Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs Rocky Linux comparison

Red Hat and Rocky Linux are both solutions in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category. Red Hat is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while Rocky Linux is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.4. Red Hat holds a 11.9% mindshare in OSB, compared to Rocky Linux’s 11.7% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Rocky Linux users who would recommend it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Read 262 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) reviews

41,524 Views
15,075 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Rocky Linux

Read 5 Rocky Linux reviews

13,098 Views
12,332 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Rocky Linux

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Rocky Linux compete in the enterprise-level Linux distribution category. RHEL seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive corporate backing, leading features, and robust customer support.

Features:RHEL offers comprehensive support, advanced security tools, and is renowned for its stability and reliability. It is a preferred choice for businesses requiring a secure and consistent operating environment. Rocky Linux provides transparency, ease of migration, and benefits from its community-driven approach, attracting users who value open-source advantages without compromising on functionality.

Room for Improvement:RHEL could improve with more flexible licensing options, which are often considered complex. Additional focus could be placed on simplifying its licensing structure to better accommodate a wider range of businesses. Rocky Linux needs to enhance its enterprise-grade support and expand its documentation offerings. An improved user support infrastructure would increase its appeal to enterprises that require more comprehensive assistance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:RHEL is favored for its structured deployment process and premium customer service, catering to enterprises needing consistent support. It offers a systematic approach that suits environments demanding high levels of reliability. In contrast, Rocky Linux offers a smoother initial deployment with a straightforward setup but relies heavily on community support, which might not be suitable for businesses needing guaranteed assistance.

Pricing and ROI:RHEL involves higher upfront costs due to its licensing and technical support, representing a significant investment yet offering strong ROI through long-term reliability. Rocky Linux delivers notable cost savings by eliminating licensing fees, appealing to budget-conscious businesses while providing satisfactory ROI through operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux

December 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 824,168 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

1st

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

262

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Rocky Linux

Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business

8th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 11.9%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocky Linux is 11.7%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

Featured Reviews

Saravvana Kumar.

Developer at Capgemini

Highly stable, good knowledge base, and reasonable price

Its installation on a RAID or cluster system is something difficult. There are specific teams working on that. The GRUB configuration is also a little different from the other Linux distributions. In terms of additional features, as technology keeps evolving, the product will also have to evolve. For example, Microsoft Windows has come a long way. In Windows 11, there are so many features that are fundamentally the same as the oldest version, but there are other aspects or processes that have improved. macOS has also evolved over time. Similarly, in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux that I used in 2003 and the one that I am using now, some things are the same and some things have changed. Red Hat can continue to engage clients, understand the use cases, and update them.

Read full review

Dominique Locksley

Linux System Administrator at Adapt IT

Very simple to work with, easy to learn, and has a competitive pricing

The UX design, the user front end, and the user GUI are very well done on the GNOME and KDE platform side. It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are. I have worked with a lot of different solutions like Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, and CentOS. Rocky Linux is very easy, and if you switch from one to the other, you can easily detect your tools in the front end. Since it is very similar to the file system breakdown of downloads and documents, it's very easy to show users where things will be.

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

"The security, ongoing support, and ease of taking a system and getting authorization from a government agency have helped the way our organization functions."

"Stability, support, and life cycle management are valuable."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a good file system type and good kernels."

"For us, its security, management, stability, and hardening are most valuable."

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

"It is hardware-independent. We can use Dell, HPE, or any other hardware. It is also more reasonable than the other operating systems."

"RHEL is stable, mature, and relatively easy to handle. I'm pretty confident in it. We haven't had to raise a serious support ticket for any server in I don't know how many years."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux has improved our uptime and security."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) pros

"The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward."

"It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are."

"I haven't needed to use customer service or support, which speaks volumes about their product's reliability and ease of use."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability."

"It helps us keep our workstations in sync and ensures consistent settings across most of our machines."

Cons

"Better comparisons between different stack providers in pricing and functionalities could help, especially since public clouds often appear less expensive during planning but are more costly in practice."

"I would like Insight to include some features from OpenSCAP, which they offer for compliance services. I played with it a little bit, but haven't gotten the updated setup to get that. It creates excellent documentation."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux has affected our HA systems in a negative way. We're working through some of those issues."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux's monitoring could be improved. I would like additional monitoring features, like a greater ability to monitor services and workloads running. Satellite can provide centralized monitoring of subscriptions and deployments. You can build a monitoring console, but there is no native monitoring."

"Data migration issues during upgrades can sometimes arise from the layers above Red Hat Enterprise Linux."

"I want RHEL to stick to the open-source routes. As a company, we experience challenges in managing the budget."

"It is challenging to use the knowledge base and the deployment documentation."

"Sometimes we just don't have a web interface available for repetitive tasks. It would be nice to have a web-based tool for Red Hat Enterprise Linux since we don't always have access to a web browser."

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) cons

"The solution's audio integration for virtual machines could be improved."

"I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required."

"Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort."

"In terms of improvement, Rocky Linux needs to clarify its identity and target audience."

"One of the potential issues is that if you don't pay for support, you may need to manage certain aspects on your own and rely on the community for assistance."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. Everything is. I was happy to get a three-year Red Hat Enterprise Linux contract for our initial rollout."

"Red Hat Linux is inexpensive. Linux solutions are generally inexpensive."

"We have moved to the Simple Content Access (SCA) model. It is much easier to do renewals and see how I am using my licenses. I used to have to do it all by hand. It would take me a good couple of hours every few months to make sure that we were up to snuff on everything. However, with the new model that they have, this is very easy. I just go to cloud.redhat.com to look and see how I am utilizing my licenses. If I am running out of bounds, I can find out why. If it is simply that we have images that need to be removed, we remove those images. If we need to buy more licenses, then we can start the process of purchasing more licenses."

"Red Hat Enterprise Linux licensing is expensive."

"They knew we would buy tons of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so they were a little bit more relaxed. We wanted a thousand licenses, and we could pick those up. We true up. Our license experience has been positive with the exception of having to deal with all of the broken-up accounts, which is as much our fault as anybody's."

"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."

"Switching to Red Hat Enterprise Linux due to subscription costs can be a significant financial step."

"The pricing is fair. The workstation licensing cost is fair. If you're running enterprise-level deployments, depending on what you're using, the volume licensing is good. I personally am worried that if they get so successful, they can increase the price, and then it won't matter because we'll be stuck on them. Hopefully, their open source mentality keeps that from happening. Where it's right now is good."

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

"Compared to the market prices of other tools, the solution has a very competitive pricing."

"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

824,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

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…

Read full review

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

University

11%

Educational Organization

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

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)?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a yearly subscription cost for the licensing that includes maintenance and support.

See all answers

What do you like most about Rocky Linux?

It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rocky Linux?

Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Rocky Linux?

I use the solution in my company to do some automation stuff to run Ansible, and it has an administration server to provide all the Linux control like a client node can be connected to that master ...

See all answers

Comparisons

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 20% of the time

Windows Server vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 17% of the time

Windows 10 vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 10% of the time

Oracle Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 10% of the time

Ubuntu Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Compared 8% of the time

More Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Competitors

Ubuntu Linux vs Rocky Linux

Compared 32% of the time

Oracle Linux vs Rocky Linux

Compared 20% of the time

Fedora Linux vs Rocky Linux

Compared 16% of the time

openSUSE Leap vs Rocky Linux

Compared 7% of the time

SUSE Linux Enterprise vs Rocky Linux

Compared 4% of the time

More Rocky Linux Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

November 2024

Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product report

Buyer's Guide

Operating Systems (OS) for Business

December 2024

Download Rocky Linux product report

Also Known As

Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL

No data available

Learn More

Red Hat

Video not available

Rocky Linux

Overview

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a stable and reliable open-source operating system for running application servers, databases, web servers, and production systems. It is also used for cloud infrastructure services, BI, and disaster assistance. Its valuable features include support and subscription, ease of management and troubleshooting, integration with existing infrastructure, security updates and hardening tools, scalability, and flexibility.

Red Hat has helped organizations accelerate deployment, provide stability, control, and reliable updates, and enable the deployment of current applications and emerging workloads across different environments.

Rocky Linux is a robust and secure enterprise-grade operating system designed as a drop-in replacement for CentOS. Its primary use case is to provide a stable and reliable platform for organizations to run their critical workloads and applications.

The most valuable functionality of Rocky Linux lies in its compatibility with CentOS, ensuring a seamless transition for organizations already using CentOS. It offers long-term support, regular security updates, and a predictable release cycle, providing stability and reliability for mission-critical systems.

Rocky Linux helps organizations by offering a free and open-source alternative to CentOS, which was discontinued by Red Hat. It allows businesses to continue using their existing CentOS-based infrastructure without the need for costly migrations or vendor lock-in. With its strong community support and active development, Rocky Linux ensures a sustainable and community-driven future for CentOS users.

Moreover, Rocky Linux is built with security in mind, providing robust features like SELinux and secure defaults. This helps organizations protect their data and systems from potential threats and vulnerabilities.

Sample Customers

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux

December 2024

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

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

824,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. Rocky Linux report.

See our list of best Operating Systems (OS) for Business vendors.

We monitor all Operating Systems (OS) for Business reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.