Kali Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comparison

Kali Linux and Red Hat are both solutions in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category. Kali Linux is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.8, while Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8. Kali Linux holds a 2.2% mindshare in OSB, compared to Red Hat’s 9.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Kali Linux users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Red Hat users who would recommend it.

Kali Linux

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1,123 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Read 275 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reviews

30,328 Views
12,262 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Kali Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 7, 2024

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Kali Linux compete in the Linux distribution market. Users are happier with RHEL's support but believe Kali Linux offers better features, making it more valuable for specific use cases such as cybersecurity.

Features: RHEL is known for stability, security, and enterprise-level support. Kali Linux is valued for specialized tools, cybersecurity functionalities, and versatility. RHEL is preferred for enterprises, while Kali Linux is ideal for penetration testing.

Room for Improvement: RHEL could improve in cost and complexity of updates. Kali Linux users suggest enhancements in documentation and user-friendliness. The primary concern for RHEL is cost, and for Kali Linux, it is usability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: RHEL is noted for extensive support and reliable deployment. Kali Linux, while efficient in deployment, offers less structured customer service. RHEL is easier to deploy in large-scale environments due to robust support.

Pricing and ROI: RHEL has higher setup costs but provides high ROI due to stability and support. Kali Linux has lower upfront costs, delivering good value for money but a lower ROI compared to RHEL. Red Hat generates better long-term returns despite higher initial expenses.

To learn more, read our detailed Kali Linux vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Kali Linux vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

April 2025

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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

Kali Linux

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

11th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

AWS Marketplace (3rd)

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 May 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Kali Linux is 2.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 9.6%, down from 12.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

Featured Reviews

GurpreetSingh4

Manager at Accenture company

Has small footprint and low maintenance cycles

Pre-installed tools can provide basic training and security measures, which is helpful. However, these tools may not be sufficient to secure your workload fully. That's why it's important to complement them with other specialized security tools to enhance your overall security. Before using Kali Linux, make sure you know its pros and cons. It's a good system to learn because it's the best choice for some situations. It has default firewall settings that block everything by default. It's up to the user to decide how much they want to open up. Learning Kali Linux takes time because it relies on command-line tasks instead of graphical interfaces. Practice is key to becoming comfortable with it.

Read full review

Bruce Lundberg

Linux HPC Systems Administrator at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kali Linux is much better than other OS because it gives you a good set of tools. It is preferred for vulnerability assessments and cybersecurity."

"I'm mostly using for the web security web application, so end map and the troubleshoot will it's my price, and it's available in ColliNX."

"In general, Kali Linux is used for hosting applications, developing new applications, and operating systems. It's also used in containers and nodes. The tool offers a smaller footprint than Windows because it lacks the functionality of graphical user interfaces. One advantage of Kali Linux is its lower maintenance requirements than Windows, with slower update cycles and easier maintenance procedures."

"The tools available in Kali Linux are incredibly effective for conducting security assessments."

"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is very easy to use."

"The most effective features of Kali Linux include its stability as a Linux operating system, its flexibility in configuring resources such as partitions, its powerful and stable file system, and its multi-user capability, which allows for setting user privileges and rights. Additionally, Kali Linux provides access to a wide range of free and open-source applications for testing and development purposes."

"The interface is good and straightforward to use."

"We use the product for open-source intelligence and identifying vulnerabilities."

More Kali Linux pros

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides a stable operating system, and OpenShift enhances efficiency with a built-in Ingress controller, unlike some managed Kubernetes services."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux's most valuable feature is its seamless integration with Kubernetes, a powerful platform for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications."

"When it comes to security, scalability, and robustness, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) excels in all aspects. That's why we rely on this operating system."

"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."

"The most valuable features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux are the mobile applications and getting real-time notifications."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 updates the Cipher Suites and the security proceeds it. I wasn't pleasantly surprised because a bunch of our server communication didn't work. Having the Cipher Suites updated is a good thing but was not convenient."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a reliable operating system that can run for long periods of time without any issues."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is lightweight and can be run on almost anything."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pros

Cons

"The tool is slightly difficult to learn."

"From an improvement perspective, Kali Linux could include more ML to help with academic literature, as it is one of the areas where there are shortcomings in the solution."

"Any new user or someone without deep expertise won't be able to understand how to scale or manage it"

"I would like for them to offer more features for the free version in order for users to test them in their internal environment before purchasing."

"The installation process of Kali Linux can be slow, particularly when installing and upgrading packages within virtualized environments."

"The tool is already stable and well-developed, so there's minimal feedback for enhancement or change. However, it should improve security, which is crucial, especially with the increasing use of Kali Linux in cloud environments."

"The product should improve its security features."

"Unfortunately, my current tool runs on Windows 10, and its use is restricted to enterprise versions. Integrating this tool or similar functionalities into Kali Linux for non-enterprise users would be incredibly valuable."

More Kali Linux cons

"It is mostly better than other solutions. However, it is sometimes difficult for disaster recovery, so we have to plan accordingly."

"The solution should provide demos so that users can learn to use it and improve their environments."

"There are performance issues with the response time when accessing the console, but I'm unsure if that's RHEL's fault or if it's due to the lack of CPU or memory on our machines. The enterprise interface could be improved. I can only use the keyboard to transfer files from one system to another. I want to use my mouse on the interface, not just scroll up and down. I would also like my logs archived as an RAR and sent to me."

"Large application vendors may not have certified RHEL, or they have certified an older version. Most of the large application vendors are unfamiliar with the versioning that RHEL introduced, which I strongly support. They will support a given sub-version up to a point, not realizing that the sub-versions are essentially additive."

"When there is downtime from a system admin perspective, this solution could improve how they communicate why this down time is happening."

"The only issue we have had with it is around the SELinux configuration because the way Ansible installs, it sticks the platform passwords in a flat file. We want that locked down more strongly than what is there currently with SELinux."

"I would like to see improvements made to the subscriptions and management of them."

"I use Linux on Satellite with Ansible infrastructure. It would be great if there were a universal interface to control RHEL's policy from Satellite. It could be a dashboard showing which policies were enabled on what system and allow you to apply them from the dashboard."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."

"There is no need to make any payments towards the licensing costs since it is a solution that is available for free."

"I have used the free version."

"Kali Linux is a free product, and you don't have to pay for a license."

"The price is good because Kali Linux already provides a good bundle of tools."

"Kali Linux offers a perpetual license, meaning you pay for it once and can use it. While free versions of Linux are available, Kali Linux, being an enterprise edition, usually comes with a perpetual license. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."

"I use it free of charge."

"The licensing fee is expensive compared to other products."

More Kali Linux pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is a bit on the expensive side, mainly because of the support they provide. However, it is quite affordable if you are an organization. If, as a small company or individual, this is an expensive option, I would recommend CentOS, which is an exact replica of RHEL, minus the customer support."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is quite expensive, particularly its technical support, which can cost $500 per hour."

"It is pretty expensive, but it is worth it. Generally, in an enterprise environment, there is no cheap solution. This is coming from someone who is working with a company that provides a lot of solutions a bit cheaper than the industry standard. In the enterprise environment, I believe no solution is inexpensive, but RHEL is still pretty expensive. Additional costs that I am aware of are usually for support and setup."

"When you are running your infrastructure on this, you can always find some discounts with local support, etc. There are always some discounts to match your budget. It is definitely affordable."

"We are coming from CentOS, so technically, our total cost of ownership has gone up, but it is still cheaper than Windows for a database server and things like that."

"We still have a few with one-to-one standard server licensing, but we are utilizing the virtualization host licensing. We license it based on the host, not based on VMs, which is cool. I was very happy that there was certain licensing with SAP to have access to SAP repos. Its cost was the same as the regular one, so I was happy about that."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is expensive, particularly for governments operating with limited budgets."

"We have a site license on a yearly basis. Generally, we're okay with its price, but everything could be cheaper."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user281973

Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

16%

Computer Software Company

14%

University

13%

Educational Organization

11%

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Kali Linux?

I use the tool with Nmap to perform network audits. We use it to find vulnerabilities in our network through attacks. It's for those who want to launch or create viruses or perform attacks on syste...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kali Linux?

Kali Linux offers a perpetual license, meaning you pay for it once and can use it. While free versions of Linux are available, Kali Linux, being an enterprise edition, usually comes with a perpetua...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Kali Linux?

The tool is already stable and well-developed, so there's minimal feedback for enhancement or change. However, it should improve security, which is crucial, especially with the increasing use of Ka...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Windows 10 vs Kali Linux

Compared 18% of the time

Windows 11 vs Kali Linux

Compared 15% of the time

CentOS vs Kali Linux

Compared 12% of the time

Rocky Linux vs Kali Linux

Compared 11% of the time

Security Onion vs Kali Linux

Compared 10% of the time

More Kali Linux Competitors

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 23% of the time

Windows Server vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 15% of the time

Rocky Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 14% of the time

Oracle Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 9% of the time

Oracle Solaris vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 4% of the time

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Kali Linux

April 2025

Download Kali Linux product report

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

April 2025

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product report

Also Known As

No data available

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL

Overview

Kali Linux is widely used by organizations for penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, web application security, network audits, ethical hacking, and open-source intelligence, providing extensive free features.

Organizations run Kali Linux in virtualized environments alongside other operating systems, employing tools for automated scans, malware identification, infrastructure testing, and application development or hosting. These users benefit from lower maintenance requirements and a smaller footprint. The toolset includes Nmap, SQLMap, Metasploit, and Hydra, ensuring effective security assessments. Its high scalability, performance, user-friendly interface, and extensive documentation enhance the platform's usability. Known for stability, flexibility, and virus resistance, Kali Linux supports web security, troubleshooting, and configuration tasks comprehensively.

What are the most important features of Kali Linux?

Nmap: A network scanning tool for discovering hosts and services.
SQLMap: An SQL injection and database takeover tool.
Metasploit: A penetration testing platform with various exploit tools.
Hydra: A network log-in cracker supporting numerous protocols.
Documentation: Offers extensive resources for user guidance.
Stability: Provides a reliable and consistent operating environment.
Scalability: Adapts efficiently to growing security needs.
Performance: Ensures fast and efficient operations.
Virus Resistance: Enhances security through robust virus protection.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Free tools reduce operational expenses.
Operational Efficiency: Lower maintenance needs and quick setup.
Enhanced Security: Robust tools for comprehensive security measures.
Flexibility: Adaptable to different environments and requirements.

Kali Linux can support industries in improving security through stable and flexible environments that resist viruses and provide extensive documentation. Users employ it for web security, troubleshooting, and configuring capabilities. Necessary improvements include automation, user-friendliness, and integrating AI and blockchain. Enhancements in security features, faster installations, and better learning tools are also essential. Machine learning integration and non-enterprise user functionalities can address current limitations.

Kali Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is recognized for its stability, security, and performance, serving diverse industries with its robust support and seamless cloud deployment capabilities.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux provides comprehensive server applications across cloud environments, featuring tools like Ansible for enhanced user experience. It integrates OpenShift, Identity Management, and automation, supported by extensive documentation. Users seek easier upgrades, enhanced network virtualization support, and improved live patching.

What are the key features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Stability and Security: RHEL is designed to provide a stable and secure environment, backed by consistent updates.
Cloud Deployment: Easily deployable across cloud platforms, enhancing flexibility.
Integration with Ansible: Enhances operational efficiency with powerful automation tools.
OpenShift and Containerization: Supports modern app development with integrated OpenShift features.
Extensive Documentation: Offers comprehensive resources for users to troubleshoot and optimize.

What are the benefits of using Red Hat Enterprise Linux?

Reliable Support: Benefit from extensive support options for seamless operation.
Enhanced Security: Built-in features ensure data integrity and protection.
Increased Flexibility: Suitable for diverse deployment environments, including on-premises and cloud.
Operational Efficiency: Tools like automation and cloud navigation improve productivity.
Training and Resources: Access to comprehensive training contributes to smoother implementations.

In sectors like finance, telecommunications, and education, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is crucial for running stable, secure systems. Its application spans web servers, data management, and containerization through tools like Kubernetes. Organizations adopt it for on-premises, virtualized, and cloud environments, ensuring robust infrastructure management.

Red Hat

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

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

Buyer's Guide

Kali Linux vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

April 2025

Free Report: Kali Linux vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Find out what your peers are saying about Kali Linux vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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