Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.3 out of 10
N/A
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is distribution of the Linux operating system originally developed in Germany.N/A
Pricing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Considered Both Products
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL provides more support and has a bigger community, RHEL is a more mature product and has Fedora and Centos as upstream products to help make it more stable.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Satellite
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Rocky Linux. CentOS, Arch about every distribution of Linux. Stability and reliability are king and the support. If something happens or you just hit a bug, that's why you go to Red Hat.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
It's superior. I mean they're all Linux so it's all that code, but I find that the intangibles that you get with Red Hat, meaning the enterprise support, the lifecycle, that's what clearly makes it better than the rest of them.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Ubuntu ssa. Most other Linux platforms I've used. It's better in some areas. It's not as good in the sum.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Windows 11 has more stability and great functionality compared to older windows versions, and the gap between windows and Linux has shortened. You can pick from different OS’s to build enterprise level software on nowadays. But Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is still among the …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat OpenShift
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Direct competitor on an os level. RHEL just has a better feel and usability. I feel more comfortable with it. Both work. But RHEL is my preference
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
due to support options, long term experience and as certified os for sap
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
AlmaLinux OS and Oracle Linux
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Suse is too complicated once they trapped you into using the UI for configuration.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Satellite
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Far better vendor experience and support compared to Oracle. Better security and update cadence compared to CentOS. Better docs with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the ability to bring data together though Red Hat Insights is a powerful tool. This helps feed into other …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL because of more wide adoption, stability, general knowledge on the platform and less nonsensical approach to various platform functionalities
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
I much prefer Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) over Windows. There is way more customization and flexibility, and being able to use Linux as the OS over Windows gives additional flexibility for various use cases. I prefer the intuitive use cases of Mac, but the lack of …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL helps us provide better service to our customers and to help them to make the best decisions for their business in order to achieve better customer satisfaction in the future and in the long run to achieve better outcomes for the company in the future.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
There isn't a big difference but they do not have the same level of support. Linux overall has come a long way
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL Enterprise support is better than Ubuntu.
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Debian OS, Ubuntu and openSUSE YaST
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
We haven't used anything comparable to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). We are a WIndows and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL )shop. We only support those two
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Performance is much better of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server than other product which I have used.
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server works well with the SUSE Manager, it really simplifies everything.
We also do have SUSE 4 SAP, and the SUSE Manager is able to manage them all, even other (up to date) Linux distributions. Patching has never been that easy and the SALT integration …
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
We find SUSE to be as good or better in all categories especially version upgrade paths. Once you have in upgraded a 10 year old OS 4 full versions with only 5 reboots in 3 hours you will not want to go back to dead end rebuilds.
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
We went straight to SLES when we initially started migrating oracle to hana since at that time, HANA came on a pre-installed server that had to be purchased from an official vendor, and SLES was the only allowed OS. We stuck with SLES after we became certified to do our own …
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
The lack of professional support in distributions like Debian or Ubuntu were crucial for the decision using SUSE instead.
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
For our environment, SLES provides a more cost-efficient, standards-based Linux with Enterprise support available than their competitors. They also provide the best compatibility between their enterprise Linux and community distributions.
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
For running SAP workloads, I'd definitely recommend using SLES. AIX is running on power infrastructure which is very pricey and RedHat required a different license and a lot more parameterization to get SAP up and running properly.
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
SLES is comparable to RedHat, where both of them have massive customer loyalty in their own niche markets.
However, RedHat is much widely used, even though both of them are RPM-based. RedHat has the backing of the USA tech companies which just make them a giant compared to …
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
It is very similar, but SLES wins on the manageability front, with good built-in tools, the ability to upgrade major versions, and the ability to run on the latest Power 9 systems. It is our platform of choice for SAP; there is great collaboration between SAP and SUSE, and it …
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
We consulted our service provider on their recommendation and made some research ourselves. It was a hands down win for Suse Linux on both fronts so we readily chose Suse Linux for our operating system of choice.
Red Hat and Centos would almost be of the same distro package, …
Chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
We have been using RHEL in most of our other projects. We chose Suse Linux for their pricing model and ease of patching. There is no other major pros and cons of RHEL over Suse Linux and vice versa.
Best Alternatives
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Small Businesses
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Likelihood to Recommend
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is well suited for cloud environments, fast deployments and to run non-intensive apps/tools (with low memory and low cpu consumption).Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) might not be suited for really huge databases and intensive CPU processing.
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SLES is a good fit for running supported enterprise applications like SAP, HANA, oracle,.. We use it to run all our SAP workloads, and so far everything has worked great. All libraries are right in the repository, all documentation is correct and the support answers really fast in case you have problems.
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Pros
  • Virtualization, like the operating system level task. I see this product is very good and it blends very well with the middleware components like all the JBoss and other things. And other than that, either you install it or a virtual machine or physical servers, it works seamlessly anywhere. And if you want to go further, like Red Hat OpenShift or those things also work very nice with it.
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  • Seems Custom made for SAP workloads
  • Longest standing collaboration between platform and apps
  • SuSE for SAP works seamless on-prem, on SAP Cloud, Azure, AWS & GCP
  • Support for oldest SP of SuSE so our customers can run their business without fear
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Cons
  • Well, one of the things, this ties right back to my previous answer from what it sounds like, the cloud platform for Insights doesn't currently have an easy way to generate CVE compliance reports, or do scans for where you have remediations required, but it does not currently produce those reports in a way that I could just hand off to our security team and be like, here's our compliance, here's where all the things are specifically because Red Hat does backporting of patches and a lot of security tools don't know how to handle that and think that we're vulnerable when we're not. So from everything I've heard, it's possible. That's why I'm excited for it. But it's not easily pushed button generated report yet. So we're working with them to get that in there.
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  • The support window for service packs after a new SP is released is too short.
  • Community engagement is low.
  • There are times when supported packages fall too far behind and create compatibility issues with applications. The Open Build Service usually provides a way around this, though.
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Likelihood to Renew
We find RHEL to be a superior OS with stable operations and long life. It is also easier to use and fix then most other OS's.
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No answers on this topic
Usability
The Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) distro is the simplest enterprise version of Red Hat that is enterprise supported and when you deploy as many VMs as we do, it is vital to have that enterprise support. On top of the enterprise support, having access to a commercially supported backbone for updates and upgrades is a huge plus.
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For the breadth of services, features and overall performance, I believe Suse Linux is a great choice for any enterprise. It still has to grow a bit in areas like online help forums and documents, but we are pretty much satisfied with our choice.
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Reliability and Availability
Product support and regular patches.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
As with any OS enhanced testing will need to be done prior to application integration.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Red Hat support has really come a long way in the last 10 years, The general support is great, and the specialized product support teams are extremely knowledgeable about their specific products. Response time is good and you never need to escalate.
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It's great for basic support issues. But it's less suited for anything that is either obscure or uncommon, and it is very hard to escalate, unless you've built a relationship with your vendor/salesperson.
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
Third party training was fast but mostly unnecessary as we were already Unix trained and Linux familiar
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Implementation Rating
Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
It's superior. I mean they're all Linux so it's all that code, but I find that the intangibles that you get with Red Hat, meaning the enterprise support, the lifecycle, that's what clearly makes it better than the rest of them.
Read full review
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server works well with the SUSE Manager, it really simplifies everything. We also do have SUSE 4 SAP, and the SUSE Manager is able to manage them all, even other (up to date) Linux distributions. Patching has never been that easy and the SALT integration is also working without any problems.
Read full review
Scalability
Operational ease of use backed by support
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We have successfully deployed on physical servers, VMs and in cloud all over the globe from templates of our own design
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Return on Investment
  • RHEL provides a good base OS and additional tool sets for various deployments.
  • We are able to use Satellite to manage hundreds of OS's behind our corporate firewall. No other OS provides the level that RHEL does.
  • It is a known good quantity. Their support for the OS is amazing.
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  • It allows a very small team to manage a large number of servers, due to its automation and manageability.
  • SAP supports it very well, making it straightforward to manage. There are also "recipes" for Oracle which has all of the requisites to install an Oracle DB; which helps with deployment immensely.
  • It lets us run large SAP instances in SLES on Power, helping us with support, manageability, and performance.
  • Support costs are high, but required for SLES for SAP.
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ScreenShots