--- title: Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reviews meta_title: 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta_description: Filter 977 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how Red Hat Enterprise Linux works for a business like yours. aggregate_rating: rating_value: 4.6 review_count: 977 scale: '5' date_modified: '2026-08-09' parent_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reviews **Vendor:** Red Hat **Category:** [Operating Systems](https://www.g2.com/categories/operating-system) **Average Rating:** 4.6/5.0 **Total Reviews:** 977 ## About Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a enterprise operating system designed to provide a secure, stable, and high-performance environment for modern IT infrastructures. It supports a wide range of applications across physical, virtual, and cloud environments, making it a versatile choice for businesses of all sizes. Key Features and Functionality: - Security: RHEL offers live kernel patching, security profiles, and adheres to security standards certifications, ensuring a robust defense against vulnerabilities. - Consistent Lifecycle: The operating system follows a predictable lifecycle with three phases: full support, maintenance support, and an extended life phase, providing long-term stability and planning capabilities. - Cloud Integration: RHEL is optimized for cloud environments and collaborates with major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, facilitating seamless workload migration and management. - Developer Access: Red Hat provides developers with free access to RHEL through the "Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers" platform, allowing up to 25 instances for development purposes. Primary Value and Solutions: RHEL addresses the need for a reliable and secure operating system that can handle diverse workloads across various environments. Its comprehensive security features mitigate risks, while the consistent lifecycle ensures long-term support and stability. The integration with leading cloud providers simplifies cloud adoption and management, and the provision of free developer access fosters innovation and accelerates application development. Overall, RHEL empowers organizations to build, deploy, and manage applications efficiently, aligning with business demands for production-readiness and operational excellence. ## Red Hat Enterprise Linux Pros & Cons **What users like:** - Users value the **unmatched stability** of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, creating a reliable foundation for critical workloads. (58 reviews) - Users value the **security features** of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which enhance system safety and resilience. (57 reviews) - Users value the **reliability** of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, recognizing it as essential for business operations and support. (52 reviews) - Users value the **exceptional customer support** from Red Hat, enhancing their experience in enterprise environments. (48 reviews) - Users find Red Hat Enterprise Linux to be **easy to use** , making management and integration in professional environments straightforward. (43 reviews) - Security/Safety (39 reviews) - Users value the **RHEL compatibility** that facilitates seamless integration with various services and strong community support. (38 reviews) - Regular Updates (29 reviews) - Community Support (27 reviews) - Documentation (23 reviews) **What users dislike:** - Users find the **high cost** of Red Hat Enterprise Linux limits accessibility, especially for small businesses. (33 reviews) - Users find Red Hat Enterprise Linux **expensive** , making it less accessible for small businesses due to high subscription fees. (21 reviews) - Users express frustration with the **locked subscription model** of RHEL, complicating security testing and automation. (15 reviews) - Users find **usage difficulty** due to complex configurations and subscription requirements, posing challenges for beginners and smaller teams. (15 reviews) - Users express frustration over **outdated software tools** in RHEL, hindering their workflow and causing installation problems. (14 reviews) - Users face a **lack of support** for consumer applications, especially for offline environments and limited package availability. (11 reviews) - Users find the **steep learning curve** for transitioning from Windows to RHEL challenging and less user-friendly. (11 reviews) - Update Issues (10 reviews) - Complexity (9 reviews) - Security Issues (9 reviews) ## Red Hat Enterprise Linux Reviews ### 1. Good Overall, But Room for Improvement **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer Networking | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** December 06, 2025 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** RHEL provides consistent performance, predictable updates, and long-term support, which makes it ideal for production workloads. The built-in SELinux policies, lifecycle management, and seamless integration with tools like Ansible make system administration much easier and far more secure. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** What I dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux is that some features and repositories require a subscription to access, which can increase costs for smaller teams. Additionally, certain advanced configurations can be complex for beginners, especially when dealing with SELinux or dependency issues. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Red Hat Enterprise Linux helps us solve the need for a stable, secure, and predictable operating system for production workloads. Its strong SELinux security, consistent patching, and long-term support reduce downtime and vulnerabilities. This gives us a reliable environment to run critical applications with confidence and ensures compliance with enterprise security standards. ### 2. Kubernetes **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lizbeth C. | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 29, 2024 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** I like the easy management of containers that Kubernetes provides. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Little online documentation to be able to implement and use it **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Container management, streamline the process and better manage server resources. ### 3. Red Hat Enterprise Linux Usage **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Manufacturing | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 14, 2024 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Red Hat Enterprise Linux is less prone to cyber attack **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** RHEL is not user friendly compare to Windows which have more GUI interface **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Compatible with our old ERP system OS ### 4. The reason why I use RedHat **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Executive Office | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 29, 2024 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** What I liked most about Enterprise Linux is that it is a solid and reliable platform. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Being available for businesses is complicated for people who are just learning **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** License cost Learning curve ### 5. Good **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Architecture & Planning | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 29, 2024 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Availability and speed The seller's attention **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** The Times when the download is performed **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** No ### 6. Secure to work with **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Government Administration | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 07, 2024 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** I like the fact that it's secure and stable out of the gate, there is great support for enterprice software that needs to run with as minimal downtime as posible **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** The thing I like the least about RHEL is trying to get a licence to work with it in a home lab setting **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Its solving the problem of having a stable OS on servers with a ecosystem that is constantly getting better and better **Official Response from Brianna Gault:** > Hi there, thank you for your sharing your feedback on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Your feedback is important to us, and helps us to know where to focus our improvement efforts to ensure you have the best experience. If you’d like to discuss this in more detail with someone from our team directly, please contact us at experience-advocacy@redhat.com. Thanks, Red Hat Customer Experience & Advocacy Team ### 7. It's a bit of hard for first time user **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** May 03, 2022 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** The visualization is way much better than the traditional Linux interface. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** It's not that intuitive for me as a first-time user. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Building an internal project. I am using it to manage the files and system performance. ### 8. it is more stable and comfortable desktop development. **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Suhaas C. | student, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 24, 2021 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** software appearance, which helps to look for what I want exactly **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** it has become old and hoping we will have a new one **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** the Best interface for google but not anymore ### 9. The operating system **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Daniel Q. | Information Security Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** September 16, 2020 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** It is a multiplatform product, it has adequate support, it supports several critical level applications, it is a good option for the deployment of any application. It is supported on various virtual and hardware platforms. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** The cost of the product, and the complexity of implementing control tools, it is necessary to have advanced knowledge to carry out a correct deployment of some fairly complex application. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** Consider other alternatives to the Linux distribution, since there are others on the market that provide better service at the level of support and product. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Server deployment and control for the distribution of security patches. ### 10. The Gold Standard For Enterprise Linux Implementations **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Health, Wellness and Fitness | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 08, 2019 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** This is the gold standard for Linux in the Enterprise. It comes with support (albeit paid) from RedHat and most Linux applications are packaged for RHEL. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** It's rather expensive. Each server license has a list price of $349. There are free solutions available that are almost identical to RHEL. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** Consider free solutions if you're on a budget or have a large number of servers. But, remember that by buying RHEL, you're supporting continued development of the RedHat-derived distros. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use it in specific situations where support is required by customers or vendors, and for applications that only support RHEL rather than a free alternative. ### 11. Different environment with pros and cons **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Komal T. | Specialist Technical Data- Subsurface and Wells data, Oil & Energy, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 08, 2019 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Its extremely fast for doing certain functions where windows just lags to much. It can connect and work over different servers in different regions better than windows. It has a lot of options for autkmating stuff usinf various scripting methods **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Commands!! They can be too confusing sometimes and you feel lost when you don’t get the desired result **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Data management across various databases across different regions ### 12. Linux **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Mark C. | IBM Storage Technical Advisor, Information Technology and Services, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** October 30, 2018 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** I like the fact that it was open source and great for security. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** I had a hard time figuring out configurations and commands to get my system setup but ultimately sorted it out and figured it out. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** I had to utilize the OS as a privileged user. ### 13. KVM is flexible, available at no cost, but not necessarily for the faint of heart... **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Evan L. | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** I like that there's no licensing cost. I like the flexibility on tap. Overall with some technical familiarity you can deploy in [relative] confidence. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** I dislike the steep learning curve, the lack of commercial support, and the finicky nature of the older, less mature versions. Centralized management is not really fleshed out, even though things like WebVirtMgr can be configured. Maintenance can be tricky. Migration from one host to another isn't very straightforward either. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** I just read that Amazon is moving AWS away from Xen and towards KVM. That's huge news. I would imagine that it will only become better, more stable, and more fully featured with that kind of user base behind it, on top of the current base! **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** In areas where there's no virtualization budget but you need VMs, and can't or won't use VirtualBox or Xen, KVM is an option... ### 14. Rhel **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Barnaby F. | Intern, Computer & Network Security, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2018 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Best support in the business. Wonderful operators **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Tough indecisiveness when working to deploy changes **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** All systems go with virtualization and cloud based security ### 15. Not as good as OpenVZ **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 23, 2018 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Isolated containers, gives dedicated reources **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Hard to work with, no access from root level, memory and CPU very stringent. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** Would be careful if using for WP/CMS sites. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** VPS containers. ### 16. RedHat Linux for business **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Lan L. | Accountant, Health, Wellness and Fitness, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** August 16, 2017 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Best performance, reboot and startup very fast. I always login to linux server as user to performance my task such as make a report and access the internet. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** It is diffcult to use and the graphic is simple. Hope to improve the graphic interface in the future. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** To make a report every day, it is very good performance. No need to restart everyday. It is improved my productivity. Access the internet is fast. ### 17. Great but lags **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 04, 2018 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** How fast it connects, plug in and it will pop out immediately! **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** How it lags, some color pixels will turn and slows down the program **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Connecting with servers such like HP and ZT models. No benefits! ### 18. Great solution for group computation **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Research | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** November 01, 2016 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** It has an easy to operate interface, and it can be installed on many machines. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** Not everyone has intuition for linux and this tends to lead to a high learning curve. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** It is a safe and reliable operating system and it runs smoothly on many machines. The only downside is the learning curve. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** It solves the need for united computation. It has realized such. This is to run particular software that is specifically run off the command line. ### 19. RHEL For Servers **Rating:** 3.0/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Timothy S. | Principal Developer Advocate, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 12, 2016 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** It is the gold standard of Linux. YUM is easy to use. All the software for development and servers is available for RHEL. Anything you want to do is available on RHEL. RHEL supports containers and VMs and is the Linux you need. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** RHEL is expensive and it is not the most frequently updated OS. It is good because it is reliable, trusted by banks, used in PAAS' and works. But if you want the newest features like containers, you have to wait a very long time. It's the use of new vs stable. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** Try out Centos and then see if you need and want RHEL. RHEL provides full paid support that can come in handy when issues arrive or you face weird problems. This has come up at some enterprises where things would have weird issues or things wouldn't work well together and RHEL support was able to fix it. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** Running Java services and web services. RHEL just works, especially with JBOSS, Jetty and Tomcat. Postgresql and Mysql run very well on RHEL as do any Java enteprise servers. ### 20. RHEL: Stability, at a Cost **Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars **Reviewed by:** Verified User in Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.) **Reviewed Date:** January 19, 2016 **What do you like best about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** RHEL is intended to provide long-term stability to its users. You may not get the newest versions of packages, but you can be pretty sure they won't break on you. The yum package manager is also very useful. The first Linux systems I used were all Debian based, so I was accustomed to APT, but yum offers essentially the same functionality, which is nice. **What do you dislike about Red Hat Enterprise Linux?** You don't get the newest version of packages. This is a trade-off with stability, but it's still a bummer that you don't have easy access to more recent software. RHEL 6 also uses Gnome 2 by default, which feels seriously outdated. **Recommendations to others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux:** If stability is a high priority to you, RHEL is a good choice. Be mindful that you'll miss out on the newest versions of software, however. All in all, the version of Linux you choose doesn't matter too much, since you can customize most things. **What problems is Red Hat Enterprise Linux solving and how is that benefiting you?** We use RHEL in the research lab I work in. RH's package manager (yum) took some getting used to but is easy to use and very useful. It's also nice to know that everyone in the lab is on the same version. ## Red Hat Enterprise Linux Discussions - [What in RHEL you guys love?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/35917-what-in-rhel-you-guys-love) - 4 comments, 2 upvotes - [How do i tourn on firewall using RHEL](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-do-i-tourn-on-firewall-using-rhel) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [make user experience better](https://www.g2.com/discussions/make-user-experience-better-0b93ab56-1b69-4c7b-9302-fcbea790b5f5) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [How Poweshell Differ From Bash ??](https://www.g2.com/discussions/36253-how-poweshell-differ-from-bash) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [How we can get training for new Red Hat product including latest OS with cost effective way?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/35861-how-we-can-get-training-for-new-red-hat-product-including-latest-os-with-cost-effective-way) - 1 comment, 1 upvote - [View Red Hat Enterprise Linux pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux/reviews?filters%5Bnps_score%5D%5B%5D=3§ion=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-08-12+10%3A57%3A48+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=f059057b-667f-4193-84e0-c2c8a1edbdd3&secure%5Btoken%5D=8fee0c73f1a06223498c1593f425c2fb6156bd11f4640357c9005cd77e811c32&format=llm_user) ## Red Hat Enterprise Linux Integrations - [Apache Tomcat](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-tomcat/reviews) - [AWS CodeCommit](https://www.g2.com/products/aws-codecommit/reviews) - [Azure Virtual Machines](https://www.g2.com/products/azure-virtual-machines/reviews) - [CrowdStrike Falcon Shield](https://www.g2.com/products/crowdstrike-falcon-shield/reviews) - [Docker](https://www.g2.com/products/docker-inc-docker/reviews) - [Elasticsearch](https://www.g2.com/products/elastic-elasticsearch/reviews) - [Focus SIS](https://www.g2.com/products/focus-sis/reviews) - [Git](https://www.g2.com/products/git/reviews) - [GitLab](https://www.g2.com/products/gitlab/reviews) - [Grafana Labs](https://www.g2.com/products/grafana-labs/reviews) - [IBM webMethods Hybrid Integration](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-webmethods-hybrid-integration-2025-12-05/reviews) - [IBM webMethods Managed File Transfer (MFT)](https://www.g2.com/products/ibm-webmethods-managed-file-transfer-mft/reviews) - [Kubernetes](https://www.g2.com/products/kubernetes/reviews) - [LogRhythm SIEM](https://www.g2.com/products/exabeam-logrhythm-siem/reviews) - [Metasploit](https://www.g2.com/products/metasploit/reviews) - [Microsoft Defender for Endpoint](https://www.g2.com/products/microsoft-defender-for-endpoint/reviews) - [NGINX Plus Standard - RHEL 8](https://www.g2.com/products/nginx-plus-standard-rhel-8/reviews) - [Tanium](https://www.g2.com/products/tanium/reviews) - [Trend Micro Endpoint Encryption](https://www.g2.com/products/trend-micro-endpoint-encryption/reviews) - [Ubuntu](https://www.g2.com/products/ubuntu/reviews) - [Ubuntu Pro 18.04 LTS](https://www.g2.com/products/ubuntu-pro-18-04-lts/reviews) - [Zscaler Internet Access](https://www.g2.com/products/zscaler-internet-access/reviews) - [Zscaler Zero Trust Cloud](https://www.g2.com/products/zscaler-zero-trust-cloud/reviews) ## Red Hat Enterprise Linux Features **Performance** - Scalability - Portability - Data Recovery - Disaster Recovery **Application Support** - Deployment - Interface support - Processor support - Application Support **Memory Management - Operating System** - RAM management - App Management - File Management **Security** - Access Controls - Network Security - Compliance - Cryptography **Functionality** - OS Integration - Resource Saving - Performance Management - Security - Third-Party Integrations - User Management - Compliance Management - Task Management **System Capability** - Self Healing High Availability - Orchestration - Scalability **Device Management - Operating System** - I/O management **Security** - Automatic Security Updates - Security updates **Backup and Recovery - Operating System** - Data backup **Agentic AI - Server Virtualization** - Autonomous Task Execution - Multi-step Planning - Cross-system Integration - Adaptive Learning - Proactive Assistance - Decision Making - File Transfer **Additional Functionality** - Cloud Computing - Archiving & Retention - Issue Tracking - Virtual Machine Migration - Server Monitoring - Status Tracking - Secure Login - Activity Dashboard - API - Graphical User Interface - Secure Data Storage - Alerts/Escalation - Generative AI - Virtual Server - Remote Update/Installation - Data Verification - AI Copilot - Reporting & Statistics - VDI - Database Support - Data Synchronization - Data Replication - Virtual Machine Monitoring **Error Detection - Operating System** - System operations monitoring **Additional Functionality** - Generative AI - Data Security - User Interface - Resource Allocation - System Updates - For Developers - AI Copilot - Desktop Interface ## Top Red Hat Enterprise Linux Alternatives - [Ubuntu](https://www.g2.com/products/ubuntu/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (2,346 reviews) - [Apple iOS](https://www.g2.com/products/apple-ios/reviews) - 4.6/5.0 (1,546 reviews) - [Windows 7](https://www.g2.com/products/windows-7/reviews) - 4.2/5.0 (873 reviews)