Companies Using Red Hat

I run the crawler that reads the response headers of every domain we visit. A domain counts on this page when its Server or X-Powered-By header contains "Red Hat". Our October 2026 crawl puts that at 5,720 domains, 7th of 16 in Operating Systems, with 2,118 matched to a company. On 15 October 2026 I requested all 5,791 domains in our clean set, recorded every header and resolved every address.

What the banner says

Red Hat's httpd package writes it. The CentOS Stream httpd spec, the source RHEL 9 is built from, replaces Apache's generic "Unix" platform string with the NAME field of /etc/os-release. On RHEL that reads "Red Hat Enterprise Linux"; older Apache 2.2 packages, and some of Red Hat's separately packaged Apache builds, print "(Red Hat)". So the banner means Red Hat's own packaged Apache, on a server whose administrator kept the default token. 19 matches came another way: Payara and GlassFish servers whose X-Powered-By header names a Java build from "Red Hat, Inc.". That is 0.37% of live banners, and it names a Java build, not the operating system.

Sales signal: a RHEL banner marks a server on a subscription distribution whose owner doesn't hide it. That owner already buys infrastructure from a vendor.

How much of it is current

5,149 of the 5,791 (88.91%) still answered with a Red Hat banner. 286 didn't answer and 356 answered with something else: 66 a bare "Apache", 58 Akamai's edge, and 26 now announce Rocky Linux, another rebuild. An earlier random draw of 50 gave 43. Since tracking began on 16 March 2026, 991 domains dropped the banner on at least one hostname, and 98 of those still send it elsewhere. The month counts rose from 4,118 in June to 5,720 in October, partly because the set of domains we crawl turns over every month, dead sites out and new ones in, and partly because our detection widens.

Sales signal: the list is mostly live. The 26 Rocky Linux moves are the ones to watch: a server rebuilt on a free rebuild has decided against the subscription.

Two customers make a fifth

828 domains, 14.30% of the clean set, resolve to one Rackspace address and answer with the same Apache/2.4.62 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) OpenSSL/3.5.1 Phusion_Passenger/6.1.1. They are author websites built on the Authors Guild's Sitebuilder, which the Guild offers members for a $12 monthly hosting charge. Those authors bought a website and got RHEL with it, which I didn't expect to find at this scale. The second cluster is the University of Arkansas: 363 hostnames, 6.27%, 362 of them on Apache 2.4.37. UC San Diego adds 145, the University of Florida 144 and the University of North Dakota 56; in all, 1,056 hostnames end in .edu, 18.24% of the set.

"One Rackspace address running the Authors Guild's site builder answers for a seventh of every Red Hat banner we can see." - David Thomson, CTO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales signal: count owners, not domains. Strip the Authors Guild and the university subdomain fleets and the list is a few thousand separate servers, many of them in IT departments with procurement rules.

Which RHEL

The Apache version in the banner dates the release. 1,961 live banners announce 2.4.62, the version in the RHEL 9 source package, and 193 announce 2.4.63, the RHEL 10 version. 1,666 announce 2.4.37, the RHEL 8 module stream, and 541 announce 2.4.6, the RHEL 7 package. 341 still announce Apache 2.2.15 or 2.2.3. Red Hat's life-cycle data lists RHEL 8, 9 and 10, with RHEL 8 in maintenance until 31 May 2029; its life-cycle page says RHEL 6 and 7 customers on legacy extended support continue through their committed end dates.

Sales signal: the 541 RHEL 7 and 341 Apache 2.2 servers are upgrade projects, or extended-support contracts, waiting to happen. Migration and hardening services have a named list here.

Who and where

The United States has 796 of the 2,118 matched companies, Spain 167, Italy 95, Germany 91. Higher education is 10% of matched companies and government administration 6.74%. The base is old and large for this category: 23.67% of companies with a founding year date from before 1960, and 14.18% of sized companies have more than 1,000 staff. Named users include the FAA, the EPA, Boston Children's Hospital, Hallmark, Garanti BBVA, BPER Banca and the European Space Agency.

Sales signal: sell through the IT department and the procurement calendar. These buyers renew subscriptions; they rarely switch on impulse.

Movement and overlap

We publish four switching rows, measured in October 2026. 21 domains dropped an AlmaLinux banner while gaining Red Hat, but only 1 of those in the last 90 days, and 7 went the other way. 10 moved to a self-compiled Apache that prints "(Unix)" and 5 came from one. A switch here is a reinstalled server, and the numbers are small. Overlap is hostname-level: 80 domains run a Red Hat host and an Ubuntu host today, 35 Debian and 32 CentOS.

"In seven months, the largest switching row on this page is 21 domains. Once a server says Red Hat, it mostly keeps saying it." - David Thomson, CTO at TechnologyChecker.io

Sales signal: the realistic alternative at a RHEL renewal is a compatible rebuild such as AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, and 26 of these servers already answer as Rocky.

The stack around it

Across the 5,791 domains, Apache shows on 99.76%, OpenSSL on 79.54%, PHP on 52.46% and WordPress on 24.62%. Drupal (8.32%) and Omni CMS (7.96%) come next. Perl (2.97%), mod_perl (2.95%) and mod_wsgi (2.00%) are each on 3% or less.

Sales signal: agencies and content vendors that work with universities should filter this list by Drupal and Omni CMS first.

What it costs

Red Hat's store listed Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server at US$383.90 a year with self-support, US$878.90 Standard and US$1,428.90 Premium when I checked on 15 October 2026. Its developer page offers a no-cost subscription for individuals that is not approved for use in organisations. IBM closed its purchase of Red Hat on 9 July 2019, per Red Hat's press release.

Key takeaways

1. 5,720 domains announce Red Hat; 88.91% of the clean set still did on 15 October 2026.

2. The Authors Guild's Sitebuilder is 828 domains and the University of Arkansas 363.

3. 541 servers announce the RHEL 7 Apache and 341 Apache 2.2.

4. Higher education and government lead; 14.18% of sized companies exceed 1,000 staff.

5. Leavers are few: 26 servers now answer as Rocky Linux, 10 moved to a self-compiled Apache and 7 to AlmaLinux.

How to use this list

Remove the Authors Guild domains and group university hostnames by institution, then sort by the Apache version in the banner. Our operating system market share report explains why so few servers disclose an OS. The full list of 5,720 domains, with 2,118 matched companies, is on TechnologyChecker.io.