Listing Thumbnail

    CIS Hardened Image Level 1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

     Info
    Deployed on AWS
    AWS Free Tier
    This product has charges associated with the pre-built hardening to the CIS Benchmarks™ and recurring maintenance. The CIS Hardened Images® are hardened in accordance with the associated CIS Benchmarks, an industry best practice for secure configuration. Reduce cost, time, and risk by building your AWS solution with CIS AMIs.
    4.4

    Overview

    The CIS Hardened Image Level 1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 is a pre-configured image built by the Center for Internet Security (CIS®) for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It is a pre-configured, security-hardened image that aligns with the robust security recommendations, the CIS Benchmarks, making it easier for organizations to meet regulatory requirements.

    Not only is this image pre-hardened to the CIS Benchmarks guidance, but it is also patched monthly in alignment with the updates from the software vendor.

    Key Benefits

  • Enhanced Security: Mitigates risks like malware, denial of service, and authorization issues by following globally-recognized secure configuration guidance to support your cloud security posture management (CSPM) program.
  • Compliance Readiness: Helps your organization comply with PCI DSS, FedRAMP, DoD Cloud Computing SRG, FISMA, select NIST publications, and more.
  • Faster Deployment: Pre-configured according to CIS Benchmarks, allowing you to deploy secure virtual machine images.
  • Consistency Across Environments: Ensures consistent security configurations across development, testing, and production environments, reducing drift and compatibility risks.
  • Cost Efficiency: Lowers remediation efforts, reduces attack surface, and minimizes business loss from security incidents.
  • Easier Maintenance: Regular updates ensure that your systems are always in line with the latest security standards and software patches.

    This image is hardened against the corresponding Level 1 profile which is intended to be practical and prudent, provide a clear security benefit, and not inhibit the utility of the technology beyond acceptable means. No packages are installed on or removed from this image outside of those already present on the base image or as recommended in alignment with the corresponding CIS Benchmark recommendations.

    To demonstrate conformance to the CIS Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 Level 1 Benchmark, industry-recognized hardening guidance, each image includes an HTML report from CIS Configuration Assessment Tool (CIS-CAT® Pro). Each CIS Hardened Image contains the following files:

  • Base_CIS-CAT_Report.html - this provides a report of CIS-CAT Pro run against the instance before any change is made by CIS (e.g., software updates, CIS hardening).
  • basevm.txt - this provides a list of the packages resident on the instance prior to any change being made by CIS (e.g., software updates, CIS hardening).
  • CIS-CAT_Report.html - this provides a report of CIS-CAT Pro run against the instance after the corresponding CIS Benchmark was applied to the image.
  • Exceptions.txt - this provides a list of recommendations that are not applied because the configuration of those recommendations may inhibit the use of this image in this CSP, require environment-specific expertise, or hinder the integration of this image with CSP services or extensions.
  • afterhardening.txt - this provides a list of packages resident on the instance after the corresponding CIS Benchmark was applied to the image.

    These reports are located in /home/CIS_Hardened_Reports.

    For customized pricing options or private offers, reach out to us at cloudsecurity@cisecurity.org .

    To learn more or access the corresponding CIS Benchmark, please visit https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks  or sign up for a free account on our community platform, CIS WorkBench, https://workbench.cisecurity.org/ .

  • Highlights

    • Hardened according to a Level 1 CIS Benchmark that is developed in a consensus-based process and that is accepted by government, business, industry, and academia.
    • Helps with compliance to PCI DSS, FedRAMP, DoD Cloud Computing SRG, FISMA, select NIST publications, and more.
    • Pre-configured to align with industry best practices that are developed and supported by CIS, this image has hardened account and local policies, firewall configuration, and computer-based and user-based administrative templates.

    Details

    Delivery method

    Delivery option
    64-bit (x86) Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

    Latest version

    Operating system
    Rhel 9

    Deployed on AWS
    New

    Introducing multi-product solutions

    You can now purchase comprehensive solutions tailored to use cases and industries.

    Multi-product solutions

    Features and programs

    Buyer guide

    Gain valuable insights from real users who purchased this product, powered by PeerSpot.
    Buyer guide

    Financing for AWS Marketplace purchases

    AWS Marketplace now accepts line of credit payments through the PNC Vendor Finance program. This program is available to select AWS customers in the US, excluding NV, NC, ND, TN, & VT.
    Financing for AWS Marketplace purchases

    Pricing

    CIS Hardened Image Level 1 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9

     Info
    Pricing is based on actual usage, with charges varying according to how much you consume. Subscriptions have no end date and may be canceled any time. Alternatively, you can pay upfront for a contract, which typically covers your anticipated usage for the contract duration. Any usage beyond contract will incur additional usage-based costs.
    Additional AWS infrastructure costs may apply. Use the AWS Pricing Calculator  to estimate your infrastructure costs.
    If you are an AWS Free Tier customer with a free plan, you are eligible to subscribe to this offer. You can use free credits to cover the cost of eligible AWS infrastructure. See AWS Free Tier  for more details. If you created an AWS account before July 15th, 2025, and qualify for the Legacy AWS Free Tier, Amazon EC2 charges for Micro instances are free for up to 750 hours per month. See Legacy AWS Free Tier  for more details.

    Usage costs (743)

     Info
    • ...
    Dimension
    Cost/hour
    t3.medium
    Recommended
    $0.022
    t3.micro
    $0.022
    t2.micro
    $0.02
    cc2.8xlarge
    $0.05
    m5dn.8xlarge
    $0.05
    c8i-flex.large
    $0.022
    d3en.2xlarge
    $0.026
    c7a.metal-48xl
    $0.06
    c8i-flex.8xlarge
    $0.05
    m8a.4xlarge
    $0.035

    Vendor refund policy

    Refunds through AWS are not available at this time. You will only be billed for actual time of instance use. As with all CIS security products, our aim is always 100 percent customer/member satisfaction.

    Custom pricing options

    Request a private offer to receive a custom quote.

    How can we make this page better?

    Tell us how we can improve this page, or report an issue with this product.
    Tell us how we can improve this page, or report an issue with this product.

    Legal

    Vendor terms and conditions

    Upon subscribing to this product, you must acknowledge and agree to the terms and conditions outlined in the vendor's End User License Agreement (EULA) .

    Content disclaimer

    Vendors are responsible for their product descriptions and other product content. AWS does not warrant that vendors' product descriptions or other product content are accurate, complete, reliable, current, or error-free.

    Usage information

     Info

    Delivery details

    64-bit (x86) Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

    Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

    An AMI is a virtual image that provides the information required to launch an instance. Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances are virtual servers on which you can run your applications and workloads, offering varying combinations of CPU, memory, storage, and networking resources. You can launch as many instances from as many different AMIs as you need.

    Version release notes

    Monthly updates

    Additional details

    Usage instructions

    No sensitive information supplied by customers will be stored outside this instance. No data encryption configuration is applicable to this instance. You can encrypt the instance EBS volume per standard EC2 processes. No programmatic system credentials and cryptographic keys are used by this instance. Launch the instance via the AWS Marketplace or EC2 console. Navigate to your Amazon EC2 console and verify that you're in the correct region. Choose instance and select your launched instance. Select the server to display your metadata page and choose the Status checks tab at the bottom of the page to review if your status checks passed or failed. Connect using SSH. Use ec2-user as the username. Immediately apply latest security updates to the instance.

    Support

    Vendor support

    Questions, feedback, and support accessing CIS-developed AMIs is provided by contacting https://www.cisecurity.org/support/  .

    AWS infrastructure support

    AWS Support is a one-on-one, fast-response support channel that is staffed 24x7x365 with experienced and technical support engineers. The service helps customers of all sizes and technical abilities to successfully utilize the products and features provided by Amazon Web Services.

    Product comparison

     Info
    Updated weekly

    Accolades

     Info
    Top
    10
    In Compliance and Auditing, Operating Systems

    Customer reviews

     Info
    Sentiment is AI generated from actual customer reviews on AWS and G2
    Reviews
    Functionality
    Ease of use
    Customer service
    Cost effectiveness
    0 reviews
    Insufficient data
    Insufficient data
    Insufficient data
    Insufficient data
    0 reviews
    Insufficient data
    Insufficient data
    Insufficient data
    Insufficient data
    Positive reviews
    Mixed reviews
    Negative reviews

    Overview

     Info
    AI generated from product descriptions
    Security Hardening Framework
    Image hardened according to CIS Benchmark Level 1 profile developed through consensus-based process and accepted by government, business, industry, and academia.
    Regulatory Compliance Support
    Supports compliance with PCI DSS, FedRAMP, DoD Cloud Computing SRG, FISMA, and select NIST publications.
    Security Configuration Components
    Includes hardened account and local policies, firewall configuration, and computer-based and user-based administrative templates aligned with industry best practices.
    Patch Management
    Monthly patching in alignment with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 software vendor updates to maintain security standards.
    Conformance Assessment and Reporting
    Includes CIS Configuration Assessment Tool (CIS-CAT Pro) HTML reports documenting baseline configuration, hardening changes, package modifications, and exceptions applied to the image.
    FIPS Certification
    FIPS 140-2 certified kernel and cryptographic modules included out of the box with ongoing security updates
    Extended Security Coverage
    Security patches available for over 23,000 open source packages in the Ubuntu Universe repository with 10 years of support through Expanded Security Maintenance
    Compliance Hardening Profiles
    CIS and DISA-STIG hardening profiles accessible through Ubuntu Security Guide tooling for guided compliance configuration
    Cryptographic Module Updates
    FIPS-certified cryptographic components with continuous security updates maintained throughout the support lifecycle
    Long-term Support
    10-year security coverage period for the operating system and included packages
    Operating System Hardening
    Amazon Linux 2 configured with STIG Benchmark High standard for enhanced security posture
    Security Standards Compliance
    Implementation of Defense Information System Agency (DISA) Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) for system hardening
    EMR Compatibility
    Tested and compatible with Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR) for distributed computing workloads
    Continuous Security Updates
    Access to continuous security updates available through new versions of the image
    Multi-Application Support
    Suitable for deployment across various applications beyond EMR environments

    Contract

     Info
    Standard contract
    No
    No

    Customer reviews

    Ratings and reviews

     Info
    4.4
    381 ratings
    5 star
    4 star
    3 star
    2 star
    1 star
    67%
    31%
    1%
    0%
    0%
    130 AWS reviews
    |
    251 external reviews
    External reviews are from PeerSpot .
    Sachin Mohanty

    Command-driven automation has boosted cloud migrations and simplified database management

    Reviewed on May 25, 2026
    Review provided by PeerSpot

    What is our primary use case?

    Apart from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) , I work on Ansible , Azure  Cloud, and AWS  cloud. I also work on Kubernetes , Windows systems, and Linux. We deal completely with customer data, which is hosted in the cloud, and I have experience in disaster recovery.

    In Linux, we use a few of the DBVMs, with all DBVMs hosted in the Linux boxes. During this time, if any drive gets full or shrinks, we connect to that particular DB box and run queries to clear up space.

    The use cases for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)  involve having a particular jump box to connect to specific regions. For East, we have a separate jump box, and then for West, Central, and Canada. If any drives shrink, we log into the particular region's jump box and provide the username, which for me is my Azure  username. After providing the password and logging in, we write the command sudo su -Oracle. After that, we use commands to find the Oracle services running on that particular DB box, such as ps -ef, and we use a pipe with a grep command for the service known as PMON. In a similar way, we use SMON. We check these two services. Running this command shows the Oracle services running on that particular DB box. After that, to add spaces, we take help from the Ansible  template. In that Ansible template, we provide the DB name and then data in the field, such as DATA. We can check whether the hosts are connected or not. As per the Ansible template, using this, we can clear the space and add up the space. Sometimes we check the logs in the particular Linux DB boxes.

    What is most valuable?

    The pros and cons of Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) when compared to Windows and Oracle Linux  are quite notable. Red Hat Enterprise Linux  (RHEL) is more efficient, used for servers and cloud, and most DevOps people prefer it. If you install Kubernetes  in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it is quite efficient. When it comes to Windows, it is mostly used for desktops and office work. When we compare the operating systems, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the most powerful one, whereas Windows is quite user-friendly. Windows is an older system that is easy to use and mostly used in desktop applications only.

    With Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we can do automation, and multiple servers can be hosted on it. Stability is quite good in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). When compared with reboots, a Windows reboot takes more time, but Linux takes only a few minutes to reboot the boxes. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has stronger security as well. The firewall is implemented in such a way that hacking the Linux system requires much more effort. With Windows, most security incidents have happened in the Windows boxes themselves. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), there are fewer viruses and lower malware exposure.

    For better health of the servers and a better lifecycle, if they are installed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the environment would be more efficient, and the cloud systems and web servers will be more efficient when compared with Windows. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has better performance and resource usage. In Windows, more RAM, CPU, and services are involved in the boxes, but in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), it can efficiently run even on normal hardware. For better understanding of DevOps, Kubernetes, and Docker , if all these are installed in Linux boxes, they integrate extremely well.

    The best features in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) when compared to Windows is that with Windows we need to navigate each thing in a different way, but when connected to a Linux box, everything runs on commands. Commands are the mediator to interact with the Linux environment. The entire black screen we see when we run commands is very effective. PowerSchool  is a very large-scale company, and we use many servers and cloud platforms with operating systems in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. The best features are stability and reliability. The crashing of VMs or servers is very few in Linux boxes. When I compare it with Windows boxes, we receive more outages. Windows boxes have more outages when compared with Linux.

    What needs improvement?

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is currently one of the strongest operating systems in the market. However, I have seen many times when the license would expire, and we raise a ticket for our team to renew the license. This is an area where we can make improvement by giving more time and a longer duration for the subscription.

    Regarding improvements we can make in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we can simplify the licensing part and provide some free-tier usage. Free-tier usage could be offered for one month or something similar. We can also make the repository access easier. Sometimes it is clumsy, and it is very tough for people to manage the repository access, so we can make improvements in that particular area.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been working on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for two years on that particular project.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    There are no complexities found during the deployment of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because it is straightforward and helps optimize many things. System monitoring, resource optimization, and performance profiles are very good. We do not get any particular complex issues. If we do encounter them, we have the onsite DBA team, and we reach out to them for help if we receive any complex issues during the migration or other operations.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is scalable because it has long-term support, which provides a stable environment. Migration also takes place in a very minimal way. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has perfect package management where we internally receive RPM packages. Once the software installation has been made with those packages, we can push patches during that time. During OS patching, patches are pushed, and the servers are restarted. All these features make it scalable and reliable.

    How are customer service and support?

    Regarding pricing, we are not aware of it because there is a different team responsible for checking and validating price costing. These aspects do not come under our purview.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was done by the DBA team, and we were involved in the activity, but we did not get much to check on that. As far as I remember, they were having some complex issues during that time, and it took a bit of time to migrate the instances from the Windows boxes to the Linux boxes. There were some challenges.

    What about the implementation team?

    We did not use any third party for the setup.

    What was our ROI?

    I extremely recommend Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) to people because it is more efficient and not like Windows. We have more work power, and everything is more efficient when compared to Windows. We do not need to use multiple screens and navigate around. Simply running the command gives your output on the screen. It is better for automation.

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

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) was purchased from the Azure Marketplace .

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Regarding the knowledge base offered by Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), I am still in the learning path. I started using it a few years ago, so I am still in the learning phase.

    What other advice do I have?

    We use the New Relic  monitoring tool. New Relic  is a monitoring tool where we can check app performance, and if any customers are facing issues in their servers, we can monitor the server performance, check CPU spikes, and monitor all instances if any are down.

    Hybrid cloud in my company means that we do not have any on-premises cloud. Everything is hosted in Azure only.

    A few days back in the automation call, they were discussing that some customers are going to get involved in on-premises cloud and implement it in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. As of now, we have not received any update, but they said they are going to implement it as soon as possible.

    Regarding security in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) in the cloud, I have not found any security concerns or faced any issues in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environment. It is quite secure, and the data is stored safely.

    For provisioning Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), we have a different team known as the Entitlements team. They do the provisioning using Terraform  templates and Ansible templates for new customers. When it comes to patching, I work on those patching activities. Each month in the second week, we follow the OS patching process. To restart the Linux VM boxes, we have an Ansible template where we provide the Linux IPs and launch an Ansible playbook. Once the Ansible playbook is launched, the job runs, and when complete, it creates sub-jobs. If we have provided ten Linux box IPs, then ten different sub-jobs are created. We monitor all these jobs, and once the job is completed, the Linux box is restarted. If the job fails, we log into the Azure portal where we have troubleshooting steps. We go to the boot diagnostics and health center, check whether the system is stuck or hung, and follow the troubleshooting step. Once we follow the troubleshooting step, the monitor resumes. If we see the kernel, we can finally  predict that the Linux box has been restarted.

    We use Oracle as well with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

    Regarding mitigated downtime, I can provide an example. While migrating, importing data in Windows used to take a lot of time, but after migration, when importing data into Linux boxes, it happened within ten to fifteen minutes. Multiple gigabytes of data happened within minutes. This complex issue that we had in Windows, we do not have in Linux. Linux is more efficient than Windows.

    The main issue that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped us with is the same—migration of data and everything. It has been quite efficient. I cannot make a comparison with other systems because it has been two years where we have gotten access to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and this is the first time I started working on the original Linux process. I would rate this product a ten out of ten.

    reviewer2843001

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

    Reviewed on 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

    Reviewed on 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

    Reviewed on 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

    Reviewed on 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.

    View all reviews