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CentOS Linux vs. Cisco IOS vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    CentOS Linux

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ACentOS Linux is a Linux distribution is an enterprise OS platform compatible with its source RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Its end of life was announced for December 2021.N/A

    Cisco IOS

    Score9.2 out of 10
    N/ACisco IOS, presently in its 15th edition, is a network operating system for service providers and enterprises alike.N/A

    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

    Score9.1 out of 10
    N/ARed Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux distribution mainly used in commercial data centers.N/A
    Pricing
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Free Trial
    NoNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Considered Multiple Products
    Open Source
    Chose CentOS Linux
    The first reason for going CentOS Linux it's because is free, you there's no cost since we deploy a lot of machines in a daily basis. It is a very stable software, we are sure the OS will not crash or restart, so our software can run without issue. The support and …
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    CentOS is based on RHEL, so it really came down to the costs when making the selection between our options. RHEL offered more support and features, but nothing that we specifically needed. CentOS is fully customizable, something Windows Server was also lacking in many ways. The …
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    Free no cost, Lower costs for support, and overall doesn't require a per licensing for each install.
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    Long ago we used to run Red Hat ES. However, the management of the licenses and stupid dashboards just killed us. Too much time was wasted on worthless administration. Support was not good either. Now I used SUSE way back in the 2000's and it was ok. About two years ago I tried …
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    For our development environment, we evaluated CentOS against Ubuntu and SLES, and actually did not end up picking CentOS, as our developers found it primitive compared to the niceties offered out of the box from Ubuntu. In addition, our developers found that Ubuntu had an …
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    When the rubber meets the road, any Linux distribution will do. However, RHEL and distributions that are derived from RHEL have a fantastic ecosystem of users, software packages, and documentation (which is generally compatible between RHEL-derived distributions) that make it …
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    CentOS has a longer release cycle; it also has a much longer support cycle. i think overall CentOS is more stable and secure.
    Incentivized
    Chose CentOS Linux
    Comparing to Ubuntu Server OS, CentOS is better from the security hardening side. RHEL: from my hands-on experience it is pretty much the same as CentOS, but in lots of cases, costs money. However, RHEL has better internal, community and software vendors support. Windows …
    Incentivized
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Red Hat
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is better than all of the operating systems I've used, except for macOS. macOS gives the best of both worlds, smooth and clean GUI with tabs for everything you could possibly need, along with the strengths of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) with …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has less content and less attractive desktop offerings, but it offers an easy to use integrated set of tools for customizing and mass deploying Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Compared to other options, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)'s tooling …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    In our experience, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) support structure is highly stable and dependable.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Rocky Linux. CentOS, Arch about every distribution of Linux. Stability and reliability are king and the support. If something happens or you just hit a bug, that's why you go to Red Hat.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    We feel comfortable with any linux distribution. Sometimes the decision about using one or other linux distribution is related to the cost of subscriptions, level of criticity of the system, and support requirements. We always chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Linux for …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Windows 11 has more stability and great functionality compared to older windows versions, and the gap between windows and Linux has shortened. You can pick from different OS’s to build enterprise level software on nowadays. But Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is still among the …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Far better vendor experience and support compared to Oracle. Better security and update cadence compared to CentOS. Better docs with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and the ability to bring data together though Red Hat Insights is a powerful tool. This helps feed into other …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    I prefer to use Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as my host os while using something like debian as a container image
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    the most is support.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    It is more reliable than CentOS Stream and others. Also Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has a convinent support.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Windows, CentOS
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    RHEL is the most reliable and what our organization prefers
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Supportability
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    They’re all built from similar if not identical sources so they’re all compatible and often interchangable.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux stands above Windows and Ubuntu, in my opinion, because of streamlined features, excellent support, and plethora of available documentation and user created tools.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    The stability of RHEL is the major difference between these two
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    The support for RHEL is where RHEL truly shines.
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    They have their own pluses and minuses, but for what RHEL eight is and for what it does, I would recommend it above anything else for an enterprise. Two, consistency and stability of the environment, making sure the packages that our developers need are available and not being …
    Incentivized
    Chose Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    RedHat support is the driving factor as to why we chose them.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    73%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    295 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    99%
    Delivers good value for the price
    253 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    82%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Happy with the feature set
    289 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    97%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    188 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    253 Answers
    Features
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Operating System
    Comparison of Operating System features of CentOS Linux and Cisco IOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Feature
    CentOS Linux
    -
    Ratings
    Cisco IOS
    -
    Ratings
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    8.4
    78 Ratings
    4% below category average
    File Management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.073 Ratings
    Software Application Management00 Ratings00 Ratings8.075 Ratings
    System Update Frequency00 Ratings00 Ratings8.276 Ratings
    Operating System Security00 Ratings00 Ratings9.378 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Small Businesses
    Debian OS
    Score8.3 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    CentOS Linux
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Cisco NX-OS
    Score8 out of 10
    Ubuntu
    Score8.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (22 ratings)
    9.3
    (4 ratings)
    8.9
    (302 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.3
    (3 ratings)
    8.5
    (194 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CentOS LinuxCisco IOSRed Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Open Source
    In any role where you need raw server power, CentOS Linux is extremely well suited. It is extremely stable, and in my experience, probably the most stable of the Linux distros available. It has a very wide base of support from 3rd party sources for additional functionality that do not come already in the CentOS Linux distribution itself. It is not as appropriate for situations that are customer facing or end user facing. For those, I recommend Ubuntu Linux. But for everything server & compute related, I recommend CentOS Linux.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    I've worked with several network device vendors in my 10+ years of being in the industry and my favorite continues to be Cisco IOS. Overall, Cisco IOS tends to be the most stable, the most intuitive, has the best TAC support, and has the best knowledge base articles and white papers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    There's a lot of things that can and can't be discussed. But as I mentioned earlier, cloud computing and on-prem, and very much like in the cloud, having a standard image ISO, deploying that, the configurations with Ansible or packages installed via Ansible, instead of just a Kickstart script, you have a set of scripts that run in a pipeline that deploy Red Hat. So I'd say the environments, every time I've used Red Hat Enterprise Linux as a computing solution has been, like I mentioned, reusable, scalable, positive. And I don't think I've ever found any situations where I wish I were using something other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux, because the support is not there for anything else as much as it is for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Open Source
    • First of all, CentOS is one of the most secure and stable OSes straits from the box.
    • High performance on the average hardware.
    • In most of my scenarios—easy and quick deployment.
    • Huge KB community that helps to build and support different services on CentOS.
    • Versions lifecycle.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    • User friendly CLI.
    • Quick fixes for critical bugs.
    • Longer uptime.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Virtualization, like the operating system level task. I see this product is very good and it blends very well with the middleware components like all the JBoss and other things. And other than that, either you install it or a virtual machine or physical servers, it works seamlessly anywhere. And if you want to go further, like Red Hat OpenShift or those things also work very nice with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Open Source
    • CentOS is not a great desktop platform. Although some would disagree with that statement, I think that CentOS is better suited to life as a server.
    • Since CentOS is community-supported some software vendors will not officially support it because it isn't Red Hat.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • By this point, there are several "flavors" of the Cisco IOS such as XE, XR, and the standard Cisco IOS. While they are all fairly similar, there does exist syntax differences between them. It would be ideal if at some point in the future, Cisco is able to unify all of them into one standard operating system which would use the same syntax across all platforms.
    • While overall Cisco does a great job of QA'ing their IOS, no matter the release, there's always some minor bugs. I think it's important that Cisco continue to pour resources into their QA team to test their software.
    • While I'm very familiar with the graphical readouts of "show processes cpu history" I would love for Cisco to eventually find a more intuitive way to display this data. I can't begin to count how many times I've had to teach more entry level (and even mid level) engineers how this graph is interpreted.
    • I do wish that Cisco had something similar to Juniper's "commit check" or "commit confirmed". This helps validate the changes you're about to apply, and catch errors, so that you have a better idea of the impact of the change.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) needs better built-in developer-centric tooling.
    • The desktop experience is too barebones, which makes it less attractive for developer workstations.
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) needs to be integrated and available in GItHub Actions as a supported platform so code developed on GitHub can be tested and qualified there.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    We find RHEL to be a superior OS with stable operations and long life. It is also easier to use and fix then most other OS's.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Open Source
    It is a very typical server software, so you will have just the console. But it is still very easy to use, you can do anything from there and you have te built in manuals to review any information. For the other hand, if you need a graphical environment is not an issue, you can install any environment you what, Gnome, xfce, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    IOS is pretty intuitive as you can use the question marks to check for all the options or parameters for a specific command. Also having the tab key to complete the words is nice as you don't need type the complete command. Using also abbreviated commands with 2 or 3 letters instead of the whole Word makes it a great OS.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Red Hat
    It's pretty intuitive and easy to use. Everything is adjustable; everything is customizable through a set of yaml's and everything can be undone and re-done. Doing items such a modification and restarting the single app doesnt take down the whole operating system like one of the more popular GUI based operating systems. We can work on live production systems without breaking into a sweat.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Product support and regular patches.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    As with any OS enhanced testing will need to be done prior to application integration.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Open Source
    Again, written documentation is excellent, even on the older versions. The support community is the best. It is comprehensive and I would say that it global because it transcends national boundaries. Also, you find all types of people using CentOS to do all sorts of things so you are bound to find someone to talk to if there are problems.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Red Hat support has really come a long way in the last 10 years, The general support is great, and the specialized product support teams are extremely knowledgeable about their specific products. Response time is good and you never need to escalate.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Don't be afraid of it, its easy to install and configure for the tasks needed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Open Source
    CentOS is based on RHEL, so it really came down to the costs when making the selection between our options. RHEL offered more support and features, but nothing that we specifically needed. CentOS is fully customizable, something Windows Server was also lacking in many ways. The stability and speed was unmatched in comparison to Windows, and we were not utilizing any Windows-specific software to require us to use the Microsoft alternative. My years of experience have also made it a breeze to set up and configure new CentOS instances, leading me to stay where I'm comfortable.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    Cisco has a better presence on corporate business so it makes it easier to find engineers and technitians to support your network. Also a lot of Universities and schools use it as a reference and use it to teach and prepare students so it will be easier to recruit people with cisco preparation.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    Windows Server can take a long time to patch, waiting for the patch to install, then waiting to apply, after the OS is rebooted it can also take additional time to apply the update. Often times Windows Server patches can fail, leading to long troubleshooting times and application outages. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Patching is extremely quick, I've honestly not seen a Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) update fail to install in many years of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) patching.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Red Hat
    Operational ease of use backed by support
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Open Source
    • CentOS's support of RPM packages makes it very easy to replicate RHEL servers for development or testing in cheap / free environments
    • CentOS's minimalistic desktop environment requires additional tweaking / packages if you want to have a usable desktop environment with the niceties of other modern distributions. As a result, if developers want to use CentOS, they'll need to spend more time customizing it than other distros.
    • CentOS's easy customization from the command line lends itself well to our virtualization infrastructure where setup can be easily scripted to modify CentOS's configuration files.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    • Great uptimes on proven availability/reliability.
    • Longevity of these switches ensures great ROI.
    • Easy to learn for new users.
    Incentivized
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    Red Hat
    • It has done wonders for my career because I come from a Linux background, HPUX, Solaris and AIX. So made this transition to Linux 20 years ago. So it has really put my career at the forefront of what we do in the company. We're still primarily a window shop, but with Red Hat and what they're doing with the Kubernetes integration with OpenShift, with the East Satellite Management, the Ansible stuff, all based on Red Hat. It's taken off at my company and we're very happy about it.
    Incentivized
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