Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription
Shares rank 32 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
People recommend Red Hat as a dependable Linux vendor for servers, and it shows open-source businesses can succeed. Critics say it has declined since IBM bought it.
People recommend Red Hat as a dependable Linux vendor for servers, and it shows open-source businesses can succeed. Critics say it has declined since IBM bought it.
38 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 22
- approval share
- 42%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Dependable choice for servers
“Linux was smart to pivot to servers and retained 60% of market share to this day, Ubuntu is great; it works and very rarely has any reliability issues, along with Red Hat and Debian.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “The Capability Curve Has No Memory” “If your answer doesn't include either Debian, Red Hat, Canonical or Suse it is probably the wrong choice.”
Comment from 7 Dec 2025 in “The state of Schleswig-Holstein is consistently relying on open source” “this is why redhat is still relevant in 2025”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Linux kernel security work” Proof open-source businesses can succeed
“Even if you might not like their specific distros for one reason or another, they've found a way to make money”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “Gentoo Linux 2025 Review” “Open business models aren't less likely to be successful here than closed ones. Red Hat sold for $34B.”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “LLM-Integrated Multivariable Calculus Course” “Look at Red Hat, GitLab, etc for examples of how to make OSS successful.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “LibreOffice – Let's put an end to the speculation”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Declined since IBM acquisition
“It would've meant something really good if IBM would just continue to provide services for free software”
Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Red Hat being phased out of existence?” “Red Hat has gone downhill in terms of both reliability and open source since IBM's acquisition.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Quay.io Is Down” “they bought Redhat and seem actively hostile to any FOSS projects that don't make them money”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Ghostty is now non-profit” - Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Red Hat being phased out of existence?”
- Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report”
Shifts focus toward enterprise customers
“they bought Redhat and seem actively hostile to any FOSS projects that don't make them money”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Ghostty is now non-profit” “since they've made their choice as they're entitled to move towards enterprise”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Fedora: Open-source repository for long-term digital preservation” Reliability worse after recent changes
“Red Hat has gone downhill in terms of both reliability and open source since IBM's acquisition.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Quay.io Is Down” “they backport entire features back to old versions (together with bugs!)”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “CERT is releasing six CVEs for serious security vulnerabilities in dnsmasq” Feels like big tech to deal with
“even dealing with Red Hat feels like you're dealing with big tech”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?” “Red Hat is IBM, the OG big tech really”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Can Dutch universities do without Microsoft?”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | 1,287 | 3,582 | 26% | 13 | 10 yrs192 owners | — |
| macOS | 1,041 | 1,928 | 35% | 12 | 11 yrs183 owners | — |
| Linux | 745 | 277 | 73% | 12 | 19 yrs116 owners | Approved |
| FreeBSD | 335 | 94 | 78% | 12 | 20 yrs69 owners | Approved |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptionThis page | 16 | 22 | 42% | 8 | — | — |
What people said
33 of the 39 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“The upstream-first culture there still seems pretty strong and pretty quality-oriented to me.”
“Redhad has done more damage to open source Linux than Microsoft did.”
“they also sponsored the people who have come to destroy it as of late”
“No surprise with this, people who has been following IBM over the years knew this day would come.”
“These guys are pursuing the wrong strategy”
“It would've meant something really good if IBM would just continue to provide services for free software”
“But RedHat is 100x worse.”
“Open business models aren't less likely to be successful here than closed ones. Red Hat sold for $34B.”
“some research and cool things they bought like Redhat and Hashicorp”
“some cool things they bought like Redhat and Hashicorp”
“I have been suspicious of redhat since IBM bought them”
“many Linux distros based in the US to toe the party line”
“Linux was smart to pivot to servers and retained 60% of market share to this day, Ubuntu is great; it works and very rarely has any reliability issues, along with Red Hat and Debian.”
“Red Hat has gone downhill in terms of both reliability and open source since IBM's acquisition.”
“which is what pissed me off about RedHat at the time”
“they backport entire features back to old versions (together with bugs!)”
“Worst era ever, very insecure.”
“Look at Red Hat, GitLab, etc for examples of how to make OSS successful.”
“subscription-manager didn't work over a IPv6-only stack”
“Redhat's kingdom of sewage”
“after what they pulled with centos”
“maybe Slackware or RH at the time”
“they are confusing for casual, average users”
“settled on RedHat for the home server and everything seems totally ok”
“Even if you might not like their specific distros for one reason or another, they've found a way to make money”
“this is why redhat is still relevant in 2025”
“since they've made their choice as they're entitled to move towards enterprise”
“If your answer doesn't include either Debian, Red Hat, Canonical or Suse it is probably the wrong choice.”
“they bought Redhat and seem actively hostile to any FOSS projects that don't make them money”
“buying Redhat don't count as investments”
“Red Hat is IBM, the OG big tech really”
“even dealing with Red Hat feels like you're dealing with big tech”
“They don't wanna be Redhat - but IMO it's their biggest mistake”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.