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Systems administrator at a retailer with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
May 21, 2025
Offers efficient process automation, maintainability, and reliability
Pros and Cons
  • "The command line feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) specifically helps me find ways to address problems. If there's a bottleneck, something slowing us down, or a manual process that we're spending significant time with, I can determine ways to either script around it or use an Ansible playbook. Having these different tools at our disposal is particularly useful."
  • "My rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 10 out of 10."
  • "Regarding areas for improvement, I can suggest streamlining SELinux, which currently feels heavy-handed in its approach to security. It's a system that requires deep immersion to understand. While there's probably justification for its current implementation, making the security component less intimidating for users would be beneficial."
  • "We don't use SELinux because it gets in the way too much. It's a good product if you have the time to devote to it."

What is our primary use case?

We have our in-house applications. We have several edge applications at our store locations. There is an in-house written app that we host on a basic Linux VM. Additionally, we have a few on-premises installations at headquarters. One of our major applications is being rewritten to be hosted on a Linux server, so that's in the process of migrating.

How has it helped my organization?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me with configuration management. It has become a standard in many ways. There's substantial support and different applications that we run on it. The available options for configuration, maintainability, and stability are valuable, and it's not a rapidly changing base that we're working with.

What is most valuable?

My favorite feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) isn't narrowed down to one specific aspect. As someone who grew up using command line interfaces, the ability to access a command line and have the system at my fingertips is beneficial. There are multiple options and different ways to approach tasks with Linux, allowing for creativity in the process.

The command line feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) specifically helps me find ways to address problems. If there's a bottleneck, something slowing us down, or a manual process that we're spending significant time with, I can determine ways to either script around it or use an Ansible playbook. Having these different tools at our disposal is particularly useful.

What needs improvement?

While I don't have an immediate answer, there may be ways to lighten up the underlying system. There are many components I haven't investigated, making it difficult to pinpoint specific areas. It has always been reliable, and I haven't encountered many major issues. I've been content with Red Hat since I started using it.

We don't use SELinux because it gets in the way too much. It's a good product if you have the time to devote to it. A lot of management is involved in it. We typically set it to notify rather than completely disabling it, though vendors often request reduced security settings during application setup. Regarding areas for improvement, I can suggest streamlining SELinux, which currently feels heavy-handed in its approach to security. It's a system that requires deep immersion to understand. While there's probably justification for its current implementation, making the security component less intimidating for users would be beneficial. This is a recurring observation, as many users working on Red Hat systems or Linux systems tend to disable SELinux because it becomes an obstacle. With proper knowledge and usage, it could be beneficial, but it's similar to training a wild dog - it can be loyal, but without proper training, it becomes an impediment.

Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) professionally since around 2011, though I've been using some form of it since the late '90s.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We haven't experienced many problems with downtime. Our operating systems have been consistently stable regarding uptime. Any downtime issues have been related to upstream factors, networking, and power infrastructure.

In terms of stability and reliability, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very stable. I rarely recall having issues where the OS wouldn't boot up. Any stability issues have typically been hardware, network-related, or facility-related rather than OS-related.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my company very effectively. We implement it in any place where we can find a suitable application.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are very good. I would rate it approximately eight or nine out of ten. It has been particularly good recently. Though there were past instances where support initially took a hands-off approach due to gray areas in their support scope, which was disappointing, they ultimately delivered when crucial support was needed.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We are largely a Windows shop. I'm probably the only Linux person on the staff. We have legacy systems, including HP-UX and Stratus VOS, with some RHEL outliers that are being phased out. While Red Hat will likely absorb some of that capacity, many people coming from a Microsoft environment are bringing Windows .NET applications. We're currently evaluating Azure as a hosting platform, which is already in place but not actively used yet.

How was the initial setup?

I've been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux upgrades and migrations since Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. We still maintain one Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 server due to legacy applications. We have successfully removed all Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 installations and currently maintain a large base of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 at our store locations, which we're migrating from. We've implemented both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, completing the entire cycle. We've been through all the versions. We don't do in-place upgrades or anything like that. We just rehost the applications, which is probably pretty typical. This is largely a VM-based environment.

I use Satellite combined with the Ansible automation platform for provisioning and patching. I implement kick-starting via Satellite for most systems, with Ansible handling the final configuration. As Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 approaches, I'm interested in exploring image options to streamline the process, particularly regarding CIS benchmark compliance.

We are going to move to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10. We've been pretty good about getting up to the latest version once it's available. It took us a while with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, but we jumped to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 fairly quickly. I had my process down, so with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, I got right on to it and rewrote my configuration. I'm hoping to streamline that to get Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 up and going once it comes out. I'll have a new service based on that. Our footprint is shrinking a little bit because a lot of our apps are being rewritten in a Windows .NET environment. It's not going to be as big as it used to be, but we're still going to have Red Hat.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is time. Time is a crucial factor, and attempting this level of automation with Windows would be challenging. While automation is possible with Windows, it comes naturally with Linux. Being able to transform common manual tasks that previously took all day into processes that take an hour, half an hour, or even less, demonstrates clear value.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Management handles much of the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), though I receive many of the invoices. While it isn't inexpensive, it has proven to be a worthwhile investment. The virtualized environment has provided good value. Each of our Satellite locations has its own physical license, which adds complexity, but Red Hat and our partners have worked with us to secure competitive pricing.

What other advice do I have?

My rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is 10 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 21, 2025
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Bhanu Pilleti - PeerSpot reviewer
Tech Lead - Devops at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Nov 11, 2025
Manages thousands of servers efficiently with proactive features and strong long-term reliability
Pros and Cons
  • "Satellite has no parallel in the Linux distro world, especially for an enterprise, enabling me to manage my servers, patch them, create content, get them binaries, updated security updates, and all that."
  • "The area for improvement in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is documentation. I really have to get hold of the support, saying, 'Hey, I'm trying to do this. It's not working,' and then they will give me a solution, but I would expect that a document would have solved that issue without raising a ticket."

What is our primary use case?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) basically runs the bank's apps as my main use case.

What is most valuable?

I like the feature Satellite the most because it has services to manage my multiple Linux servers.

Satellite has no parallel in the Linux distro world, especially for an enterprise, enabling me to manage my servers, patch them, create content, get them binaries, updated security updates, and all that. It makes it easier for admins and reduces the need for a lot of manpower, especially with Ansible that enables me to do configuration management of 20,000 Linux servers.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my organization very well as we are expanding ourselves.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped mitigate downtime and lower risk because the servers can run for more than 300 days of uptime. I do have to reboot them for patching, but otherwise, they are a very stable operating system that doesn't crash for no reason. If I experience kernel panics, it often involves EDRs or agents such as CrowdStrike, but otherwise, it's very stable with proactive features. We had issues with CrowdStrike; they identified the issue with their kernel drivers that used to crash my OS and provided a patch to address it, so they take care of us.

What needs improvement?

The implementation had challenges like whenever we bring out new products, there's always one issue: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s documentation is not complete. I have to really have an enterprise account because I get access to their support, which sorts me out since every environment is unique. It's not a cookie cutter; I would deploy RHEL 8 in a way different compared to a retail store. So when it gets to those niche deployments, they don't have anything documented. I really have to get hold of the support, saying, "Hey, I'm trying to do this. It's not working," and then they will give me a solution, but I would expect that a document would have solved that issue without raising a ticket. That's my only complaint.

The area for improvement in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is documentation. I don't have any other suggestions. I think it's just the documentation that needs improvement. Otherwise, technically, I don't have anything to suggest.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have experienced downtime or security incidents as a result of the solution when proper practices are not followed, especially if I am using any third-party security. You have to manage kernel options; otherwise, the base OS itself is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my organization very well as we are expanding ourselves.

How are customer service and support?

I would evaluate customer service and technical support based on my experience. I felt naive about being a small enterprise versus a big enterprise, but the response time of tickets is consistent. I haven't seen a difference; I thought I would have a slower response being on a small account, but the speed of our calls is the same.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I considered other solutions before choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but it was a default choice for us. I see that they have expanded; earlier, it was just a bare-metal OS and not an ecosystem, but now they are in OpenShift, providing Kubernetes and everything.

I wasn't using another solution to address my needs prior to adopting it.

How was the initial setup?

The upgrade or migration is straightforward if I have applications that depend less on what the OS is, but in our case, it was not that simple. We had a business requirement, so we had to shut down the older one, provision a new one, and move everything.

What was our ROI?

I have seen ROI from using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in terms of uptime itself.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with pricing, setup, and cost of the solution is that it's a service based on how many cores, not sockets.

What other advice do I have?

My deployment model for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is on-premises, but I am just starting off with cloud.

For security requirements in the cloud, I don't do SELinux; I just depend on my ACLs because my servers are not internet-facing. We trust Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with the binaries, with nothing on the base OS such as firewalls or SELinux.

I use AWS and Azure as my cloud providers.

I manage my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for security, updates, and patches with Red Hat Satellite, which makes it very easy.

I have been involved in upgrades from RHEL 6 to 7 and from 7 to 8.

My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s FIPS and security compliance features is that it's the best in the industry. They have FIPS, which I think is more for federal clients, and although I haven't used it, I know they offer it by default on their Linux.

My upgrade and migration plans are to always try to stay on the current version all the time, unless there's a legacy application. Any apps I manage are always on the latest Red Hat release, and we keep migrating them as Red Hat provides the first-ever release out, which is a requirement for our Satellite to support the latest version.

The area for improvement in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is documentation.

I would assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as paywalled, so if you don't pay for it, you wouldn't be able to access their system. The KB is pretty good, but you need to have a Red Hat account.

My advice to a company considering this solution is to go for it. It is supported by enterprise support from Red Hat, which I don't think any other enterprise can offer. While I know Canonical does it for Ubuntu, SUSE is another good option; however, the adoption is not there, and you don't have a lot of sysadmins. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a bible due to the abundance of resources in the market. I would rate this solution a 10.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Nov 11, 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
December 2025
Learn what your peers think about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Arsalan Orayedh - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Delivery Engineer at a aerospace/defense firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Jun 18, 2025
High-level support team ensures strong system reliability and simplifies critical system management
Pros and Cons
  • "Among all Linux flavors in the market, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a very high-level support developer team, which is important for our critical systems."
  • "Among all Linux flavors in the market, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a very high-level support developer team, which is important for our critical systems."
  • "They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way."
  • "The Asian support could use improvement."

What is our primary use case?

I am a system administrator using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for handling applications and databases. The machines I manage handle applications and databases, along with some JBoss.

How has it helped my organization?

Ever since IBM has come into the picture, Red Hat and Ansible have been developed very well. The reporting and workflows have become very good.

What is most valuable?

Among all Linux flavors in the market, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a very high-level support developer team, which is important for our critical systems. We need a solid platform that provides one spot for vulnerability fixes, unlike Ubuntu, CentOS, etc. They only provide low levels of support. 

The management is fine. We're doing regular patches with Satellite. We're happy with it. It is manageable.

We can manage a hybrid cloud environment. Red Hat doesn't come fully into our picture with our environment since we're using the Amazon environment and VMware for virtual machines. Red Hat is just an OS, and it is easy to set it anywhere with no issues. 

What needs improvement?

They should be more generous in providing documentation in a friendlier way. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) documentation is good, yet not as good as other products such as IBM. Oracle, on the other hand, is the worst; they are very limited in sharing their documentation with engineers.

The Asian support could use improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have total experience in Unix/Linux of 25 years, which includes five years of Solaris, IBM HP-UX, IBM AIX, and HP-UX, along with Sun Solaris, while the other 15 years is with Linux.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We never faced any issues with stability, and we never faced any limitations.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We never faced any issues with scalability, and we never faced any limitations. For our company,  it is more than enough. I'd rate scalability nine or ten out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

Red Hat support is good, actually. It depends on the region. I have dealt with several regions including Asia, Middle East, and Europe. The majority of European support is excellent. I would give it nine to ten out of ten. In the Middle East, it is between seven to eight out of ten, while in Asia, very rarely do we get nine or eight out of ten. I'd rate it five out of ten there.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have moved to another technology since we are no longer working with Dell EMC or Networker. With Veeam, we are currently working for that vendor. We are using Veeam exclusively nowadays.

We're working with 80% Linux, 10% Unbuntu, 10% Oracle.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very simple. 

Management is fine, since we have the Red Hat Satellite, which allows us to do regular up-to-date patches. We are happy with the Red Hat Satellite. It is manageable.

What about the implementation team?

I am handling the storage, backup, and operating systems of Linux flavors personally.

What was our ROI?

This question of ROI would be unfair for me to answer. We are not using the full range of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) products and are depending on other things. However, Ansible is doing very well with the new version, and in terms of workflow, it is easy to manage. Ansible has been performing very well, especially after IBM acquired Red Hat. IBM has enhanced Red Hat and Ansible very well, as they are famous for reporting and managing workflows.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is very simple. Compared to something like IBM, Red Hat is the cheapest.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Without something to compare it with other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I cannot do a direct comparison. However, compared to Unix products such as Oracle Linux or IBM, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is less expensive.

What other advice do I have?

Regarding Linux Image Builder and system roles, I have tried both, however, cannot recall which one I downloaded. The last time I built it was more than five months ago. 

I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Jun 18, 2025
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Zijiang Yan - PeerSpot reviewer
Devops Developer at a non-profit with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Nov 5, 2025
Provides unified provisioning and monitoring across hybrid environments through an efficient interface
Pros and Cons
  • "The features that I appreciate most on a daily or on-demand basis are those provided by Satellite, which benefits my organization by providing provisioning for every instance, as we have approximately 100 instances under Red Hat and another 20 under Ubuntu."
  • "Another area for improvement is the false positives. We have the Red Hat alarm system, and it is good, but it just fires and reports, sending an email every night for us to check our duties. This is really unpleasant for us."

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include maintaining a stack of servers where we perform monitoring, provisioning, certificate provisioning, and checking patch status across the servers.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature within my systems is Satellite. The features that I appreciate most on a daily or on-demand basis are those provided by Satellite. This feature benefits my organization by providing provisioning for every instance, as we have approximately 100 instances under Red Hat and another 20 under Ubuntu. Currently, we use a single user interface to control them all.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved by providing end-to-end support for customers because we are seeing that it is more distributed. For all the Red Hat services, we use Satellite, but other services are on the cloud, and some things are hybrid cloud. This means we have multiple platforms to monitor each time. Another area for improvement is the false positives. We have the Red Hat alarm system, and it is good, but it just fires and reports, sending an email every night for us to check our duties. This is really unpleasant for us.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have experienced downtime, crashes, or performance issues seldomly. It is good and can solve 80% of problems. Sometimes I seek consultants for help to rebuild the model or to see what the root cause is. Sometimes this problem occurs many times, requiring someone to show up and thoroughly investigate it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with the growing needs of my organization as it is stable, and I see that with Android development. However, I think it has only increased our usage by 3%. I think it is stable and we will not decommission it, but we still compare the benefits of cloud solutions and the Red Hat solution. I have expanded usage on Red Hat because Ubuntu is an open licensing and very unmanageable, so we are trying to reallocate resources to Red Hat.

How are customer service and support?

I evaluate customer service and technical support as great. My own company has a consultant who is very timely in dedicating support to our services. We can call at any time to seek urgent consultant services. Overall, it is good. We find that rebooting or rebuilding is tough for us. We want to make sure that the service is ready to use, but for some unfortunate situations that happen, we seek 24-hour support to solve the problem as soon as possible. Every second that passes represents a loss for us.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Prior to adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we were using Ubuntu, and now it depends on what this product and what this pipeline built initially. If they used Ubuntu at the beginning of the startup, we just use it. We make sure they are up, make sure they are stable, and do not care about anything else. If they use Red Hat, we just keep running with it.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe my experience with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as manageable. It is not out of control. For every server instance, we get notified, and I get an alarm at a very early time, so we can manage to replicate it. This instance has some broken files, which is helpful for the developer to debug and understand it.

When I was deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the deployment, particularly the hotfixes, is a real challenge. We have some big instances with the front-end code and back-end code in one service. We have to do this really quickly to deploy hotfixes and implement new features. We need to make sure that the code is consistent across all the services at that time. We can do the Ansible playbook, which is a very good template that we can reuse to replicate the problem.

What about the implementation team?

I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades or migrations, as for version upgrades, I have been involved. We still have some Red Hat Linux consultants who support us in doing the migration. I think it is helpful. The seamlessness of the process with the consultant depends on the service difficulty because sometimes everything is hard to ensure that it is correct. It depends on the project size.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I do not touch the pricing and the cost of the solution, but I think compared to some cloud costs, it is good because our team is relying on that. We just make sure that the service is up.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The other solutions I considered before selecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that in our company, we have two choices: one is Red Hat and one is Ubuntu.

What other advice do I have?

My security requirements and considerations in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include that this is our manager, and we want to have some endpoints tracking any attack and detecting the status of anything broken. My assessment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security and compliance features is that right now, I think it is simply risk reduction. I am just maintaining it. For maintaining compliance, I can say that the first priority is to keep it safe. The second priority is to keep it up. We make sure they are okay, available to use, and available to maintain. For any other new features, we do not require that. We just make sure of these two things. Beyond this point, we are seeking some cloud help.

My upgrade and migration plans to stay current with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are that we need to upgrade it every year, or just when you have a vulnerability, you need to come up with it and upgrade it. From my perspective, we are not doing really timely upgrading because we do not want to disturb the current pipelines.

For the knowledge base offered by Red Hat, such as the Confluence page, it is helpful. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the knowledge base is helpful. I try to look up and check many of those pages, and they give me detailed ideas on how to implement the system. Sometimes the problem is really unique, and I can get help or try to get support to formalize some questions and help us understand the solutions. I still need to seek a senior consultant's help on migration. Some documentation is outdated.

My advice to other organizations considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that if you use Java, you should use it. If you have many massive servers to maintain, a Red Hat solution with the pipeline and Satellite is beneficial. If you have some old legacy systems, you do not have to set up new labor on monitoring. I give this product an overall rating of 8 out of 10.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Nov 5, 2025
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Ahmed Shamil - PeerSpot reviewer
Solutions Architect at a tech company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 10
May 22, 2025
Built-in security features and comprehensive support streamline user management
Pros and Cons
  • "It makes my system more secure, which is another important point since no one can have direct access."
  • "Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%."
  • "Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card from Iraq is blocked by Red Hat."
  • "Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card from Iraq is blocked by Red Hat. The Red Hat website works for Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, VMware, etc., and we can purchase learning and vouchers. With Red Hat, it's blocked, so I have to travel to Dubai to buy it outside the country."

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are for the core banking systems. It is a much more stable OS than other competitor operating systems, especially with Databases.
Most banks in Iraq use Linux, whether it is free like CentOS for a UAT environment or enterprise like Red Hat.

What is most valuable?

The Red Hat Satellite makes my life much easier when it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching. Before few years ago, each server had to have internet access to make updates or deployments. After joining the Satellite, it's just one push, and all the patching is done. And all the datacentres prohibit having external access. So we can create a local repository at our Red Hat Satellite and then push it to other servers, with the option of choosing a specific version to push for all servers.

Furthermore, the IDM, which is FreeIPA, is great. I appreciate how it makes the management much easier for me, even when managing more than 500 users same time. Like when someone leaves the company or someone joins, it's easier for me to onboard or respond to other things. It makes my system more secure by monitoring all the user's activity, which is another important point since no one can have direct access to the server without being authenticated and authorised by the IDM.

The Red Hat Satellite makes my life much easier when it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching. At first, we had to access each server to make updates or deployments. After joining the Satellite, it's just one push, and all the patching is done. All this distribution also helps us as we use it on-prem, and all the data centers prohibit external access. So we can create a local registry at our Red Hat Satellite and then push it to other servers without issues regarding version changes.

I am a big fan of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) built-in security features, which simplify risk reduction and maintaining compliance, and I would just say we achieve 99% success. I remember a few years ago when there was a zero-day attack. Red Hat was the fastest company to respond. We found out about it at six o'clock PM, and the next day at eight AM, they had some fixes and pushed updates. So we could respond directly and implement the fixes. Any security breach with Red Hat, I do not want to speak about others, since we face worse responses from other companies.

My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve understanding the concept of OpenShift, which has not yet become very popular in Iraq. I try to keep pushing the client to understand the concept of containers and other things. It will take some time, however, it's a good feature to move ahead with OpenShift containerization. Even with the Central Bank regulation, we have to remain on-prem, thus OpenShift supports this point and offers a flexible solution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%.

I am a big fan of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) built-in security features, which simplify risk reduction and maintaining compliance, and I would just say we achieve 90% success. I remember a few years ago when there was a zero-day attack. Red Hat was the fastest company to respond. They had some fixes and pushed updates in few hours from discovering the security breach. So we could respond directly and implement the fixes. I don't like to mention the other competitors, since we face worse responses from other companies.

My upgrade or migration plans to stay current involve understanding the concept of OpenShift, which has not yet become very popular in Iraq. I try to keep pushing the client to understand the concept of containers and other things. It will take some time, however, it's a good feature to move ahead with OpenShift containerization. Even with the Central Bank of Iraq regulation, we have to remain on-prem, thus OpenShift supports this point and offers a flexible solution. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks by about 80%.

What needs improvement?

I can't pinpoint something specific to improve Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I feel they are doing good. I haven't thought much about what they could enhance to become even better for me.

Currently, I manage an issue not related to the OS. It's more about how to purchase vouchers or training from them. Unfortunately, any MasterCard or Visa card issued by a bank inside Iraq is blocked by Red Hat without a clear reason.

While other vendors like Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, VMware, Veeam, Nutanix, etc., we can purchase learning and vouchers directly without any issue. Only Red Hat it's blocked, so to solve this, I have to travel to Dubai and buy it outside the country. This is a significant issue for me and all Red Haters in Iraq, and that's why I also develop myself with non-official content and stopped pursuing their certification since I must travel each time I need it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding stability and reliability, I didn't face any issues with that. It's 99%. Any issue I face with it is due to some mistake from a colleague or something pushed the wrong script, yet I haven't faced a sudden crash.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales to my company's growing needs very effectively; I didn't face any issues with scalability. Before working in my current company (Red Hat partner), I was a work at a payment gateway company. And we made a successful story by scaling out our datacenter and migrating the version from 6 to 8 without any major issues. Also, we did clustering with Enterprise Linux and other things, and all scalability was good, just requires specific knowledge. That said, it's manageable.

How are customer service and support?

In my six years working with Red Hat, I only remember opening cases three times since the technical documentation on the Red Hat site is so comprehensive that if you carefully check it, you often won't need further assistance.

The support itself is satisfactory, and they solved my issues. They understood my concerns about the side effects of some changes, however, and they were perfect in their response.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did consider other solutions before or while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), including Ubuntu, CentOS, and Debian. I am a big fan of Red Hat. This is why I will always choose them. When you love something that much, you just stick with it. That's why I will consistently recommend it to clients as a Red Hat partner.

How was the initial setup?

For the first time, it was a little bit complicated. However, once you know how it works, it's very easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) it's a little bit higher. I suggest that if they could make the price more affordable, it would be great. Some clients are just startups and when opening a budget with Red Hat, it doesn't cover what they need. Perhaps they could create a specific version for startup companies or offer discounts for first-time users.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partnership
Last updated: May 22, 2025
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reviewer2708205 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
May 22, 2025
Built-in security features streamline compliance and vulnerability management
Pros and Cons
  • "RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates."
  • "The customer service is amazing."
  • "When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible."
  • "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition."

What is our primary use case?

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the operating system on our systems. Everything is built on it.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve pain points. It keeps us easily compliant from my perspective with security compliance and streamlines everything in a multi-system environment.

The OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is what I appreciate most about RHEL. We benefit from that tool specifically due to the fact that RHEL is under the recommended operating system mandate. Through that, they have their security requirements, and RHEL's OpenSCAP vulnerability scanner is a really good automatic scanner to scan for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in our system. The way it produces reports is really nice and it's better than the old vulnerability scanner that our system used.

My assessment of RHEL's built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance centers around OpenSCAP. It's better than any other tool I've seen. I've seen two or three other ones. It is really streamlined and nice. It feels professional when using the product.

When it comes to managing our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, our software team handles it efficiently. We maintain a close connection with our Red Hat account managers and representatives who are extremely helpful with any Linux or Red Hat level issues.

RHEL and the Linux architecture system are easier to work with for our program maintenance and updates. Given our 30-year-old product, making current updates would be almost impossible on Solaris. The maintenance and updates for today's requirements can really only be executed with a Linux architecture, making it essential for our operations.

What needs improvement?

One of our current issues is that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 discontinued support for X11 and started support for Wayland. All of our machines run on X11 window manager, which creates a huge issue in our transition. Red Hat is working with us on this matter.

There's a high barrier to entry for getting into Ansible and automating things on a system level from my perspective. When we tried it last week, we found it challenging to automate things using Ansible.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been at my company for two years now. The entire time has been heavily involved with using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to scale to meet the needs of my company and its growth. I credit that to the Linux architecture that can scale to our requirements. We have a unique configuration. That said, my company primarily runs on Linux, and it has scaled very effectively.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service is amazing. The accessibility of the support team and their responsiveness is consistently impressive. 

I would rate the customer service and technical support as nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were previously on Solaris before switching our in-house systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7. We actually skipped RHEL 8 and are transitioning from RHEL 7 to RHEL 9. We are not yet on RHEL 10.

How was the initial setup?

We have had issues with deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I'm actually really focused in on one of our current issues where Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 discontinued support for X11. All of our machines run on X11 Window Manager. And that's a huge issue that we're transitioning. It totally breaks everything we have, and we're working with Red Hat to figure that out. It's nice they're working with us. Yeah. However, it is a big problem during our transition.

What was our ROI?

Regarding the security features and vulnerability scanner with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have not yet seen a return on investment as we haven't proposed it to the organization. We are currently working on scanning and fixing vulnerabilities. We are confident the the organization will be pleased with our improved compliance using the RHEL scanner, which should lead to a return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I don't have much insight into the pricing, setup costs, and licensing. I know we are licensed and have maintained a good relationship with our account manager.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as our operating system, we do consider other solutions for specific features. We have alternatives available for various tools, however, we prefer to default to Red Hat since it's the organization-wide preferred operating system. In the past two years, we have been increasingly transitioning to RHEL tools.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 22, 2025
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Senior Director at a media company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
May 21, 2025
Security and reliability boost confidence and support growth strategies
Pros and Cons
  • "Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security mainly."
  • "The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day."
  • "One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods."
  • "One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods."

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are mainly all of our business applications, as they all run on RHEL.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points related to reliability, stability, and security, mainly. 

Feature-wise, what I appreciate the most about Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is security; it's much more secure, and I don't have to patch it that much. For us, security is a very key aspect of our operations, especially since we are even more security-conscious due to what happened with us in the past, so having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in our environment makes us much more confident. When we deploy new applications, it's RHEL by default; we don't even consider another operating system right now since it keeps our environment secure and our business stable.

Security requirements are always a consideration in choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for the cloud since it is much more secure than other operating systems and has a proven track record of being compliant and secure for many years.

When it comes to managing my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems for provisioning and patching, it's about 50% manual and 50% automated, and we are currently starting a project with Ansible to fully automate it end-to-end. Right now, it's all semi-automated, and we want to make it fully automated.

For us, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy mainly through seamless migrations from on-premise to cloud, which has been really helpful. Frankly, we don't use the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that much; our team prefers to get help from Red Hat support directly.

What needs improvement?

One of the suggestions I have for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is finding better solutions around domain authentication, as we are facing several issues with our current methods.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been excellent for us; aside from a couple of upgrade challenges, we generally don't face any issues during a normal business day.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales with my company's growing needs, as we are increasing our footprint in both on-premise and cloud, with all new deployments on Linux without any scaling issues.

How are customer service and support?

In terms of customer service and technical support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it has been good in general, although we have recently faced some challenges around domain authentication where support is lacking. 

At this point, I would rate customer service and technical support a solid eight out of ten due to recent issues; I would have given a nine otherwise.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

We deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both in the cloud and on-premise.

The deployment has been great. I've never had any issues either patching or upgrading it. We are right now on Red Hat 9. I saw that Red Hat 10 has been announced. Our team has been able to manage the entire life cycle from starting at Red Hat 4 until now. It has not been a problem at all.

I am involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades all the time; we are currently in the process of upgrading from Red Hat 8 to 9 for all of our environments. Upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has its challenges; we had a couple of hiccups in a couple of cases. Overall, about 95% of the use cases have been issue-free, with just 5% of cases occasionally encountering problems.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment for me when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comes from security, as we experience fewer incidents, more stability, and less business impact, without outages resulting in revenue loss.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been good; the licensing isn't very expensive compared to other products we're using.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we still consider other solutions as we do have other operating systems, however, for business-critical applications, we usually prioritize RHEL.

What other advice do I have?

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a nine.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: May 21, 2025
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reviewer2774874 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Unix Administrator at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Nov 5, 2025
Has helped reduce downtime for telco workloads and simplified patch management through automation tools
Pros and Cons
  • "Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps to mitigate downtime and data losses since we use the Pacemaker cluster, which helps considerably."
  • "From a business perspective, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is high in price, which has made our management less interested recently, not because of instability."

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are telco applications.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve my pain points with support.

I manage my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems using Red Hat Satellite, which helps me a lot to manage the new patches we integrate, making our job very easy.

The upgrade or migration process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is acceptable. Migrating from Red Hat 7 to 8 was somewhat complex; however, 7 to 9 and 8 to 9 migrations are acceptable. While we have not yet migrated from 9 to 10, we have a plan and I registered for a session on Red Hat 10 today, so we are planning to migrate all our Red Hat 6 servers in production to 9 and 10.

I assess Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s built-in security features, including SELinux and Pacemaker, by saying these two features help considerably to manage and keep the system secure. On top of that, we are using firewalls, so we feel very confident without worrying about the future.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps to mitigate downtime and data losses since we use the Pacemaker cluster, which helps considerably. As a Telco, we cannot tolerate downtime issues.

What needs improvement?

From a business perspective, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is high in price, which has made our management less interested recently, not because of instability. However, sometimes we try to adapt some open-source alternatives such as Rocky Linux.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I assess the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as nine out of ten. I have not seen any limitations of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) yet.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scales very well with my organization.

How are customer service and support?

I evaluate customer service and technical support as a six out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

I did not face challenges in deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on-premises or on the cloud since I was very enthusiastic about it. I started learning Red Hat Linux back at university about 6, 7, 8, or 9 years ago, and a number of people were also interested at that time, so I did not see any challenges for using or adopting it.

What about the implementation team?

I have been involved in upgrading Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on-premises and tested something in the cloud, but it is not in production. On-premises, we are performing upgrades almost every day.

We are already using Red Hat Satellite and Ansible, which we have in place. Probably in the future, we will consider VMware, but I do not have a specific plan for that right now.

What was our ROI?

As an engineer, I cannot calculate the ROI in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but management has all the visibility, and they are getting the ROI while we are satisfied with that.

What other advice do I have?

What stands out to me in the evaluation process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that it is positive.

My advice to other organizations looking to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that they should use it. Everything is acceptable with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because patching is available and management is available, so I do not think anything additional is needed from a basic standpoint. I gave this review a rating of 9 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Nov 5, 2025
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.