Our main use case for Rocky Linux is to host servers and developer environments for leading telecom vendors.
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11 reviews
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Has supported our hybrid cloud migration and reduced vendor dependency with strong community collaboration
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The best features Rocky Linux offers, in my experience, include long-term support, stability, and one-to-one binary compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Rocky Linux has been a major driver for our cloud migration strategy and has proven to be one of the most cost-effective solutions for us, allowing us to save huge revenue while maintaining fantastic consistency with updates.
What needs improvement?
From a feature or experience perspective, it has been fantastic, but the only drawback we have seen is that even though there are timely deliveries of security patches and vulnerability fixes, the Rocky Linux Security Advisor or RLSA updates via the DNF utilities are broken or delayed. When we use the DNF functionality to search the affected RLSA or RLSA with CVE IDs, it's not working as expected, and the mirrors or the XML files need to be updated similar to Red Hat, which would help us keep our environment more secure and make maintenance easier. Otherwise, we have to do extensive research to identify the affected packages or RPMs with specific RLSA numbers.
I would like to see improvements in the security areas and updates of RLSA details as soon as the RLSA numbers are updated in the XML file. Security has been a major driver for IT organizations across the world and must be addressed at a faster pace. The unavailability of RLSA in the DNF search has been a major drawback that I would like to see improved in the future.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux for three years for our day-to-day use cases.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have seen a stable Rocky Linux environment as of now.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our solution does not currently involve architecture with scalability.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support for Rocky Linux is excellent, and the documentation is also very good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
It has been a wonderful experience associating with Rocky Linux, and we would continue to use it full-fledged. I don't see that we have to choose any alternative OS in the near future.
What was our ROI?
ROI has been good as we have significant open source community involvement. In fact, we have increased our footprints, allowing us to onboard more resources or employees, which is a positive sign.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Rocky Linux is good and streamlined, with no hiccups.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Rocky Linux, we evaluated other options including Ubuntu, Oracle Linux, and a few other flavors, but since Rocky Linux has one-to-one binary compatibility with Red Hat, it was the best fit.
What other advice do I have?
Rocky Linux has been a ready-to-use solution for us, so we don't need to have vendor dependency or vendor lock for any support or help. The community has been a great help in resolving all issues, and while from a monetary point of view, it has resulted in significant savings, we cannot provide the exact numbers as some of this is company confidential.
There is not much need for further improvements at this juncture.
If you want to get a premium product with the best in-house community support, Rocky Linux would be the one solution.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Rocky Linux a 9 out of 10.
Has supported critical applications and reduced infrastructure costs through community-driven updates
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Rocky Linux is that all the applications used by our company are hosted in Rocky Linux servers, so we will be maintaining, remediating the vulnerabilities which are getting reported on the servers, patching the servers and making them up to date, and helping all the users who log into servers to use their applications without any issues.
A specific example of an application where I'm using Rocky Linux in my company is the POS machines which are used by the customers, where all the POS related applications are hosted in Rocky Linux operating system, so that's where Rocky Linux came into the picture, and from the OS level, we will be giving all the support wherever it is necessary.
The middleware packages such as Apache Tomcat, Java, HTTPD are all running on these Rocky Linux servers, so we ensure all those services are up and running without any issues.
What is most valuable?
The best features Rocky Linux offers are that it is much easier to use. Since it is open source, whatever issues we face, we can get answers from the community for each and every issue we encounter, so finding a solution for each problem is much easier, and that's the major feature I feel for Rocky Linux.
When comparing Rocky Linux to Red Hat, it is more stable, as whatever issues arise, we can solve them quickly, and since there is an open community, we receive help from everybody who is using this.
Rocky Linux has helped our organization significantly in terms of cost. If we were purchasing a Red Hat subscription, it would cost significantly more, but since Rocky Linux is open source and free, it has helped with cost reduction, allowing us to utilize those funds for other needed things.
When we moved from Red Hat to Rocky Linux, we saved around 70% of the cost which was used for subscriptions. That money is now used for other things such as middleware applications and monitoring applications including DataDog and Dynatrace.
What needs improvement?
To improve Rocky Linux, providing releases for each package, firmware, and kernel more quickly would be beneficial. Currently, it takes more than one month to release a new package or kernel, so speeding that up would help reduce reported vulnerability remediations.
Documenting the frequently asked questions and related issues in a PDF or Word document would be helpful so that everybody can refer to them, eliminating the need to post a question and wait for a reply, thus reducing time delay.
Currently, there aren't many needed improvements, only the support aspect needs a little improvement. Everything else is going well and smoothly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux for more than six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Rocky Linux is stable, scalable, and it is very much easier to use.
How are customer service and support?
Regarding customer support, since it is open source, most of the solutions are available on the community page, but even if we raise a support ticket, we receive a resolution or a reply from the team within two business days.
I would rate the customer support a seven.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before choosing Rocky Linux, we were considering moving with Red Hat itself, planning to move from RHEL 8 to RHEL 9, but after considering the cost involving Red Hat, we thought about an open source solution, which led us to Rocky Linux.
What was our ROI?
When it comes to return on investment, a lot of money is saved since we moved from a purchased license to the open source provided by Rocky Linux. Time is also saved since whenever an issue arises, we get resolutions from the community without needing to raise a ticket with the support team.
What other advice do I have?
When we encounter an issue, we look all over the internet, not only depending on the community, so whichever solutions provide us with proper resolution are considered.
My advice to others looking into using Rocky Linux is that it is much easier to use, it's scalable, performance is good, and there is no cost involved in using it.
I rate Rocky Linux nine out of ten.
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?
Has supported automated deployments and improved security through consistent patching
What is our primary use case?
As a Cloud Ops Engineer, we are setting up the server on the EC2 machine with Rocky Linux, while also doing some setup related to the frameworks for Ruby. We are installing their dependencies related to the Ruby on Rails application and other security-level software such as Rapid7, CrowdStrike, and many more.
On Rocky Linux, we have deployed a Ruby on Rails application, and we have set up other applications as well.
We are not doing this stuff manually, as we have set up an Ansible automation script to set up all this stuff on Rocky Linux, and for the installation and server setup, we are using Terraform. Using Terraform, we are spinning up the instance on AWS EC2.
I purchased Rocky Linux through the AWS Marketplace.
What is most valuable?
Rocky Linux provides us with extended maintenance, security patches, and support lifecycle aligned with RHEL, making it highly reliable for critical systems. For production deployment, Rocky Linux is a great choice because it offers full RHEL compatibility without licensing costs, along with strong community support.
If we are planning to migrate from CentOS, it was very smooth and straightforward, and we can follow their official document to migrate from CentOS to Rocky Linux. Rocky Linux 8 is supported until 2029, and Rocky Linux 9 is supported until 2032, which is a significant benefit.
Previously it was CentOS, which is already EOL, and now we have the latest packages and an up-to-date operating system, so we get the most benefit at the security level. Also, performance-wise, we are seeing improvement in the application and day-to-day operations.
What needs improvement?
I have no suggestions regarding how Rocky Linux can be improved. I haven't identified any areas that need improvement yet.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux for over a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Rocky Linux is stable in my experience.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Rocky Linux's scalability is very easy. Even if the server is not responding and we want to attach the volume on another instance or a temporary instance, it is very easy and straightforward with no hiccups.
How are customer service and support?
I have not reached out to customer support for Rocky Linux. This has not yet been discussed with my security team, as this is recent, and the security team started checking on this.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We switched to Rocky Linux because our previous OS was EOL, and we had to switch to the new OS, so we chose Rocky Linux.
What was our ROI?
Regarding return on investment, we have chosen the same exact resource that we were using earlier, so there is no immediate return on investment. That needs to be identified if we can cut down our resources with a smaller instance, but that has not yet been figured out.
I notice money saved as a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There is no extra cost for a license if we are purchasing Rocky Linux from the AWS Marketplace.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I didn't evaluate other options before choosing Rocky Linux.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Rocky Linux a nine out of ten.
If you are using any other RHEL-based OS, Rocky Linux is very similar to other RHEL operating systems.
I see some performance-related issues, but we are still checking on that, and we don't know if it is related to the OS or the resource; that is something still to be checked from our end.
I would recommend doing a POC on your existing application or use case with Rocky Linux. If it works smoothly, then observe it for a few periods, and if it works properly for your application and whatever your use case is, proceed with implementation. Each application and use case works totally differently, so if it works for some applications properly, it's not a given that it will work for every application. First do a POC, and if it works properly, then you can proceed with implementation.
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?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Experience improvements with the switch to open-source systems and identify avenues for enhanced virtualization support
What is our primary use case?
I am responsible for virtualization and networking, and other services related to the systems including Linux and Windows, but the security part is actually the responsibility of the French team in our headquarter.
Currently, I am dealing with Linux systems. We were on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and because of the license system, we have changed to use Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux.
Rocky Linux is suitable for our needs. We haven't specialized applications, just managing our network. Here we construct a model of infrastructure independent which must respond to the needs of our client, and we make tests. These are tests for VBS and some electronics that are made and developed here. It's an experimental infrastructure with many dynamic changes and many needs from our project manager. With our team, we can provide support as needed. We have a very good team with high skills in Linux and development, and it works correctly with no enterprise cost or enterprise license. At the same time, we have to conform to ISO 27001. We try to have the latest patch management, and we try to use some open source centralized platforms to manage or supervise what we have.
We are using Rocky Linux on servers including Cisco UCS M5, M4, and we have some Dells 750, 740, with high-performance computing tasks. We have stronger servers.
What is most valuable?
Rocky Linux is quite good for us and for the nature of our business. By using Foreman, Katello, for example, the management system and repository for patch management is very quiet and very good for our business because we don't need more.
Until now, we haven't had any problems with integration of Rocky Linux with other products in my system.
We haven't needed technical support for Rocky Linux, but I think because of the complexity and the number of VMs that we have, we can consider going for a support contract. It's not a bad idea because, while we haven't encountered very difficult problems, with the complexity of the network infrastructure, we need to be supported by the editor.
What needs improvement?
If I find something which is strong with virtualization with Rocky Linux, it's an alternative that I can study and spend time learning about, trying it, making tests, validating, and perhaps ultimately migrating.
We haven't implemented Rocky Linux container management yet, but we have an idea to find an alternative solution to VMware because of the license model. To migrate to a solution, we need to improve our skills for the first step, and for the second step, we must be able to support the developer teams. What I'm sure about is that we are looking for a solution for virtualization in order to migrate our VMware platform.
For how long have I used the solution?
One year ago, we switched to version 9.4, Alma and Rocky Linux, and now we are on 9.5.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
I cannot answer how Rocky Linux frequent updates have aided our organization in staying secure because it's not under my responsibility, but what I am sure about is that in the next three years, we will continue to use Linux.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I cannot judge if Rocky Linux is complex to use for the first time or if it is intuitive because we use very simple applications such as DHCP, DNS, ICS. I don't remember encountering any difficulties because the infrastructure is for tests and is not an enterprise infrastructure. We haven't deployed LDAP or Active Directory. We don't have this kind of complexity or mail servers. For storage, we are using the Dell EMC storage device hardware, Unity. We don't have the complexity to communicate with Rocky Linux or other systems with our storage network. Perhaps in the future, we might meet some difficulties, which is why I said it might be a good idea to have support for Rocky Linux.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The initial setup of Rocky Linux is easy. It's well done. For my team, we haven't found any problems in the first initial setup. We work with an image with which we can reconstruct what we need of the virtual component.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were a customer of Red Hat for Linux distribution. We studied Rocky Linux and learned from documentation and information on the internet. It's the successor of CentOS, which we used for five to seven years. When CentOS reached end of support, we tried to migrate. We got two alternatives, AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. It seems that Rocky Linux is more similar to CentOS than AlmaLinux. AlmaLinux is based on binary, and we identified some latency when using our application. Two or three servers are working on AlmaLinux currently, and all the rest was migrated to Rocky Linux.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Rocky Linux is easy. It's well done. For my team, we haven't found any problems in the first initial setup. We work with an image with which we can reconstruct what we need of the virtual component.
What was our ROI?
I would rate Rocky Linux seven or eight as a minimum.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We switched to Rocky Linux because of the license price, and in our business, we don't need to have a higher cost as that is not a good idea.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We studied Rocky Linux through documentation and information on the internet. It's the successor of CentOS, which we used for five to seven years. When CentOS reached end of support, we tried to migrate. We got two alternatives, AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux. Rocky Linux is more similar to CentOS than AlmaLinux. AlmaLinux is based on binary, and we identified some latency when using our application. Two or three servers are working on AlmaLinux currently, and all the rest was migrated to Rocky Linux.
What other advice do I have?
I cannot understand the meaning of the question regarding whether we purchased Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux on the AWS Marketplace or somewhere else. I am not sure if we bought our current products on AWS Marketplace.
The problem with all products now is the manner of licensing. Even international or worldwide enterprises have difficulties with the cost of the new model of license in Cisco, Red Hat, and VMware. After the Broadcom acquisition of VMware, every time we ask for a budget, we have difficulties getting what we need. It's becoming difficult for enterprises. Even though I'm working for Sagemcom, a worldwide enterprise, they don't want to spend money on this kind of license if it is not needed.
Rocky Linux is popular in my region as it's a successor of CentOS. CentOS was very popular, so everybody that used CentOS and lost the support will look for a solution to substitute it. The nearest alternative to CentOS is Rocky Linux.
I would rate Rocky Linux a 7 out of 10.
Scripting and networking management run smoothly with competent backend operations
What is our primary use case?
My typical use case for Rocky Linux is that it's the backend operating system for managing where we have a lot of scripts managing networks.
I don't have a use case for AI integration yet because we simply did not look into it, so I don't know if it's there or not.
What is most valuable?
The experience of working with Rocky Linux is the same as with other Linux distributions; there was no difficulty for me in learning how to work with it.
Rocky Linux is similar to other distributions. I did some research on Google, and then it was manageable without needing documentation.
What needs improvement?
To be honest, Rocky Linux is almost similar to each Linux distribution, so I have no specific reason why it should offer me its features.
I haven't noticed anything special that could be done better in Rocky Linux.
For how long have I used the solution?
I switched less than a year ago from my previous company, and I think they have been using it for one or two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The experience of working with Rocky Linux is the same as with other Linux distributions; there was no difficulty for me in learning how to work with it.
How are customer service and support?
First of all, there is in-house knowledge for handling technical support or community issues.
If I have specific issues that couldn't be resolved by myself, I either contact an outside ICT company with specialized engineers or contact the vendors.
We have not yet needed to contact a vendor regarding Rocky Linux.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
A server on VMware rolls out the template, so it's a one-hour job to deploy it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
What other advice do I have?
I'm just using tools, so I'm not in any decision making.
The decision is made at the customer, so it's not my decision. I'm not in any decision maker role.
All these decisions have been made. I'm just following it, and for me, there's no real preference between A or B.
I switched less than a year ago from my previous company, and I think they have been using it for one or two years.
It's a hard question to determine the most helpful or useful features in this tool.
I rate Rocky Linux eight out of ten. An eight means that I'm satisfied with it; a product having a ten never exists because things can always be better.
I have nothing really in mind that could make Rocky Linux a nine out of ten.
Allows us to set up multiple virtual machines quickly and requires minimum maintenance
What is most valuable?
The platform's ease of setup, reliability, and minimal maintenance are valuable features. The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward.
What needs improvement?
Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Rocky Linux for approximately 18 months, which aligns with its release timeline. We are currently using version 9.4 of the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The product is stable and reliable. I rate the stability a nine.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Approximately 40 to 50 customers are using the solution. Most of our on-premises servers run Linux, with some running multiple instances. I would rate the scalability as a nine. It performs very well in scaling scenarios.
How are customer service and support?
I have not utilized official technical support and have relied on community resources and forums.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is straightforward, with minimal manual intervention. Depending on the customer's requirements, it is deployed on cloud-based systems or on-premises hardware.
The deployment typically takes about an hour. Virtual machines can be set up in this timeframe, with additional time needed for specific customer configurations.
I rate the process a nine and a half.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three.
What other advice do I have?
The solution allows us to quickly set up multiple virtual machines, reducing costs and requiring less management than other systems.
It is a robust solution for various server needs. I rate it a nine.
Installation, setup, and deployment are easy to manage
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution in my company to do some automation stuff to run Ansible, and it has an administration server to provide all the Linux control like a client node can be connected to that master node. Basically, it is an administration node, and I can manage all of the on-premises machines. Basically, it acts as a bastion host or jump host for me.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability. The tool's stability is similar to CentOS. The project for CentOS is not functional as of now, a reason why I moved to Fedora and Rocky Linux by another distributor.
What needs improvement?
I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux for three years and seven months.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Around 400 people in my company use the tool.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted technical support for the solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I do use multiple operating systems, like CentOS, Red Hat, Fedora, and Rocky, which are all enterprise OS tools meant for commercial use only.
How was the initial setup?
The product's installation, setup, and deployment are easy to manage.
The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. My company also uses AWS, Ubuntu versions, Amazon Linux versions, and Red Hat, so the images are used by opting for a cloud provider.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
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