So, in January 2021, Red Hat announced that individuals can obtain a free individual subscription to use RHEL on their computers. Now, because you need an active subscription (you cannot download packages from RHEL repositories without one), getting people to “try out” RHEL can be a barrier to entry. What’s the wildest difference between the two Linux distributions? Well, it’s about the access to it and its subscription model.Įven though Red Hat is the biggest open-source company, RHEL requires you to have a subscription for the most part, whereas Ubuntu has no such requirements. If you are curious, you can explore Ubuntu vs Fedora and Ubuntu vs Debian to know the differences between their desktop offerings (and Ubuntu’s upstream/base). So, if you want to experience Red Hat on your desktop, Fedora Linux would provide you with the closest experience. It is important to note that Fedora Linux acts as the upstream and caters to non-commercial users. However, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is only an enterprise-focused offering, whereas Ubuntu targets individual desktop users and enterprises. Red Hat and Canonical focus on managing and licensing open-source software products to enterprises.

It was initially released on October 20, 2004. Ubuntu (based on Debian) was introduced by a UK-based company, Canonical Ltd., founded by Mark Shuttleworth, a South African entrepreneur. This led to the discontinuation of “Red Hat Linux” in 2004. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a Linux distribution created, maintained, and backed by Red Hat Inc, which was initially released on February 22, 2000. To clarify, the early versions of Red Hat’s Linux distributions were called Red Hat Commercial Linux or Red Hat Linux.

A few years later, Red Hat Linux came into existence on May 13, 1995.

Red Hat, now an IBM subsidiary-was founded in 1993, with its headquarters located in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Here, I present a detailed breakdown that may help you choose one for your use case. Let’s explore the differences in this article. Of course, they are different and commercially successful, but in what aspects? Who uses Ubuntu? And, should you consider using Red Hat Enterprise Linux for anything?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Ubuntu are two of the most popular Linux distributions in the open-source world.

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