# Red Hat Enterprise Linux Software Pricing, Alternatives & More 2026 | Capterra > With the help of Capterra, learn about Red Hat Enterprise Linux Software - reviews, pricing plans, popular comparisons to other Operating Systems products and more. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/229025/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux/pricing --- # Red Hat Enterprise Linux Software Review 2026: Features, Integrations, Pros & Cons Last updated on December 13, 2025 Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Description](#description)[Use cases](#use-cases)[Alternatives](#alternatives)[Features](#features)[Pricing](#pricing)[Support](#support)[Reviews](#reviews) Red Hat Enterprise Linux ## What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux? Redhat Enterprise Linux is an open-source operating system that can be run on multiple platforms to handle large quantites of data. The system comes with an image builder that IT teams can use to create edge-optimized OS images. ## What is Red Hat Enterprise Linux used for? [Operating Systems](https://www.capterra.com/operating-systems-software/) Overall rating Based on 26 user reviews Reviews sentiment Positive 88% Neutral 12% Negative 0% Starting price $99 Flat Rate, Per Year Free trial not available Capterra Shortlist charts the highest-rated and most popular products... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Our "Best of" badge program showcases products with the highest ratings... Do you work for Red Hat Enterprise Linux?[Manage this product listing](https://digitalmarkets.gartner.com/get-listed/claim-bx?url=http://www.redhat.com&name=Red Hat Enterprise Linux) ## Compare with a popular alternative Capterra selects software alternatives based on relevant features, verified user reviews and user interactions. Placement may be influenced by client status. ### Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.5 (26) VS. [### Windows 11](https://www.capterra.com/p/251507/Windows-11/) [4.4 (101)](https://www.capterra.com/p/251507/Windows-11/reviews/) Starting Price $99 Flat Rate, Per Year Starting Price Contact vendor Free Trial Free Version Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version Ease Of Use 4.3 (26) Ease Of Use 4.5 (101) Value For Money 4.3 (24) Value For Money 4.1 (81) Customer Service 4.4 (24) Customer Service 4.0 (72) ## Red Hat Enterprise Linux alternatives [Android 11](https://www.capterra.com/p/228982/Android-11/) [4.6 (121)](https://www.capterra.com/p/228982/Android-11/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 94% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/228982/Android-11/) [Ubuntu](https://www.capterra.com/p/229058/Ubuntu/) [4.7 (122)](https://www.capterra.com/p/229058/Ubuntu/reviews/) Starting price $225.00 Per User, Per Month Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 99% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/229058/Ubuntu/) Highest Rated [MacOS Big Sur](https://www.capterra.com/p/228984/MacOS-Big-Sur/) [4.8 (59)](https://www.capterra.com/p/228984/MacOS-Big-Sur/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 97% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/228984/MacOS-Big-Sur/) [iOS14](https://www.capterra.com/p/228981/iOS14/) [4.6 (53)](https://www.capterra.com/p/228981/iOS14/reviews/) Starting price Contact vendor for pricing Pricing Options Free Trial Free Version User Rating 94% of reviewers rated it above 4 stars [Learn More](https://www.capterra.com/p/228981/iOS14/) [View all alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/229025/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux/alternatives/) ## Features Features with the highest number of reviews are displayed first. Those that have no reviews appear next, sorted alphabetically. System Updates 4.5 (21) 57.14% of 21 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Automatically update to the latest version Memory Management 4.8 (20) 55.00% of 20 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Store and save retrievable data Data Security 4.6 (19) 68.42% of 19 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Protect sensitive data for digital privacy File Management 4.6 (18) 55.56% of 18 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Create, save, and store files App Management 4.4 (17) 41.18% of 17 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Download applications that can be internally saved Kernels 4.6 (17) 58.82% of 17 reviewers that rated this feature as important or highly important Manage communication between software and hardware Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 features Download applications that can be internally saved Protect sensitive data for digital privacy A way of interacting with a desktop computer using items such as windows, icons, and menus Create, save, and store files For the intention to be used by developers Manage communication between software and hardware Store and save retrievable data Automatically update to the latest version A visual way of interacting with a computer using items such as windows, icons, and menus, used by most modern operating systems Features 4.7 (26) 4.7 Based on 26 reviews ## Pricing Value for money 4.3 (24) Basic $99.00 Flat Rate,Per Year Value for money 4.3 (24) 4.3 Based on 24 reviews ## Support, customer service and training options Customer Service 4.4 (24) Support - Email/Help Desk - FAQs/Forum - Knowledge Base - Phone Support - 24/7 (Live rep) - Chat Training - In Person - Live Online - Webinars - Documentation - Videos Deployment - Web - Android - iPhone/iPad Typical users - Freelancers - Small businesses - Mid size businesses - Enterprises Customer Service 4.4 (24) 4.4 Based on 24 reviews ## User reviews Overall rating 4.5 Based on 26 reviews Filter by rating 5(17) 4(6) 3(3) 2(0) 1(0) Mentioned topic Sorted by most recent AU Anonymous User System Engineer Transportation/Trucking/Railroad ### "Enterprise Linux distro for companies, safety and reliability" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 10/10 March 27, 2026 I've been using this product for over 15 years and am extremely satisfied. I enjoy using it in my daily work. I really appreciate how Red Hat is maintaining the product's life cycles. Pros Its security and lightweight design make it one of the best OS. It includes numerous tools for configure and manage services, develop applications, and, if necessary, troubleshooting and finding the right way to resolve problem. The quality of Red Hat Support is the top, all software is maintained and supported, security patches are released regularly . Cons For small businesses, the only downside is the cost, but at the same time I can confirm the quality of the product and support. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Jeff T. Manager Hospitality ### "Best OS Reliability in the Market" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 7/10 February 7, 2026 A highly reliable, secure enterprise OS with strong support and stability, though it comes with higher cost and complexity. Pros Excellent stability, security and support is ideal for enterprise environments that demand reliability and predictable performance. Cons Subscription cost and licensing complexity can feel heavy, especially for smaller teams or simpler use cases. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Jim C. Lead application support analyst Information Technology and Services ### "Using redhat in MES testing module." 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 3.0 3.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 October 26, 2025 Our team use php and mysql5.6 in Redhat as manufacturing MES QA modules in our vendor product line,very old architecture but stable,already used for over 10 years. Pros The stability and enterprise support let us can confidentially use it in our manufacturing MES testing module in the vendor manufacturing product line. Cons It did not provide default repo configuration,I need to use local ISO dvd to set up myslef,took ke some time. You also need basic familiarity with Linux command. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. SB Sreerekha B. Senior Developer Computer Software ### "Usage of redhat linux" 3.0 Overall Rating 3.0 3.0 Ease of Use 3.0 3.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 6/10 May 21, 2025 It is good to use. It can be used as windiws adter installing the compatible software as windiws skins depending on customers choice, so to get windows commandlibe capabilities Pros The redhat linux is convenently can be used as sn operating sysyem to develop applications and maintain files Cons It has shell in its core operating system. May not be used applicable to be used in wiindiws directly Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. Miguel D. IT Manager Transportation/Trucking/Railroad ### "Red hat linux, the way to go" 5.0 Overall Rating 5.0 5.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 February 4, 2025 Red hat has been my favorite linux compilation since several years now, and continue to use it every day Pros Easy of use, great support and online forums /community Cons Some functions depending of server role can be difficult to configure Alternatives considered [SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop](https://www.capterra.com/p/229040/Suse-Linux-Enterprise-Desktop/) Reasons for choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux Because of the greater forums support and online community Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. JH Justin H. CTO Education Management ### "Works well with VMWare / VMs but choosing and acquiring the right subscription is expensive and time consuming" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 5.0 5.0 Likelihood to Recommend 3/10 January 14, 2025 Pros Trusted supplier in the space with alternative versions like centos for non-production environments. Very capable and updated frequently OS and support for our x86 systems including VMs. It is very VMWare ESXi friendly. Cons The subscription pricing made it difficult for us to roll this out wide-scale. Further, finding the right subscription and actually acquiring it was not easy or straightforward. Alternatives considered [CentOS Linux](https://www.capterra.com/p/229026/CentOS-Linux/) [Debian](https://www.capterra.com/p/229027/Debian/) Reasons for choosing Red Hat Enterprise Linux For enterprise level support - the others only have community support. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. KM Kaveri M. Technical Associate Information Technology and Services ### "Advanced version of OS" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 5.0 5.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 9/10 February 14, 2024 The OS is well-documented and supported, with a great user community. Pros It is a open Source OS. It is more stable than Windows. It's simple to install, write, and compile code in various languages. Cons Identifying the dependencies of certain packages and finding their dependencies could be simpler. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. DZ Daniele Z. Senior Unix System Administrator Medical Practice ### "Distribuzione enterprise storica ma tendente alla chiusura" 3.0 Overall Rating 3.0 3.0 Ease of Use 4.0 4.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 5/10 November 2, 2023 Pros Distribuzione molto solida, con una buona gestione delle risorse ed una velocità generale tutto sommato buona, sia per piccoli progetti che per architetture complesse Cons La tendenza ad eliminare applicazioni opensource per virare verso soluzioni proprietarie al fine di far pagare nuove licenze di uso non ci piace molto (vedi tomcat/jboss, portainer/docker, ansible). Le alternative sono comunque installabili ma non rientrano nei pacchetti che vengono patchati e aggiornati dal team redhat. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. MS Maha S. Assistant Professor Computer Software ### "RedHat Enterprise Linux: Versatile Platform for Deploying Network Servers" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 5.0 5.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 3.0 3.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 August 13, 2023 Great server deployment experience and performance with multi-threading and extensive probabilistic sketches and polling in IoT environments. Pros My main encounter with RedHat Enterprise Linux is when I worked on the development and deployment of a home automation server with IoT integration support. I used RHEL for managing the communication with the IoT gateway and in the statistical analysis of collected sensor data. I applied many probabilistic sketching techniques on top of it and with huge amounts of IoT data the server performed dramatically well even with several IoT polling mechanisms and multi-threaded server functions. Very smooth network configuration processes makes RHEL a perfect server platform that abstracts a lot of the Linux intricate configuration complexities. Highly recommend it for enterprise server deployments even on a large scale. Cons Many functions are still command-line based which makes dealing with it by Linux beginners a bit hard. Review source Incentivized review: software users are invited to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive for their time and effort. All incentivized reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. WI Wassim I. Associate Professor Computer Networking ### "Redhat Enterprise Linux: A big name for Developing and Deploying Enterprise Servers" 4.0 Overall Rating 4.0 4.0 Ease of Use 3.0 3.0 Features 4.0 4.0 Customer Service 4.0 4.0 Likelihood to Recommend 8/10 August 2, 2023 I realized very good performance when running client/server applications on top of RHEL using the Java platform. Even when the communication is secured using SSL/TLS, the concurrency support was really impressive compared to other Linux distributions such as Kali and Ubuntu. Pros I used Redhat Enterprise Linux for developing and deploying custom client/server applications using the Java Socket API. The main motive behind this development is to test the performance of SSL Sockets compared to normal Sockets using the Java Server Socket Extension API. We deployed the client and Server code on separtate Linux VMs and we managed the virtualization using the Vmware VSphere virtualization server. We realized a very good server concurrency of the JVM on RHEL compared to Kali and Ubuntu. This is the main advantange we depicted in RHEL that made it a very suitable enterprise platform for server-side code. The plan is to test with other programming languages for developing the server code such as in Python and C++ to see if we can generalize the performance enhancement compared to other Linux platforms. Cons RHEL is a bit laggy when loading a GUI desktop environment. Although this is not the duty of an Enterprise Server environment to provide sophisticated desktop services, we believe that this could enhance the user experience during the development and deployment phases of the enterprise application. Review source Non-incentivized review: any software user can leave a review for any product listed on our site. All submitted reviews are subject to our verification process prior to publication. [View all Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/p/229025/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux/reviews/) Popular comparisons [Windows 11 vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.capterra.com/compare/229025-251507/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-vs-Windows-11)[Ubuntu vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.capterra.com/compare/229025-229058/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-vs-Ubuntu)[Linux Mint vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.capterra.com/compare/229025-229032/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-vs-Linux-Mint) [Debian vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.capterra.com/compare/229025-229027/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-vs-Debian)[Oracle Linux vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux](https://www.capterra.com/compare/229025-229031/Red-Hat-Enterprise-Linux-vs-Oracle-Linux)  Independent research methodology Capterra's researchers use a mix of verified reviews, independent research and objective methodologies to bring you selection and ranking information you can trust. 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