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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Infrastructure as a Service
  4. Operating Systems
  5. Fedora vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Fedora vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Fedora
Fedora
Stacks623
Followers515
Votes97
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Stacks355
Followers236
Votes3

Fedora vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux: What are the differences?

# Introduction

1. **Licensing**: Fedora is a community-driven, free and open-source operating system, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a commercially supported distribution known for its stability and reliability.
2. **Support**: Fedora has a short support cycle of around 13 months, whereas Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers long-term support of up to 10 years with regular updates and patches.
3. **Target Audience**: Fedora is targeted towards individual users, developers, and enthusiasts, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux is aimed at enterprise customers and mission-critical servers.
4. **Package Management**: Fedora uses the dnf package manager, while Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses the subscription-manager tool for package management and software updates.
5. **Security Updates**: Red Hat Enterprise Linux focuses more on security and compliance features, offering additional security certifications and tools compared to Fedora.
6. **Hardware Certification**: Red Hat Enterprise Linux has a comprehensive list of certified hardware platforms and configurations for optimal performance and compatibility, while Fedora may have limited support for specific hardware configurations.

In Summary, Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux differ in licensing, support, target audience, package management, security updates, and hardware certification.

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Detailed Comparison

Fedora
Fedora
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the industry-leading Linux that provides the foundation for next-generation architectures, with support for all major hardware platforms and thousands of commercial and custom applications.

Statistics
Stacks
623
Stacks
355
Followers
515
Followers
236
Votes
97
Votes
3
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 23
    Great for developers
  • 10
    Good release schedule
  • 10
    Great integration with system tools
  • 10
    Represents the future of rhel/centos
  • 8
    Reliable
Cons
  • 3
    Bugs get fixed slowly from kernel side
  • 2
    Boring
  • 2
    Systemd
  • 2
    Much less support from Wiki
  • 1
    Less packages in official repository
Pros
  • 1
    Learning curve
  • 1
    Well known
  • 1
    Paid sense of security
Cons
  • 1
    Anaconda
  • 1
    Packages have huge dependency trees
  • 1
    Glibc based with many complicated hacks
  • 1
    Subcription fees
  • 1
    Tools and package manager change over time

What are some alternatives to Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?

Ubuntu

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

Debian

Debian

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

Arch Linux

Arch Linux

A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.

Linux Mint

Linux Mint

The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.

CentOS

CentOS

The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.

Linux

Linux

A clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance.

CoreOS

CoreOS

It is designed for security, consistency, and reliability. Instead of installing packages via yum or apt, it uses Linux containers to manage your services at a higher level of abstraction. A single service's code and all dependencies are packaged within a container that can be run on one or many machines.

Gentoo Linux

Gentoo Linux

It is a free operating system based on either Linux or FreeBSD that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need.

Alpine Linux

Alpine Linux

Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution based on musl libc and busybox.

Manjaro

Manjaro

It is an accessible, friendly, open-source Linux distribution and community. Based on Arch Linux, it provides all the benefits of cutting-edge software combined with a focus on getting started quickly, automated tools to require less manual intervention, and help readily available when needed.

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