Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) vs. VMware vSphere

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A
VMware vSphere
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
An enterprise workload platform, vSphere is used to improve the performance for a data center. It is used to boost operational efficiency, supercharge workload performance, and accelerate innovation.
$995
per year
Pricing
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware vSphere
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Standard
$995.00
per year
Enterprise
$3,995.00
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware vSphere
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)VMware vSphere
Considered Both Products
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL is the most reliable and what our organization prefers
VMware vSphere
Chose VMware vSphere
There's no comparison, VMWare is the market leader. It's pricey, but its feature set is years ahead of the competition. In particular, the ability to manage a large fleet of servers across multiple sites through a single pane of glass is great!
Features
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware vSphere
Operating System
Comparison of Operating System features of Product A and Product B
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
8.2
3 Ratings
3% below category average
VMware vSphere
-
Ratings
File Management6.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Software Application Management9.03 Ratings00 Ratings
System Update Frequency8.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating System Security9.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Server Virtualization
Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Product A and Product B
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
-
Ratings
VMware vSphere
7.2
67 Ratings
11% below category average
Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings7.162 Ratings
Management console00 Ratings7.067 Ratings
Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings6.160 Ratings
Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.062 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware vSphere
Small Businesses
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.5 out of 10
DigitalOcean Droplets
DigitalOcean Droplets
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.5 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.5 out of 10
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
VMware vSOM (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware vSphere
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(187 ratings)
7.1
(70 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(3 ratings)
7.0
(7 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(79 ratings)
8.0
(11 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.2
(9 ratings)
8.0
(25 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(2 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(5 ratings)
Product Scalability
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)VMware vSphere
Likelihood to Recommend
Red Hat
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is best suited for its stability, fast reboot time, and minimal resource requirements which reduce overall cost. The patch time for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is also extremely fast which benefits application up time. For environments or applications that require many changes, for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) support person that is not well trained and experienced in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), this can be challenging.
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VMware by Broadcom
vSphere is well suited for multiple VMWare hosts and can be very useful in larger enterprises where vMotion is used to load balance and failover running virtual machines. In smaller businesses with one or two hosts then the features can be overkill. The addition of virtual TPM support is a very nice addition to provide vm security in a more Microsoft supported methodology.
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Pros
Red Hat
  • 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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VMware by Broadcom
  • vMotion that provides seamless movement of Virtual Machines between physical hosts and datastores.
  • Ease of Manage: vCenter provides very good management experience to the users.
  • It provides hassle free upgrade of versions, which requires good planning.
  • Easy to manage datastore, networks, CPU and memory resources.
  • It also allows to convert the physical machine and bring it to vSphere Environment with minimum effort.
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Cons
Red Hat
  • In the LEAP process. The upgrading process, which I'm hearing, like I said it before, prior that I was on rail seven, eight, and nine. Trying to get all of that to rail nine and stay current. The LEAP process from seven to eight is a little bit less than desired. I've talked to some people that from once you get on eight from eight to nine to nine to 10 is a breeze. So I'm looking forward to that.
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VMware by Broadcom
  • Allow enable EVC without requiring host shutdown
  • More detail in recent tasks. Instead of just showing a task called "Reconfigure virtual machine" also have a link to more detailed information as to what was reconfigured, changed or removed.
  • Allow searching tasks or events
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Likelihood to Renew
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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VMware by Broadcom
We are constantly looking for change that will benefit our company. We are not ones to stick with a product simply because it is what we know, but rather looking for what fits us best. We can't imagine another product on the market today doing a better job of handling our infrastructure than vSphere.
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Usability
Red Hat
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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VMware by Broadcom
Very useful for environments where space and energy consumption are issues and management is not very keen on upfront spending on hardware every time whenever requirement comes from any dept for provisioning a machine for their occasional use, easily can be done in case of VMware vSphere in few clicks. Backup, security, monitoring and management everything is covered but at additional cost.
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Reliability and Availability
Red Hat
Product support and regular patches.
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VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Performance
Red Hat
As with any OS enhanced testing will need to be done prior to application integration.
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VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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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VMware by Broadcom
I rarely ever have to contact support and when I do need to resolve an issue, there is always an abundance of kb articles and research information available that can help quickly resolve the issue. Depending on the type of support contract you have, you may get support from some offshore group in another country and this could be a little challenging because of the language barrier.
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Implementation Rating
Red Hat
Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
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VMware by Broadcom
Just make sure that when you implement, that the person implementing truly knows what they are doing and has a plan of action coming in. Since our initial implementation using a consulting service, I have implemented a few vSphere just from what I learned at the initial implementation and use over time, and the person implementing really needs to know what they are doing or you will miss out on features that may help you down the line
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Alternatives Considered
Red Hat
So we in our company have used Ubuntu as well. Sometimes we have to use that because a certain application installer requires that we use that operating system, but we really don't prefer it just because it doesn't come with the same Add-on features that make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) really great, like Red Hat Insights or Red Hat satellite, things like that. They come package with it. So that would be the main one. I've also used things like FreeBSD, but I think that's just too old at this point to care.
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VMware by Broadcom
vSphere has a lot more feature sets than Hyper-V but at a much higher cost of entry versus MS Hyper-V. I have not been able to play with Hyper-V as much as I would have liked, but the setup and ongoing maintenance seems to be easier in vSphere than with Hyper-V
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Red Hat
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
The contract terms are very clear and can be updated as per the project requirement. Customer support is also included in the contract which help us to troubleshoot critical issues very easily. Training included in contract will really help the client team to empower and hands-on on the latest updates and enhancements
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Scalability
Red Hat
Operational ease of use backed by support
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VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Red Hat
No answers on this topic
VMware by Broadcom
As I said earlier, they're always ready to understand our issues and propose the best and most appropriate solution for issues all the time. The security patches solution is accordingly to the business needs. Another scenario is their Knowledge Base where
they're many articles that help you in order to solve something which
is wrong.
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Return on Investment
Red Hat
  • 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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VMware by Broadcom
  • Having vSphere helped my business quickly recover from a ransomware attack which would have crippled us for weeks if we were not virtualized. I think the ROI on something like that is immeasurable.
  • vSphere has allowed my company to purchase bigger server hardware to host 3 or 4 virtual servers, which was at a cost much lower than buying 3 or 4 server hardware boxes, saving us thousands each time we need to upgrade hardware.
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ScreenShots