Launched at Red Hat Summit 2025, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 (RHEL 10) is engineered to address the most significant challenges in today's IT landscape: tight resource constraints, accelerated cloud adoption, evolving security threats, and the transformative power of artificial intelligence. For developers, RHEL 10 isn't just an update; it's a strategic platform designed to simplify tasks, accelerate delivery, and provide a trusted foundation for future innovation.
Here are the key highlights for developers in RHEL 10.
Elevate your Linux expertise with RHEL Lightspeed
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Lightspeed combines decades of Red Hat's Linux knowledge and expertise with AI technologies to proactively inform and simplify how IT professionals build, deploy, and manage RHEL.
The new RHEL command line assistant, powered by RHEL Lightspeed, allows you to ask natural language questions directly in the terminal for instant answers, recommendations, and actionable guidance, streamlining complex tasks and boosting efficiency.
Streamline operations with image mode
RHEL 10 introduces fully supported image mode, a simple, consistent, and container-native approach to build, deploy, and manage your operating system.
Developers can manage the OS with the same tools and workflows used for applications, enabling faster updates, enhanced security through immutable system images, and simplified rollbacks—just like your smartphone.
This includes the capability to apply compliance hardening profiles (STIG, PCI, CIS) at build time, shifting security to the left in your development pipeline.
Enhanced developer tooling and libraries
RHEL 10 features updated versions of key developer tools and libraries, ensuring you have the latest capabilities for your projects:
- PHP 8.3
- NGINX 1.26
- Git 2.47
- Maven 3.9
- MySQL 8.4
Additionally, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Microsoft Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is now a validated software platform, enabling you to run a RHEL development environment directly on Windows without spinning up a traditional virtual machine.
Access more content with RHEL extensions repository
This new repository provides a convenient channel for high-value software, including developer tools, open source libraries, and niche utilities.
These packages are community supported, built, and signed by Red Hat, ensuring a trusted software supply chain for your development needs.
RHEL as your trusted AI foundation
RHEL 10 is designed as a stable and secure foundation for artificial intelligence (AI), including Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI and Red Hat OpenShift AI.
New foundational AI capabilities include integration with a Postgres Vector Database for improved Generative AI accuracy, support for confidential computing to protect data in use, and planned support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) for agentic AI capabilities.
A new Partner Validation Program accelerates time-to-market for the latest AI hardware and software solutions that integrate with RHEL.
Explore new architectures with RISC-V Developer Preview
Red Hat is offering a RHEL 10 Developer Preview for a single RISC-V platform, giving the developer community early access to combine RHEL with this emerging open source CPU design and instruction set architecture. This allows you to evaluate its technology benefits and innovate in a secure, reliable environment.
Smarter decisions from build time with Red Hat Insights
RHEL 10 empowers developers to "shift left," making more informed, cost-effective decisions earlier in the development cycle.
Insights image builder package recommendations, powered by RHEL Lightspeed, proactively suggest relevant packages based on common usage patterns, minimizing oversights and helping create more complete images from the start.
Red Hat Insights planning for RHEL provides access to future roadmap information and package lifecycle data, enabling you to plan upgrades, maintain support, and anticipate the impact of upcoming changes.
The Domain Join via Insights feature securely automates joining new RHEL images to Red Hat Identity Management (IdM) domains, removing manual burdens and enhancing security.
Cloud-optimized for seamless deployment
RHEL 10 delivers jointly engineered, integrated, and supported images optimized for major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. These pre-tuned, ready-to-run images simplify building, deploying, and managing workloads in your preferred cloud environment.
Summary
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 is designed to be your trusted partner in navigating the complexities of modern IT, accelerating your innovation journey.
Explore RHEL 10 and discover how this release can transform your development workflows:
- Download RHEL 10
- Explore interactive labs
- Download the RHEL 10 cheat sheet
- Get started with RHEL on WSL
Join the Red Hat Enterprise Linux community and let's build the future, together!
Last updated: November 11, 2025