Page 132 - Red Hat PR REPORT - JULY 2025

7/10/25, 8:53 AM Red Hat just expanded free access to RHEL for business developers | ZDNET

see all

Developers will also have full access to Podman Desktop. This is Red Hat's preferred tool for developing RHEL
containers. This package includes the ability to create bootable container images.

Also: Linux's remarkable journey from one dev's hobby to 40 million lines of code - and counting

Red Hat's latest announcement builds upon a suite of free and low-cost RHEL access options that have evolved in
recent years. These are:

Red Hat Developer Subscription for Individuals: This long-standing, no-cost program enables individual
developers to use RHEL for personal development and testing purposes. Users can register up to 16 physical or
virtual nodes and receive full access to updates, fixes, and self-service support via the Red Hat Customer Portal.
Developer Subscription for Teams: Larger organizations can access a broader set of RHEL entitlements for
development and lab environments, typically coordinated through a Red Hat account representative.
Production Use for Small Workloads: Since early 2021, Red Hat has permitted free RHEL use for production

workloads on up to 16 systems in response to community feedback following the discontinuation of CentOS
Linux. This applies to both servers and desktops, and extends to major public clouds.

To take advantage of these programs, developers and organizations must:

Register for a Red Hat account and join the Red Hat Developer Program.

Download RHEL from the Red Hat Developer website.

Attach the developer subscription to their systems using the provided tools and documentation.

Renew the subscription annually as required.

Red Hat's expansion of free and self-serve RHEL access is seen, as Red Hat would have it, as a response to the
evolving needs of modern software teams. Others believe it's because of the competitive pressures following the

end of CentOS Linux. For example, many enterprise Linux users have turned to RHEL clones, such as AlmaLinux
OS, Rocky Linux, and SUSE Multi-Linux Support, formerly known as Liberty Linux.

Learn more

By empowering developers to work directly on the same platform as production, Red Hat hopes to maintain its
position as the enterprise Linux of choice and ensure a smooth pathway from development to deployment.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/red-hat-expands-free-access-to-rhel-for-business-developers/ 3/8