Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Reviews

We host Red Hat Enterprise Linux on our VMware Cloud and manage our customers' machines.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux machines are more stable than Windows machines.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps to avoid cloud vendor lock-in.

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

Red Hat Enterprise Linux should modernize its UI to make navigating the screens easier.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for around four years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is stable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux can be easily scaled on a virtual machine.

The technical support is good.

Positive

I was not involved in the initial deployment but it was straightforward. The deployment took around 15 minutes per machine.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux nine out of ten.

I recommend using Red Hat Enterprise Linux over an open-source OS because it offers better support.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux requires minimal maintenance.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a reliable solution and I recommend it to others.

It is for binding servers. It is for web servers, such as Apache and NGINX, and KVM virtualization.

We have servers running all time. We have not had any issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. We have had issues with Microsoft products over time. Because of the updates, we had downtime, but that is not the case with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

It has been very productive for our organization. We have an online client buying or purchasing products from our website, which is available 24 hours.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good when it comes to building with confidence and ensuring availability across the infrastructure. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of stability and reliability. In the case of our web server, I have had availability issues with Microsoft, whereas, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we have not had many such issues. There has been only 1% downtime, whereas, with Microsoft, we have had a lot more downtime.

We have support. If we have any issues with the distro, we can call their support team. We have reliable packages from Red Hat.

Network management can be easier. It is getting more complex. They can also give more customization for the CLI.

I have been working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for six years.

It is very stable. We have three websites running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

It works fine. We have had servers running for ten years. We have been just updating them, and we have not had any issues or downtime.

It is scalable. We can upgrade it, and the upgrades do not impact the product.

We have a team of five people who are using this solution.

We have premium support. It is excellent. We have not interacted a lot with their support. We have almost five engineers working in the team, so we did not have to contact them a lot. We did have any major issues with the hardware or software. 

Neutral

I also use CentOS for educational purposes. Support and regular updates are advantages of Red Hat Enterprise Linux over others. 

For directory servers, we always use Microsoft because it is easy to manage and easy to control. Implementing and managing domain controllers on Microsoft is easy, and we can apply policies by groups (GPO).

Its deployment is very easy. It does not take long. Its maintenance is also easy. We can expand the storage for the operating system or the web server.

To those looking into implementing Red Hat Enterprise Linux, I would advise making use of Red Hat's community. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has had some impact in terms of security, but we have other security measures and procedures. We have not used SELinux and other embedded security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

We've implemented OpenShift on top of OpenStack. It's a Red Hat OpenStack environment, which is the virtualization layer, and then OpenShift is for the cloud technologies.

It's currently on-prem on a private cloud. In the future, we might utilize a public cloud if the government approves that. Currently, the banking industry isn't allowed to go to the public cloud.

There is a big move towards digital banking. They prefer to have their solution up and running as soon as possible when the request comes in. They have to have the libraries and all the containers up and running. In a couple of minutes or seconds, they have their whole infrastructure up and running.

With regard to security, most companies are moving towards the black box approach and Red Hat. It's much more secure compared to the other vendors.

There's consistency, and it's resilient as well.

With regards to OpenShift, everything is related to cost. If you need a vanilla OS, you have to spend a lot on the licensing that is tagged. You have to spend on the infrastructure and the licensing on a core basis, and whatever is required on your containers, you just have to give minimum hardware specs.

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization isn't up to the mark as compared to VMware and Hyper-V, but they're moving everything on OpenShift for containers and virtual machines, which is stable. If you go into the virtualization layer, they still need to improve a lot of things, but with regards to OpenShift, containers, Docker, and other things, they are doing well. 

We've been using it for three to four years.

Compared to Windows and other operating systems that I've used, it's stable. 

I'd rate it a nine out of ten in terms of scalability. We have plans to increase its usage in the future. Our infrastructure will be able to scale. We have a plan to grow it every three years.

Their support is very good. Most of the things are already listed in their knowledge base. Support cases are only raised when you end up with any critical situation. I'd rate their support a nine out of ten.

Positive

We've used Windows, Solaris, and AIX. The reason for switching to it was that everything is moving to the black box. People want everything to be secured. We got a lot of updates on Red Hat, and it was doing very well in the market.

It was very straightforward. When we did the proof of concept, we had everything ready within two or three days, and then the engineers who came to deploy it did it in a day's time once we had all the infrastructure up and running. This was just for the proof of concept.

With regard to the implementation, they had a timeline, and they did deliver before the timeline.

It has been deployed on Nutanix as well. They are present even in the marketplace for AWS. It's a straightforward installation. They have two categories: UPI and IPI, and the installations are very straightforward, but it requires a lot of expertise if you want to deploy it on a public cloud.

It was implemented by Red Hat. In terms of maintenance, it does require maintenance, but once it is highly available, it's easily done.

We've seen an ROI. It has had cost benefits. 

It has saved us money. We did a proof of concept with the VMware Cloud Foundation and OpenShift. We saw the feasibility and how fast it can be deployed. There were a lot of considerations. We evaluated it from all perspectives. Compared to the VMware Cloud Foundation, we noted that it was just 50% of the cost. If you go for VMware, they charge you on a core basis, and the licensing costs are huge. You'll have to spend on Microsoft licensing, and then you'll have to spend on the OS as well. Comparatively, it's much cheaper.

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.

You have to deploy it and evaluate it. You can see that there's a lot of difference compared to other operating systems. It also depends on where exactly you're going. There are mainframes and other different places where you can deploy it. Even on the mainframe, it makes a lot of difference.

With Red Hat, there are a couple of things you need to consider while building your infrastructure. You need to have good hardware, and you need to have a compatibility matrix to be able to have a stable environment. It has to be tested in a proper way, rather than deploying it on any box.

In terms of the golden images created by the image builder tool, we have vendors who come with their solutions. They come with the containers, and they deploy them. Most of them are using GitHub, and we just provide the infrastructure. From a technical perspective, there's a solutions department that's into APIs. They handle everything, and we just provide the infrastructure.

Overall, I'd rate it an eight out of ten. 

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux for web application support, mainly OpenShift.

Azure is the cloud provider.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is easier to manage because it can scale to a large amount and be managed across many platforms. This can lead to cost savings for our organization.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has reduced the amount of management required on the Windows side.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is extremely resilient because it is much more secure.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's day-to-day functionality is very easy.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has helped our organization save money by not requiring large-scale virtual machines, resources, or images.

OpenShift is the most valuable feature because it can be used to create applications on the fly.

The UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for six years.

I am impressed with how extremely stable Red Hat Enterprise Linux is.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux's scalability is excellent.

Technical support is quick to respond, but sometimes tickets can get stuck in tier one for a while before they are escalated.

Positive

We previously used Windows but switched to Red Hat Enterprise Linux for cost savings.

The initial setup is straightforward. We can copy and paste any templates we need into the environment.

We have seen a return on our investment simply from receiving timely support when needed.

We purchased the Red Hat Enterprise Linux license via Azure and the vendor.

We evaluated CentOS but ultimately chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because of the support.

I give Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten.

When evaluating operating system options, keep in mind that Red Hat offers the best support.

I've used it primarily in federal government computing centers. However, I've also used it in private companies.

I run everything on it. I've run databases, I've run web servers, and I've run application farms - so pretty much everything. I have it for MongoDB, data crunching, and more, so it covers the gamut.

The product saved us a lot of money compared to other products, like Solaris. Also, having one OS as opposed to many OSs is nice. For the most part, the benefit for the organization is saving money compared to other operating systems and having good stability.

I'm just a tech guy, so I don't know how well it affects the organization's efficiency. However, I do find that we keep things running.

The consistency, stability, and centralized batching are great.

It is easy to troubleshoot using RHEL. Their support site has excellent references, and it's widespread, so you can find pretty much anything you want on Google.

RHEL's built-in security features and security profiles for helping to reduce risk and maintain compliance are good. I like them. We don't run the firewalls on the servers. However, we run STIG and more against them, and we do pretty well.

They don't have any huge innovations. However, they're supporting many excellent projects and integrating many excellent tools into their stack. We hope they keep doing what they're doing and keep supporting open source.

The licensing model is kind of a mess. It works, however, it could be streamlined. For example, just how they apply the licenses to servers and the solution seems like a mess, at least from my end of it.

I've been using the solution for 15 to 20 years. 

I like their stability. I like that they are gatekeeping a lot of the changes. They are not too far behind the curve. However, they are maintaining stability, which is important, especially for running businesses.

Technical support is excellent. 

I've never had any issues with their tech support.

Positive

We also use Red Hat Ansible and Satellite.

I have used Solaris, and I've used different distributions of Linux, however, not always in a professional setting.

The deployment is straightforward. 

Building out a server or building out infrastructure is simple, comparatively. Setting it up so that you can deploy multiple servers is simple. Being able to do post-install and install via Ansible is great. It's smooth.

We've been rolling out new OSs across the entire infrastructure at the scale of maybe a year or two. That said, we're getting it ready to deploy everything in a month or two, at a maximum.

There is some maintenance. For example, we have to patch all the time, however, that's true of any product. I am constantly tweaking and upgrading and making changes. That said, in terms of knocking out the foundation, I don't have to do that often, so that's good.

While it's my understanding that the solution has saved the organization money, I can't say exactly how much. I don't know the exact numbers.

At this time, we do not use Red Hat Smart Management.

The benefit of using multiple Red Hat products is that they integrate well, so I don't have to worry about fitting different Lego pieces together. They just work. I prefer Red Hat over most other solutions since I'm most familiar with it at this point and it offers consistency.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use Red Hat Enterprise Linux to host applications with our virtual machines.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers an excellent and comprehensive knowledge base for Linux. It is among the most thorough available.

Our Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment utilizes a patch management system for updates. However, provisioning remains a manual process, with virtual machines being installed individually. We currently don't use automated provisioning solutions like Ansible, Vagrant, or Terraform.

Red Hat Insights is helpful for deep dives into OS-level issues and remediation, as it links directly to the Red Hat knowledge base.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux enables compliance with regulatory requirements by providing customized images that meet various security standards. This streamlines our process as every virtual machine image is deployed with hardening by default, reducing the need for manual application per virtual machine.

The Red Hat Enterprise Linux knowledge base is a valuable resource.

In terms of improvement, Red Hat could consider offering cheaper licensing. The licensing model is good, but we would all appreciate a lower price.

To ensure compliance and security on our Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems, we had to install additional software, such as endpoint detection and response or antivirus solutions. The built-in security features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux were insufficient for our needs, necessitating the implementation of supplementary security measures.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for about three years.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux has not affected our systems negatively regarding stability, experiencing no issues so far.

Customer service by Red Hat is very good. I haven't noticed any shortcomings in response time or overall competence.

Positive

The upgrade from version seven to eight was done with Red Hat's assistance, as we manage hundreds of virtual machines.

The licensing model of Red Hat Enterprise Linux is good, but lower prices are always preferable.

We evaluated several alternatives, including CentOS and Rocky Linux, but the support question kept coming up with community distributions. We chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux for its enterprise support, which is crucial for maintaining production systems.

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux a nine out of ten. 

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux to others, especially in the enterprise space. However, for startups or companies that do things themselves, alternatives like Ubuntu or CentOS Stream might be more suitable.

We use the solution primarily for simulation and CAD solutions. It serves as the main use for our operating systems.

The openness of the operating system makes auditing a lot easier, plus the tools for auditing make that a lot easier to maintain. 

Automation makes compliance a lot easier. 

The knowledge gained from using the system completely makes troubleshooting easier and increases the knowledge pool in the company.

The extendibility of the solution and its openness, along with its integration with all of our other open-source projects, are highly valuable. 

We appreciate that it is one of the few enterprise-enabled Linux operating systems we can use. 

It is very extensible, which aids as our needs change.

We have encountered compatibility issues with certain hypervisors, mainly with Red Hat Enterprise Linux six hosts on the newer versions of FoxMox.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for over ten years.

The solution has performed really well for our business-critical applications and is very stable. I have no issues.

The solution is very extensible, adapting perfectly as our needs change.

Customer support is very helpful and insightful. I would rate it very well, approximately an eight on a scale of one to ten.

Positive

The biggest return on investment is the knowledge gained by using the system. The access we have to the operating system increases user involvement and facilitates troubleshooting, thus expanding the company's knowledge pool.

The pricing and licensing are reasonable.

For non-business critical applications, a third-party Linux OS may suffice, however, for something running 24/7, it is advisable to go for stability and enterprise support.

We use this operating system for our on-prem servers because it is more secure and reliable. We can install whatever application we want.

I chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it is more secure and reliable than other operating systems. Red Hat has a feature called SELinux. I always use it because it is more secure than the other operating systems. I am using it with most of the applications. It is our baseline OS for any application.

The built-in security features are helpful when it comes to simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance.

Red Hat has very useful documentation. I always use it when I face an error or something like that. It is very reliable, and I use it all the time.

Over the last three to four years, I did not work in just one environment. I worked in two environments, but all the time we used Red Hat Enterprise Linux, we got more security and reliability. We have seen performance enhancement and less downtime for our main application. There is more reliability and better performance. It has improved our environment. We now have better performance, more reliability, and more security. There is about 30% to 50% improvement.

I have previously worked in the banking sector for one of the banks. We can now configure Red Hat Enterprise Linux for PCI-DSS Compliance. It has improved in that aspect.

SELinux is valuable. The main reasons for using Red Hat Enterprise Linux are security, reliability, and efficiency. The system is very reliable, and it is more efficient than others.

It is not very easy to manage because it has a command line interface, and it can be a little bit confusing from one version to another. For example, the administration of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 is a bit different than Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9. It is a little bit hard but not that much.

The GUI experience can be better. They can make it easier to access files and copy them. We should be able to do that without the command line. For example, if you compare it with Windows, Windows is easier to use. They can just simplify the user experience.

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for three to four years.

It is stable. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

I did not face any issue with scalability, so I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We implemented it at the HQ and the DR site. We used it at two locations. We had 100 to 200 users using these servers.

I have experience with Windows Server. From a security perspective, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more secure. From a performance perspective, Red Hat Enterprise Linux has better performance, but from the ease of management perspective, Windows is better.

The installation at the application layer is a little bit complex. The duration depends on the application, but most of the application takes months. Implementing an easy application or service, such as a web service, takes two to three days.

When it comes to the management, I manage it locally. I go through SSH on the command line and manage it. For security patching and updates, most of the time, I use Red Hat Satellite. It is a product from Red Hat for managing updates. Red Hat Satellite is easy to use and very helpful. I have upgraded from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.

When it comes to security patches, they require a restart. That can cause some downtime.

I do not have much knowledge of licensing. That is handled by the procurement team, but I know that it is expensive. If they can provide more licensing options, it will be much easier for companies to buy.

I would recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux because it is more secure, reliable, and scalable.

I used System Roles two years ago. It was simple to use System Roles. I succeeded in implementing them, so it was simple. They can be managed, but I used them only one time, so I do not have this much experience with them. 

I also used a service called Cockpit. It was easy to use. It was very helpful and easy.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux an eight out of ten.