FreeNAS vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FreeNAS
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
FreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A
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
Pricing
FreeNASRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreeNASRed 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
Best Alternatives
FreeNASRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Small Businesses
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Ubuntu
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Medium-sized Companies
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Score 9.9 out of 10
Ubuntu
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Score 8.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
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Score 9.9 out of 10
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Score 8.9 out of 10
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User Ratings
FreeNASRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(7 ratings)
9.3
(109 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreeNASRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Likelihood to Recommend
iXsystems
FreeNAS is well suited for most storage serving scenarios, whether it be for an office file server, backup destinations, data replication across the internet, or as backend storage for virtual machines. It can serve various types of clients via a plethora of standard protocols and can easily integrate with existing infrastructure using LDAP authentication and so on. It's pretty simple to use (it helps to have at least a basic understanding of the underlying technologies) and almost maintenance-free. One scenario that springs to mind that it may not be appropriate for (yet) is as S3 storage. However, S3 functionality was added in a recent release and may have improved greatly since then. I'm sure it will eventually work very well for this.
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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
iXsystems
  • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
  • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
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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
iXsystems
  • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
  • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
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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
iXsystems
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
iXsystems
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
iXsystems
There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
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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
iXsystems
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
iXsystems
FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our work with the legacy systems as it manages all the components really well. FreeNAS although rebranded to TrueNAS will still be there until our legacy systems run.
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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
iXsystems
  • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
  • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
  • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
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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