IBM's Linux subsidiary is offering a new way to get RHEL without paying, now with up to 25 instances.

Yesterday, Red Hat [1]announced a new type of free developer subscription for its enterprise distro. The new entitlement is aimed at developers working inside "corporate organizations" and allows them to get up to 25 instances of RHEL for nothing, for "development or testing use only" – in other words, no production deployment.

The new scheme is called [2]Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Business Developers , and that page has a handy table comparing this new offering with the existing RHEL Individual Developer Subscription. That's the company's existing program, which went [3]free to use back in 2016 , when the price dropped from $99 per subscription.

[4]

The scheme is quite similar to the existing one, which is described in [5]this 2021 FAQ page . Users get free access to the product and the company's support pages and documentation. It's self-supported, meaning users cannot contact the company for technical assistance.

[6]

[7]

There are two main differences between the old and new schemes. The big one is the reason why the FAQ we link to above is a 2021 version. In January of that year, the Big Purple Hat [8]changed its terms to allow production use of up to 16 instances of the freebie edition. As The Register said then, this could be interpreted as offering some small-scale recompense for the [9]termination of CentOS Linux the month before.

The new offering is bigger – users can run up to 25 instances – but it prohibits production use. As the comparison table says, the existing free tier permits:

Development, testing, or production use

[…]

Includes other Red Hat portfolio offerings

The new tier is more restricted:

Development or testing use only

[10]As RHEL clones hit version 10, Rocky and Alma chart diverging paths

[11]RHEL 10 quietly leaks ahead of Red Hat Summit

[12]CentOS Connect conference announces return of Firefox

[13]'Tis the season to test the RHEL and AlmaLinux 10 betas

And it doesn't include the other offerings. The existing individual developer offering gives access to extras such as [14]Red Hat Insights and the [15]Software Collections and Developer Toolset . Neither freebie version includes access to the [16]Red Hat Satellite fleet-management tool.

The [17]product page does mention that you can use [18]Podman Desktop , but don't get too excited. That's free anyway, and you can get versions for Windows and macOS as well as Linux from its [19]own homepage .

[20]

Podman Desktop is a sort of all-FOSS replacement for [21]Docker Desktop , which by complete coincidence [22]stopped being free for enterprise use in the same year: 2021. ®

Get our [23]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.redhat.com/en/about/press-releases/red-hat-introduces-red-hat-enterprise-linux-business-developers-aligning-application-development-production-consistency

[2] https://developers.redhat.com/products/rhel/business

[3] https://developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux#

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/paasiaas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aHA3_MYkbqJeug_c3eOv5AAAAUw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[5] https://developers.redhat.com/articles/faqs-no-cost-red-hat-enterprise-linux#

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/paasiaas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aHA3_MYkbqJeug_c3eOv5AAAAUw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/paasiaas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aHA3_MYkbqJeug_c3eOv5AAAAUw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/20/red_hat_amends_developer_license/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/09/centos_red_hat/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/14/rocky_alma_and_rhel_10/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/14/red_hat_enterprise_linux_10/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/10/centos_firefox/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/13/rhel_almalinux_betas/

[14] https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-insights

[15] https://access.redhat.com/solutions/472793

[16] https://access.redhat.com/products/red-hat-satellite

[17] https://developers.redhat.com/products/rhel/business

[18] https://developers.redhat.com/products/podman-desktop/overview

[19] https://podman-desktop.io/

[20] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/paasiaas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aHA3_MYkbqJeug_c3eOv5AAAAUw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[21] https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/

[22] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/31/docker_desktop_no_longer_free/

[23] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/