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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 21, 2025

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
31st
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
7.1
Number of Reviews
366
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Flatcar Container Linux is 0.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 8.3%, down from 11.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)8.3%
Flatcar Container Linux0.7%
Other91.0%
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."
"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."
"Automation is the most valuable feature. I don't like having to solve a problem more than once. If I can just whip up some code to take care of deploying something, responding to something, etc., then that is what I prefer. It is a lot easier out-of-the-box to do than it is with Windows. With Windows, there is always the process of bootstrapping into being able to have the automation framework available, then making the automation framework work."
"Insights is nice since I get information on my background and security matters, and it's been helpful to have it there as well."
"We have a very good relationship with Red Hat for support and customer service."
"Aside from security, the advantage of Red Hat as compared to the other distributions is the availability of support and patching. When you have an enterprise subscription with Red Hat, you get support and patching."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable features are the Podman and a lot of packages that come inbuilt as part of the regular package."
"One of Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s valuable features is its enterprise-level security. We are guaranteed that it's secure, and that's important for us because we need to comply with security regulations. Security always remains a top priority."
"I like open source and prefer it over some closed proprietary software. In my early days, I was involved in the open-source community of the Red Hat Directory Server, communicating with developers to ensure password policies were implemented and asking questions. It showed me the power of open source."
 

Cons

"The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net."
"The main improvement could be in the pricing models, particularly understanding how to better present those pricing models in a more predictable manner."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) did not help much with our uptime or security."
"I am still trying to figure out the features it has. There is so much that it can do."
"The cost of this solution could be improved."
"Some of the solution's features need to be automated. We encounter the hassle of registering the system and attaching a subscription."
"From a cloud perspective, I'm looking for more integrations with native cloud services. For example, the ability to use native Azure Key Vault instead of Ansible Key Vault or Red Hat Key Vault."
"Live patching should be improved."
"I recommend that they improve their virtualization product, specifically the management console."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution's price is reasonable."
"If you don't buy the Red Hat subscription, you don't get technical support, and you don't have all the updates. To have everything working like a charm, the cost that you pay for it is worth it. In Bolivia, we don't have the best internet connection. Therefore, we have a local service with all the packages, repositories, etc. We manage them locally, and because we have a subscription, we can update them. So, we have local repositories with all the packages and other things to make it easy for us to update all the servers. Without the Red Hat subscription, we cannot update anything."
"Lowering the cost of enterprise-level offerings could attract organizations seeking operating systems or Kubernetes solutions, as these tools are essential for many businesses in the region."
"For the basic operating system, its price is fair. It is not cheap, and it is also not expensive. For the OpenShift or OpenStack implementation, the cost is a little higher than what I would expect, but it is doable. For a storage solution, it is almost impossible to pay. In comparison to open-source competitors, RHEL has the most cost-effective open-source subscription model."
"We get our licenses directly through Red Hat."
"I have limited information regarding Red Hat Enterprise Linux pricing and licensing, but our managers appear satisfied."
"We charge €2,000 per system for three years."
"The price is reasonable."
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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
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Retailer
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business83
Midsize Enterprise47
Large Enterprise249
 

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)?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing is that I strongly believe Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) offers a good relationship between value and price, and despite it being quite pric...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for AWS
 

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, Rocky Linux and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: November 2025.
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