IBM AIX vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
IBM AIX
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
IBM AIX (for Advanced Interactive eXecutive) is a Unix operating system, developed, offered and supported by IBM.N/A
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A
Pricing
IBM AIXRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
IBM AIXRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
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
IBM AIXRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Considered Both Products
IBM AIX
Chose IBM AIX
AIX is more stable is more administrative friendly, being the commands do not change every few years like in Solaris.
Chose IBM AIX
We used both types of servers: IBM AIX and Linux (RHEL). I think IBM AIX has an advantage when using large servers with virtualization.
Chose IBM AIX
Like AIX, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a very stable operating and designed for companies who don't want to be on the bleeding edge of Linux technology.
Chose IBM AIX
The only real comparable competitors to IBM AIX come from the Linux world. Linux is beginning to approach the reliability and stability of IBM AIX and is often a better choice. Linux also has a shorter update cycle with more significant leaps in functionality and feature sets. …
Chose IBM AIX
Standard Linux distributions which are used more as commodity servers do not offer the ease of scale and growth that we see with our Aix implementations. IBM owning the HW and SW portions of the stack allows for tighter integrations and better performance windows.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL is much more flexible in configuration than any Unix system like IBM AIX or Oracle Solaris. At the same time has the excellent release of updates and support that Oracle Linux or CentOS Linux doesn't have. RHEL has also companion tools in the Red Hat products which help …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
We have used IBM AIX, HP Unix and compared to other flavors of Linux, I feel like the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is much better. Upgrade is easy, ease of use, security support we get from Red Hat. So all those things are better compared to whatever we have used. We also …
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Me are migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) from AIX
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is more straightforward, more consistent, easier to manage, easier to get help with, less expensive.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
IBM AIXRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Small Businesses
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.9 out of 10
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
IBM AIXRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(11 ratings)
9.2
(110 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.5
(2 ratings)
8.5
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
IBM AIXRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM
IBM AIX is a very powerful and extremely stable operating environment. It is well suited for applications that are business critical and cannot tolerate outages. It is best used to address large enterprise level application needs where stability and scalability are of paramount importance. IBM AIX is less useful for small enterprises.
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Red Hat
I think it's best suited for all the monolithic application where you just need a VM and you on top of that VM you need to install a compatible product. So it's best suited for those. Where's not suited. As I said, maybe I've seen in my organization mostly our internal application teams, they go for a different operating system for appliances or network maybe it might be due to the product compatibility, not with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), but that's something maybe you should have a look or probably it's not a improvement anywhere.
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Pros
IBM
  • The newer version of IBM AIX allows to apply new patches without system restart
  • IBM AIX was the first operating system to have a journaling file system and have enhanced software features.
  • IBM AIX will have good vendor support 24/7 and will ensure reliability to the customers and more performance when compared to it peers.
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Red Hat
  • I really love that Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is reliable, that it always seems to work well.
  • It's very secure.
  • I really appreciate that Red Hat keeps everything up to date and they are on top of security, mobilities, et cetera. I'd say those are my favorite things.
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Cons
IBM
  • A lot of the built-in commands have not been updated in years. If you're used to some fancy CLI options in Linux, you may be out of luck with AIX.
  • Out of the box, you cannot run open-source Linux utilities on AIX. There is a toolbox you can install, however, it's not the same versions as you would get in different Linux flavors.
  • Tab completion for files and Up arrow to re-run previous commands don't work out of the box without running a Korn shell. A small annoyance, but one that catches me every time!
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Red Hat
  • 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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Likelihood to Renew
IBM
No answers on this topic
Red Hat
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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Usability
IBM
No answers on this topic
Red Hat
RHEL has most of the features that are required by an ERP solution. If you need any additional packages, RHEL has a great repository and a very easy package installation/upgrade process.
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Support Rating
IBM
There is lots of documentation out there for AIX. On the times I've had to address a hardware issue, IBM's support has been great.
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Red Hat
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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Implementation Rating
IBM
No answers on this topic
Red Hat
Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
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Alternatives Considered
IBM
Standard Linux distributions which are used more as commodity servers do not offer the ease of scale and growth that we see with our Aix implementations. IBM owning the HW and SW portions of the stack allows for tighter integrations and better performance windows.
Read full review
Red Hat
The biggest thing about RHEL that makes it stand out for enterprise users is the support that we get from the vendor. Whereas with the other ones, you're basically left on your own. There's no official repo, there's no satellite for patching. You're very left on your own with the community.
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Return on Investment
IBM
  • IBM AIX on Power hardware has been the backbone of our most critical applications.
  • The versatility of IBM AIX virtualization has been extremely useful, scalable, and provided configuration with redundant dual VIO servers.
  • IBM AIX is not Linux so special skill sets are needed to actually manage the systems. Finding qualified engineers can often be a challenge
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Red Hat
  • It's only been positive and like I said before, it's been positive because it removed tedious tasks and I think that's probably what it's designed to help do from what I can tell is just to get rid of the mundane tasks of a systems administrator. The things that you just don't want to waste time doing so you can actually use your brain for something useful.
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ScreenShots