"The high cost of Red Hat Enterprise Linux has room for improvement."
"RHEL could make some back-end improvements. On the front end, RHEL could make the interface more colorful and improve the user experience. A better-looking interface would attract more customers."
"When there is downtime from a system admin perspective, this solution could improve how they communicate why this down time is happening."
"I would like Red Hat to focus on continuous improvement."
"There can be a faster resolution. When we have production issues, they take around 30 to 60 minutes to come up with a solution. It would be quite helpful if their response is faster. They are also not reachable over the phone, so we need to wait for their callback for the ticket."
"In terms of improvement, Red Hat could consider offering cheaper licensing."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux has ongoing potential for improved integration with hosting solutions and VPNs as the demand for these technologies grows."
"For phone support, we had to buy a license for all our servers, and it was a bit pricey for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We purchased it directly from Red Hat. Compared to open source, it's very pricey, but you get the support, which makes it much better."
"The cost of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is reasonable."
"The price point for that is phenomenal because you are paying for support. From a pricing perspective, it is on point. It is definitely a value-add, and it is extremely transparent from a customer standpoint."
"We have a site license on a yearly basis. Generally, we're okay with its price, but everything could be cheaper."
"The tool is getting expensive."
"We like the model that Red Hat makes available for subscription and support. There are some free parts, subscriptions that facilitate solution development and implementation, and then, when the solution is well-defined, we move into the paid support license."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The solution can get pretty pricey depending on how many machines we're licensing but for a good reason."
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 24, 2017
It's improved our company's system environments that run Oracle databases.
Red Hat is mission critical to our environment Red Hat has improved the mission critical environments running Oracle databases, while CentOS has improved our web environment and MySQL. Oracle and SAP Environment and all HPC environments. 10 years No issues Very stable i don´t find any problem…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which would you choose - RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or CentOS?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is fantastic. It is an inexpensive solution that has excellent security, performance, and stability, and also lots of features. I specifically like that the solution has fe...
What do you like most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
Though a bit expensive compared to competitors, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is still recommended because it works effectively and delivers value for its pricing.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

CISCO, mettle, Microsoft, Upguard, GMX
Travel Channel, Mohawk Industries, Hilti, Molecular Health, Exolgan, Hotelplan Group, Emory University, BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, HCA Healthcare, Paychex, UPS, Intermountain Healthcare, Brinker International, TransUnion, Union Bank, CA Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Oracle and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.