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    reviewer2843001

Integrated automation has reduced downtime and accelerated secure VM delivery for our teams

  • May 18, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are for applications, primarily. We provide Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to other teams because we are from the operations team and have infrastructure responsibilities. We provide Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VMs for developers and other teams to run their applications on.

Before adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), my company used many Windows VMs. From the time I have been working in the company, we have been a Linux shop with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) VMs, along with a few Windows VMs.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points because Linux in general is easy to work with. The automation is straightforward. Because we have an ecosystem of Red Hat OpenShift, Ansible, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the integration flows naturally.

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I prefer most are the security features, which are very useful. The domain join realm and SELinux are also excellent.

For navigating our security risks with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we currently use SELinux for security. We do not use Lightspeed at this time. We have FirewallD and other services for security. For identity management, we have our own Kerberos agents that we use for identity purposes.

Satellite helps maintain our environment overall because we have integration with Ansible and the Ansible Automation Platform. When we need to create a new VM, we start with Satellite and have all the bootstrap processes integrated with Ansible. The VM then comes up automatically, and we provide it to customers or whoever wants to use it.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped me mitigate downtime and lower risks.

The capabilities of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that have assisted me with this are mainly the integration aspects, such as Satellite and the Ansible Automation Platform. Everything has helped us reduce downtime for customers and accelerate VM deployment.

What needs improvement?

The security portions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved and made easier to work with. SELinux in general is not intuitive because customers and developers do not know how to work with the VM. This part could be more user-friendly.

In my company's implementation of the Zero Trust model, we have not yet implemented this with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Because we are from the operations team, there is another team that handles other responsibilities. We do not necessarily handle that aspect.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have occasionally experienced downtime, crashes, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but not frequently. Overall, it has been reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, the scaling process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is smooth. We have scaled many applications and have not encountered any issues. The performance has been solid.

How are customer service and support?

I evaluate the customer service and technical support from Red Hat as very good. I have never had any issues with the technical support. I have created multiple tickets with the Red Hat team and they have been quick and effective at responding and fixing the issues. I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine out of ten.

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

The advantages of having Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) instead of Windows servers are that the development process is easier. I think Windows is limiting. Linux in general provides more opportunity to try different approaches, work on different projects, and avoid being restricted to certain functionalities that are imposed on clients who use the operating system. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has done an excellent job overall.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe the experience of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as straightforward. It is not complicated. We use Satellite to deploy the VMs and the process is very straightforward with minimal complexity.

What about the implementation team?

We have used the Ansible Automation Platform through a dedicated automation team who handles all the automation for us.

What was our ROI?

From a technical point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the integration aspect. Working with OpenShift and having VMs on it is very smooth. Even though some features are not intuitive, the integration is seamless.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

My company has not considered switching to another solution that does the same thing as Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We are committed to continuing with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What other advice do I have?

I would assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very good. I believe there could be more information available. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in general is excellent, but counterparts such as OpenShift could improve with respect to documentation and the knowledge base.

We performed a major version upgrade of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) using the Leapp upgrade tool manually. Although the process has been automated, we have not used automation to upgrade many VMs. We successfully upgraded forty to fifty VMs from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) version seven to eight and from eight to nine using the Leapp upgrade.

The advice I would give to other companies is that from the time of deployment until the customer uses the system, having a pipeline ready and integration prepared for every component makes it much easier to deploy and use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I would rate this product an eight out of ten overall.


    Jake_Smith

Automation has reduced server issues and now supports reliable, standardized deployments

  • May 18, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at my company include application servers, infrastructure servers, web servers, and virtually every server type.

What is most valuable?

The features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I appreciate most are ease of automation and ease of deployment, particularly because we also use Satellite for deployment management. It scales well.

These features benefit my company by resulting in less time spent working on servers and issues and more uptime.

What needs improvement?

I have not identified any immediate areas for improvement in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), as I cannot think of anything that there is not already a product for.

We have encountered some issues with the high availability clustering lately, and it seems that could use some refinement.

The deployment process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been somewhat rough around the edges to get it up and running with Kickstart, but once I have it dialed in, it is fantastic. The documentation for Kickstart can leave something to be desired sometimes, so that may be an area of improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with the platform that were not caused by some kind of misconfiguration. The platform itself is solid.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have been able to scale and expand usage as my needs have grown.

How are customer service and support?

I assess the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as outstanding. The Red Hat Learning Subscription is great, and usually when we enter a ticket with Red Hat support, we can get a subject matter expert to help us resolve our issues.

I would rate the customer service and technical support as probably an eight out of ten. Sometimes when we enter a ticket, it takes some time to get to the level of technical resource we need, but once we get that resource, they almost always help us get a problem solved.

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

When I came in, our department was already heavily using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

How was the initial setup?

The deployment process for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been somewhat rough around the edges to get it up and running with Kickstart.

What was our ROI?

From a technical point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the stability and uptime.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have worked with Ubuntu and CentOS in the past while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but I do not particularly care for Ubuntu. I prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) wins over Ubuntu for me by being a more stable enterprise platform and more mature.

What other advice do I have?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points by being more reliable and easier to work on than Windows. It is simply good at what it does.

The features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I use to navigate my security risks include Satellite, which helps us keep everything patched and up to date and keep package-related CVEs down. We are looking at doing OpenSCAP scanning with Satellite, and we use Ansible for automation, deploying configurations and packages. We are also looking at implementing OpenShift, as our department has OpenShift.

I have worked with System Roles and have used Image Builder before, finding it useful for tightening a gold image and standardizing deployments.

I use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) only on-premises in my department. Some other departments might use it in the cloud. I do not know that my department has a cloud strategy yet, but I know we are exploring alternatives to VMware, so that could happen in the near future.

My department does not have a hybrid cloud yet, but as far as on-premises is concerned, Satellite helps us with patch management and controlling what packages we present through content views. We build systems through Kickstart, so it helps with deploying systems.

I have worked a little with Lightspeed for AI workloads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) but have not really scratched the surface too much yet.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a critical role in my company's implementation of zero trust by tightening down configurations when we join a system to Active Directory through SSSD, locking down what users and groups can touch a given system.

We have used Leapp to do a major version upgrade using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but we have not coupled that with Ansible Automation Platform yet.

I have been using Ansible Automation Platform almost as long as I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); I used Tower before it was Ansible Automation Platform, and it is incredibly useful. It is invaluable for deploying systems, standardizing server builds, deploying compliance, and hardening. I have not found a use case it is not useful for.

We are working toward using or building Ansible jobs to help with our regulatory audits and evidence collection, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a significant role in our compliance and auditing workflows.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk with capabilities such as its stability. If you standardize and deploy a system and have it tightened, you tend not to have unexpected issues, or the issues you do have are ones that you would have seen many times and can easily remediate.

I rate my overall experience with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as a nine out of ten.


    Rachid Jean

Hybrid automation has unified our web hosting and has simplified cloud-integrated deployments

  • May 18, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is virtual machines for web server hosting, and mostly web hosting and application hosting.

What is most valuable?

The feature of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that I like the most is the integration with the cloud, the cloud.redhat.com integrations, and the Insights portal.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps us solve the need for a supported Linux platform that we can dependably deploy all of our applications on, with an easy to patch process, very interconnected with Ansible, and very interconnected with Red Hat Satellite. It provides easy deployment and automation capabilities that are where it performs best.

Red Hat Satellite helps us manage and maintain our hybrid cloud environment by being the backbone of our automation. Without Satellite, we would not be able to do version matching, and we would not be able to ensure all the packages are the same between our on-premises and Azure environment. When we do new deployments, we are able to make sure our new deployments match what we have existing, whether it is on-premises or more nodes in the cloud or more nodes on-premises. That is where we use the versioning.

What needs improvement?

I do not have much experience with the pricing, the setup cost, and the licensing of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I know we have it; somebody pays for it, but we have enough licenses and they make sure of it.

One of the biggest improvements I see for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) AI that is on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 now. We have not had the chance to try that one yet, but I have seen demos of it, and it appears to be a very good tool that might be very useful in the future.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been in my area of expertise for thirteen years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I have not experienced any downtime, crashing, or performance issues with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It has been solid, particularly Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We find Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) scalability good; we have clustered databases that we use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for, and it has been solid. When you give it network access to the other nodes, it will perform its function.

How are customer service and support?

My experience with the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been very good. When you open a case, you get somebody pretty quickly, and they are very knowledgeable, so I am very happy with the support.

I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine, because nobody gets a ten.

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

Prior to adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we were using CentOS 7.

We decided to switch because we wanted support. We were always looking at containers and thought Red Hat offered the best solution to containerization, so it was a natural progression to get Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as well. We used to run the open-source version of Satellite, AWX, but it was falling apart and hard to maintain due to issues and a lack of solutions in the open-source forums. It made sense to switch to Satellite and get Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) since we were adopting all the other Red Hat ecosystem platform offerings.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe my experience with the deployment process of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as initially complicated due to the licensing model of Azure, which was a little confusing. However, afterwards, we created some Terraform configurations to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in Azure, and since then, it has been one enter button.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), from my point of view, is the support and the integration with Red Hat's cloud features. The documentation is really good, and before, when I searched for something about a fix, Red Hat documentation would often come up, and I would not have access to it. Now that I have access to it, the solutions given are usually straight to the point, such as "Run this command and we fix the problem." That has definitely been a lifesaver.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have not considered other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What other advice do I have?

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

We use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) both on-premises and in the cloud, specifically on Microsoft Azure cloud and on-premises.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports our hybrid cloud strategy by enabling us to host our applications in a hybrid deployment, half on-premises and half in the cloud, while using load balancers in the front. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we are able to deploy the applications that we need to support our strategy on both sides, including the databases and the caching system with synchronization between on-premises and the cloud. It allows us to install anything we need, and with the automation tools around it, it lets us quickly deploy and automate everything and have it running.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a role in our company's implementation of a zero-trust model mostly with workloads, as it works with workloads and the integrated firewall. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we are able to secure access to the various ports that are running in our application, regardless of whether we decide to use a Unix socket or something VIP-based, to host them.

We use the Ansible Automation Platform.

Our experience with the Ansible Automation Platform has been great; it is one of our favorite tools. It started small and then it became one of the most important tools within our organization. Everybody uses it, and everybody has been creating Ansible playbooks for it. We are now pushing to have all of our applications deployed using Ansible Automation Platform, so it has become a major tool that has been integral to the success of our team.

I cannot say I have used a lot of the available knowledge base from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) directly, but it is very good. Red Hat documentation is very good in general.

I would rate this review a nine overall.


    Adam Fulton

Centralized automation and image workflows have improved patching and compliance visibility

  • May 18, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) today are running application workloads, anything that we do not want in a container yet or perhaps the vendor provides a pre-built image for you, not a container image, but a pre-built application. We deploy those to our RHEL workloads or our VMs.

We use Satellite, and in Satellite, what is really cool is you can use the Insights Advisor to see which host a CVE is applicable to. We have used that in the past where a couple of zero-day, CVE level 10s have come through. We have seen what hosts those are applicable to, and it helps with the reporting and auditing.

We are using on-premise. I have a RHEL host that I actually have downloaded the image builder tools to, and then I run a shell script that runs through the pipeline because we only need one or two VMs right now. If we were to scale that, we would be using Ansible to plug in a lot more variables and output more ISO files, but that is where we stand.

What is most valuable?

I am not aware of specific pain points that we have had with other systems that RHEL specifically has helped us solve, but I can talk about tooling that we use with RHEL, such as Puppet and Ansible and how that works. Red Hat Satellite is worth mentioning because all of our RHEL systems are plugged into Red Hat Satellite, which allows us to see a lot of things from a thousand-foot overview. We can see all the systems, their compliance states, and what Puppet hosts are erroring on the Puppet runs. Satellite is our Puppet controller, so all of our hosts are registered to Satellite that way, managing our subscriptions and all of our content. We really appreciate Satellite in that regard.

The new image builder tool has been great. The main thing is being able to spit out a digest that you can say, "This is the hash of our image at this build time." You can look at a specific Git commit to see what code is all going into building this image. It is using more of the container-based workflows that have existed with Docker and container files and Podman, but it is applying those to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) itself, which I really appreciate.

From a technical point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the integration with Satellite, along with the different integrations with automation tooling that you can do. You can plug in Puppet, you can plug in Ansible, and Satellite takes care of our package management. It has all these integrations with external systems, allowing you to manage a fleet of systems rather than one system at a time.

What needs improvement?

I wish we were using more AI. We are kind of cautious in that regard. We have one solution approved, and it is just the ChatGPT web UI, which means I cannot even use ChatGPT CodeX in my VS Code as an extension, but we are hoping to integrate more AI workloads in the future. It will help the two main Linux administrators, allowing us to get a lot more work done, and then we can focus on bigger architectural issues rather than smaller maintenance items.

I do not have a better answer for how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be improved, but being so young in the industry, I am not as familiar with the long-term pain points that we might be dealing with. I am excited about the AI Insights or the RHEL Lightspeed integrations with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and OpenShift because I think it will help us be more efficient in remediating vulnerabilities, working through bugs, and those types of things.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been in my field for about five years, but that includes internship experience, and I am two years full-time employed.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not experienced any downtime or performance issues due to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) itself. The only issues we have had are from the applications that are running on it or configurations that perhaps developers have implemented that are not correct.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Regarding scalability, we do not have very intensive compute Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) units. We have a lot of hosts, but they are all pretty small hosts, thinking about two CPUs and four to eight gigabytes of RAM.

How are customer service and support?

I have opened a couple of support cases, and the support experts at Red Hat are extremely knowledgeable. There has not been a case that I have opened that was unable to be solved. I would rate them ten out of ten.

What was our ROI?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for two years, and before that, I have been using Ubuntu and other Linux-based systems for another two years.

We have done major version upgrades from RHEL 6 to 7, 7 to 8, 8 to 9, and soon 9 to 10, all with the Leapp tool, which is sometimes a pain in the butt. It is nice because it shows you and spits out the output of everything that needs to be resolved, but sometimes resolving those things across 800 hosts is a lot of work. I have a project right now to POC Ansible Automation Platform, hoping to bring it into the organization depending on licensing costs, but those decisions are above my pay grade. Attending talks here, I have learned a lot about bootc and the RHEL image mode and how that should make upgrades a lot less painful, as instead of upgrading a host and dealing with things that can change across versions, you are just writing a new container file and updating the container image.

What other advice do I have?

We do not do anything crazy as far as architecting things, and our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) usage is pretty basic. A lot of the more complex things we do in OpenShift, and we have had RHEL for a lot longer than we have had OpenShift. Our RHEL usage is actually going down as we migrate more things to OpenShift.

We have not used the image builder inside of Satellite, but I have tried both the new and the old image builder, which is using bootc for image mode. I actually have a project that is currently focused on using that for building an image that is PCI compliant just at the boot and kickstart time. I appreciate that the image is immutable, or most directories of the image are immutable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays pretty close to no role in our company's implementation of the zero-trust model. We do not do a lot of zero trust from the RHEL-specific side, but I could speak to a little bit more about Okta zero trust, although this is not an Okta conference; it is a RHEL conference.

I assess the knowledge base that is offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as extremely good. I extensively use the Red Hat Knowledge Base, looking through articles and documentation, and I reference it every single day. If I am not referencing something very specifically, I am asking ChatGPT to point me to the Red Hat article that I need.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall as ten out of ten. It is not about evaluating Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) itself, but about evaluating Red Hat as a company, and Red Hat as a company is very, very helpful. I can speak to our account executives and the technical professionals that are assigned to our company, and they are very willing to help all the time. They want you to succeed because if you are succeeding, then Red Hat is succeeding. It is a mutually beneficial relationship. My overall review rating for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is ten out of ten.


    Sohrab Aidun

Standardized our workloads and has simplified secure patching, support, and compliance

  • May 18, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include database, Java applications, programming, and Python. We were interested in using AI workloads with RHEL last year but then realized the hardware cost was not going to permit us to manage that.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points such as having nicely packaged dependencies, so when we need to install dependencies, we can easily rely on Satellite to be able to get the packages from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to be able to then install without needing to track down everything that we need. This is more reliable and having the security of Red Hat verifying things is better.

DNF helps my company because Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Satellite has all the packages there, allowing us to patch our systems relatively easily and install any applications through the Yum repository makes it much easier than before.

Satellite helps navigate our security risks by providing us a dashboard of what systems we have, what their patch levels are, and where we need to go with them. It's a good dashboard to monitor. All the CVEs coming in from Red Hat are what we rely on. When Red Hat provides a CVE, we know it's safe to install it.

Satellite is very good in helping to identify quickly what we need, who's wanting what packages, and verify and go forward. It's a nice product to have.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) could be improved by including in-place upgrades, allowing us to go from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 9 to 10 on certain hosts, such as database hosts, instead of needing to build a new system and then transferring the data, which would be a better way of improving it.

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?

I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues; it has been rock solid for us.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

In terms of scalability, we grow our servers size-wise, both horizontally and vertically, so I have no issues.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and technical support I receive are really good.

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

Prior to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) at my company, I was using Amazon VMs at different companies, along with CentOS and Fedora. With Red Hat, I get the benefit of a company behind me that can support me, and if I run into an issue, they have the resources to figure it out and address it.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment process of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) really depends on your environment because if you have VMware, you have one way of doing it, and if you have Nutanix, you have another way of deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We use Ansible to deploy, so we just have to configure it for the environment that we're using.

What about the implementation team?

We did a major version upgrade with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Ansible Automation Platform, going from 8 to 9, where we basically rebuilt new hosts and reinstalled on the new hosts, with a few systems we couldn't rebuild, so we did an in-place upgrade using Leapp. The experience was easy and nice. Tooling-wise, it was nicely done.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for me is standardization, relying on support and knowing there's a group behind it that can support us no matter what happens. It's easy to open a ticket, and easy for them to get back to us and help resolve issues.

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) is nice since we have a site license, but I don't know what the prices are.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I did not consider other solutions while using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I think Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a great product that I enjoy using, and my advice for other companies considering it is that if you have a need for support and are in a situation requiring audit and maintaining a certain level of uptime, having the safety net of Red Hat behind you is important. If you need recovery in minutes and hours, you should go with Red Hat; if you can't recover in less than days, go with something else. I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.

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?


    Brian Merwin

Centralized automation has streamlined patching and configuration across all our data centers

  • May 18, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) involve operating a number of data centers across the United States where we primarily use Linux for our SCADA platform and for telemetry collection of the data center components.

We also use RHEL for day-to-day infrastructure needs such as email, DHCP, DNS, and normal network infrastructure operations. We have also started deploying Kubernetes, but we are not doing that within the scope of OpenShift at this time; it is really just bare metal Kubernetes.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) solves my most significant pain points with its enterprise tooling, particularly Satellite for effective management of patching and Ansible tooling, especially for configuration management at scale. That is really where I spend most of my time, working with Ansible.

My favorite features of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are the RHEL-specific features, particularly the development of the bootc image process and container file process for deployment. That is really interesting and coming along. However, it is mostly the tight integration with Ansible Automation Platform and Satellite that stands out.

The feature of having a single pane of glass administration point for all systems improves my company's efficiency significantly as my scope of responsibility includes maintaining systems at about 40 data centers across the United States plus internationally. We have migrated to a place where I rarely have to touch servers individually for configuring them; I can do orchestration at scale from one place. Instead of updating 400 servers individually, I can execute one command and update them all. That is really what it is about—maximum efficiency in the time I can spend.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s winning factor for me is the support and tooling, including Ansible Automation Platform, Satellite, and decent integration with ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow right out of the box without needing to hand-code those things from scratch. It is really the interoperability that stands out.

What needs improvement?

I have tried both Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Image Builder and System Roles, but I do not use System Roles as extensively as I would prefer because of the nature of our business, where we have acquired other companies that are not standardized on RHEL across the board. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) System Roles cannot always be applied to non-Red Hat Enterprise Linux distributions. I am trying to incorporate that more, but I believe the bootc and the image move and image builder tools are the direction I am attempting to push us towards.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) System Roles have been extremely helpful, speeding my time to development of my Ansible configuration management deployment, which is a huge time saver for me. However, regarding bootc and image mode, I cannot yet comment because we are still in the testing and development stage, so it remains to be seen.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has limited relevance for my AI workloads due to strict governance, though our developers are involved in that world; it is outside my scope.

I have not done a major version upgrade with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Ansible Automation Platform, but we have done upgrades from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, and that experience was positive, as we were using Leapp tools to do that prior to having AAP in the environment.

I do not have any strong recommendations for improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because what matters to my organization is more about stability and consistency. New features for the sake of new features are not what I need, but if I had anything, it would be more tooling to help me respond to CVEs faster. For instance, the recent copyfile CVE has sparked discussions about adding a kill switch with certain kernel modules, which might be an interesting idea, but I worry that it could become an attack vector of its own. My primary need is not new features; it is stability while keeping things as lightweight as possible.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for about five or six years, starting with Fedora from Core 3, so a very long time overall. However, actual Red Hat Enterprise Linux probably for about five or six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has not been the direct cause of any downtime issues; those tend to be more related to connectivity, such as a fiber cut. It is less about mitigating downtime and more about having good stability, as generally uptime is good. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) specifically does not get us there when downtime occurs.

Regarding the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), there is really nothing to add; it is the most stable platform we have, provided you do not let the developers get in there and make changes. The operating system and the kernel itself is never the problem.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is never the bottleneck when it comes to scaling; any issues we have in that regard arise from other factors. We are able to use Ansible Automation Platform and, to a degree, Terraform, alongside Kubernetes, meaning that scalability is never a concern with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

How are customer service and support?

I would rate customer service and technical support quite high, perhaps a nine or 10. On a daily basis, I rarely need to interact with technical support, but when I do, they respond very quickly. The knowledge base usually has the answers I need, unless we encounter some very unique and specific situation, which is pretty rare.

I find the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to be very good, highly rated, and a very useful resource. Overall, I have a positive view.

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

Before using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), my company underwent multiple acquisitions, resulting in an amalgamation of different Linux distributions and Windows servers. There has been a lot of Rocky Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE in the past; I even found an AlmaLinux box recently. We are in the process of trying to standardize on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as quickly as possible amidst a data center race, which involves building new facilities and acquiring smaller companies, as we deal with their existing systems until we can migrate them over.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe the deployment process of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as very straightforward, especially with the changes we are experiencing with image mode deployments. This new approach makes it almost more straightforward because I am not having to deal with RPM packaging, and I do not necessarily have to package my own RPMs for custom deployment. I am looking forward to these changes, though deploying image mode from a registry can affect network bandwidth as it involves pulling the entire operating system rather than a small update, which could make time to deployment smaller while providing more consistency across the board.

What about the implementation team?

I navigate my security risks primarily through Satellite, supported by a whole InfoSec department that handles many of the aspects of security.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comes from the reduction in time spent on manual labor associated with a fractured infrastructure. By standardizing on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as much as possible, my day goes faster and I can use my time more effectively. This also allows us to operate with a reduced head count because we do not need to add more personnel to solve problems as things are more standardized; that is really the biggest factor for me.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

It is difficult to compare the business value of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to other Linux distributions I have used, as I do not handle the licensing aspect. For me, the value lies in the consistency and tight integration with all the platforms, but it is hard to put a dollar amount on that.

What other advice do I have?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a role in my company's implementation of adhering to the zero trust model primarily through devices and network aspects. Most of our IAM components are still handled through Windows Active Directory, so all of our systems are domain-joined, but it is Active Directory domains as opposed to RHEL IAM, which pains me. Most day-to-day users, when you have non-engineers, are still going to be using Windows and Windows applications, so that is outside my purview.

I cannot describe my company's process for managing regulatory compliance, as it is not part of my job. There is a whole GRC team handling that. Generally, during the testing process, we ideally adhere to certain CIS benchmarks, but due to our unique requirements, those are not exactly what we need. We are sort of in the middle of CIS 1 and CIS 2 benchmarks, and I would like to be able to deploy Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and simply apply benchmark two and have it done, but we have to build that by hand.

I would rate Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) overall as a nine. The main advice I would give others considering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is that your primary gains will come from standardization and having a specific plan. The problems we faced in the past arose from smaller organizations deploying a particular version of Linux based on individual preference because an engineer wanted to try something new, rather than due to stringent controls being put in place.


    Suresh BabuThatikonda

Security patches have protected critical workloads and automation now simplifies audits

  • May 14, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use case for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is to host applications, and the primary reason is to run web servers and different kinds of applications.

I run Kubernetes clusters and different applications such as financial applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Other types of workloads I run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) include Kafka, Vault, Jenkins, and various DevOps tools.

What is most valuable?

The best features Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) offers include the Satellite server, security patches, and upgrades.

Satellite Server and the security patches and upgrades have helped my team significantly because we were able to automate the process, and all our audits were able to clear due to Linux patching. It helped tremendously in terms of providing quick fixes, and performing a simple patch and reboot would resolve the issue. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) also hosted many services such as keepalived and packages such as OpenLDAP, which are very helpful for our day-to-day operations.

The various packages it provides are excellent.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has positively impacted my organization, especially in terms of security and productivity, as it provides quick fixes for zero-day vulnerabilities, CVEs, and configuration updates.

We have different vulnerabilities across multiple Red Hat packages, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has been able to provide quick fixes within 24 hours for zero-day vulnerabilities. For high-critical vulnerabilities, it also provides the CVE score, and based on this score, it delivers the patches, positively impacting our auditing requests to the auditing team.

What needs improvement?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can definitely improve in several ways. One suggestion I would give is to ensure backward compatibility for services whenever transitioning from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 to 8, 8 to 9, or 9 to 10, as that would be really helpful for us.

During upgrades, maintaining backward compatibility is one of the very important improvements needed on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) side.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for around 10 years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is really scalable, as I can install it wherever I want and with whatever package I need, and I am able to customize it.

How are customer service and support?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) customer support was really good and continues to look good to me.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps solve our pain points, and the knowledge base offered is really helpful. The documentation Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) provides is very clear, understandable, easy to query, and publicly available. Red Hat support is also very helpful for any issues.

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

I have not used any other RHEL system apart from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and it has been really helpful for me over the last 10 years.

I am not aware of us having used a different solution, but over the last 10 years, we have been using the same Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) solution.

How was the initial setup?

I manage my Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems using SaltStack. Earlier, I used Puppet, but now I am using Ansible. It is perfect, as all these tools are really helpful, and currently with Ansible, it looks good, and I do not see any pain points in deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems.

I have been involved in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) upgrades and migrations, and while not straightforward, they are also not that complex. The complexity depends on how critical the application that needs to be migrated is. I recently migrated from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7 to 8 and some from 8 to 9, and it really helped significantly, as I participated in those migrations.

What was our ROI?

I have seen a return on investment, especially in terms of time saved, as I can quickly roll out patches, which has really helped us.

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

I think the pricing is reasonable and not too high, and the setup cost is also reasonable. Licensing is handled by our enterprise team and is also within the limits. We are in a bundle with IBM, so we receive it for a lower price, which is my understanding.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have not evaluated any other options, and I am not searching for new alternatives. I am probably going to containerize our applications and migrate to OpenShift, as I already have an OpenShift license and the migration is in progress. The alternate option would be Red Hat CoreOS, which will replace Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or will be replaced by OpenShift.

What other advice do I have?

If you are a FinTech company, I would recommend choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because it provides security patches very quickly and is really effective in solving issues.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a really good operating system and is very helpful in providing patches and upgrading systems. I gave this review a rating of 9 out of 10.


    Daniel Goossen

Unified hybrid servers have improved reliability, compliance reporting, and identity access control

  • May 13, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) are primarily for our production servers where we run our ERP on RHEL, and some of our developers are using RHEL as delivered through Horizon as a VDI for their development. I also use it personally.

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points such as stability and multi-user access, making it easier to apply user permissions. The integrations with other environments are excellent.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) supports my hybrid cloud strategy by providing the ability to do a common build across everything, and while it is outside of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), using Ansible makes the uniformity between all of the systems on-premises and in the cloud much easier compared to Windows.

In the implementation of the Zero Trust model, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a crucial role as we run a lot of CyberArk, and all of the brokers and the PSM servers are running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), making it our infrastructure for identity and access management (IAM).

In managing regulatory compliance, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) plays a vital role as audit is always asking for a sudoers list from our Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) servers, and my ability to collect the data easily and then deliver it to the audit department is valuable.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk primarily from a stability standpoint as we have fewer issues with those servers. The redundancy and the ability to run some backup software across the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) platforms are also beneficial.

What needs improvement?

We actually do not use any of the features such as Identity Management, Lightspeed, or Satellite in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); instead, we are using Ansible. However, in discussions with some of the business people, we are looking at implementing Satellite.

While the features are great, making the documentation easier to navigate would be phenomenal.

For how long have I used the solution?

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

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the stability and reliability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten out of ten; I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For scalability, I also rate it ten out of ten; it is easy to scale out with no complaints.

How are customer service and support?

I evaluate the customer service and technical support of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as great; I have had to open tickets and received prompt responses with no unnecessary delays. The information I need to get it fixed when I need it has been excellent.

From one to ten, I rate the customer service and technical support a ten.

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

Prior to adopting Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I was using open-source Linux and Windows.

How was the initial setup?

My experience deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is very straightforward; I have not run into any problems, and it is simple and very straightforward.

What was our ROI?

I have seen a return on investment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) particularly in terms of minimizing downtime by moving some of our older systems running on open-source versions of Linux over to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). This shift has allowed us to get support and limit our downtime, which is crucial in our manufacturing sector where if the plant is down, they do not make money.

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

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing have been fair; I think it offers a good value, and I do not feel it is overpriced. You pay for what you get.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

While using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we looked at other solutions such as Ubuntu and SUSE, but there was no match.

What other advice do I have?

We do not have any AI workloads.

I have not used Lightspeed either.

The knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has pretty good documentation, although it can sometimes be hard to find and navigate.

Overall, I would give Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) a ten and my advice to other companies considering it is to implement it. Move forward and implement it because the support, community, software, and product are phenomenal. I rate this review a ten out of ten.


    Sathish Rajan

Secure operations have improved while automated management now simplifies daily administration

  • May 13, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) serves as the base operating system where all applications run. It is the platform I manage, and all applications run on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). I run IBM FileNet on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What is most valuable?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) offers excellent security, reliability, and stable security as a secured operating system. Security features have helped my organization because Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is already a locked down version of enterprise Linux distributions and is managed by Red Hat, with timely release of vulnerability fixes and patches that give a lot of security and peace of mind for enterprises.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has positively impacted my organization by ensuring that timely release of vulnerability fixes and patches keeps the system secure. All the latest versions and new features with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as an image and with AI capabilities add more value for enterprises using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

A specific outcome showing how Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has benefited my organization is improved security, and I am not aware of any downtime. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk, as I have not heard of any server reboot or crash throughout my career when it comes to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which speaks to its reliability.

SELinux is the most important security feature in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), as it is the most security-oriented feature. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) helps me solve pain points such as management of servers with Ansible automation, security capabilities, and timely release of vulnerabilities and security fixes, which combined create great value for enterprises.

What needs improvement?

An AI assistant specifically for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10 or the latest version of Red Hat Enterprise, such as an AI-assisted tool to get assistance on commands and syntax, would be beneficial.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for almost 17 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not seen any issues with the scalability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL); it is good or great.

How are customer service and support?

Customer support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is great.

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

I have only used Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and did not previously use a different solution.

What was our ROI?

I have not seen a return on investment, and I do not have that level of management information since I am an individual contributor.

What other advice do I have?

All recent capabilities introduced in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 10, including the AI inference server, are already great. I use Ansible for the management of servers and patching, and I find that management experience quite satisfying. I have not used much of the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and I have not used much of the documentation recently, so I cannot speak to that with certainty. I would recommend making use of Ansible automation with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and automating as much as possible. I rate this review a 9.


    Carson Mills

Years of reliable server hosting have supported secure proxies and critical database operations

  • May 13, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is used to provide servers to our users. A specific example of a service provided using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is Apache reverse proxy servers.

In addition to providing Apache reverse proxy servers, we also manage a database server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

What is most valuable?

I have been using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for 10 years. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is used to provide servers to our users. A specific example of a service provided using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is Apache reverse proxy servers.

In addition to providing Apache reverse proxy servers, we also manage a database server on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working in my current field for 10 years.

What other advice do I have?

I advise others looking into using Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to ensure you utilize the learning and training provided by Red Hat to get the most use out of it. I found that going through some of the certification process helped me familiarize myself with the features of the product.