CentOS Linux vs. Cisco NX-OS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CentOS Linux
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
CentOS 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 NX-OS
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Cisco NX-OS is a network operating system presented as a solution to help network operations move at the speed of business, with comprehensive automation, extensive visibility, and flexible open architectures for data center networks. NX-OS is the network operating system for all fabric architectures, from traditional L2/L3 to overlay-based fabrics.Cisco NX-OS powers the modern data center.N/A
Pricing
CentOS LinuxCisco NX-OS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CentOS LinuxCisco NX-OS
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Best Alternatives
CentOS LinuxCisco NX-OS
Small Businesses
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 9.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.2 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CentOS LinuxCisco NX-OS
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(21 ratings)
9.4
(14 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.7
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
7.9
(3 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(11 ratings)
User Testimonials
CentOS LinuxCisco NX-OS
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.
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Cisco
This easy solution can be a great help for the big companies on easy multiple data processing and effective networking solutions for the various departments and also generating the real-time data reports with Cisco NX-OS is excellent. For the new users, it takes no time to become a pro on full manipulation of the features and offer the best and quality management services.
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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.
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Cisco
  • Cisco NX-OS is very simple to use and user friendly CLI
  • NX-OS has a modular config so easy to configure.
  • NX-OS comes up with copp policy where we can define most of our system level ontrols instead of defining separate ACLs
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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.
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Cisco
  • Being used to Catalyst IOS the change in some commands gets annoying
  • It also came with a new license model compared to IOS devices
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Usability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Cisco
NX-OS has many similarities with the traditional IOS which is quite beneficial when it comes to configuration and learning. As a native Linux system, there are a lot of tools and features that can be enabled for any use case.
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Performance
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Our switches running NX-OS have provided solid consistent throughput. We haven't had any issues with it not being able to handle what we threw at it. The latency is extremely low. It also has multiple management options that we hope to pursue in the future.
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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.
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Cisco
Cisco support never fails me. In terms of timely response, no one is on par with them. They really value the impact of having technical issues and potential business stoppage. Also, their support staff are well equipped with knowledge and skills and easily resolve the most common incidents. Most of the time, we can resolve an issue by just calling them once.
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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.
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Cisco
When compared to these data center switches, I think Cisco Nx-OS based data center switches fare very well in terms of performance and reliability. When looking and talking about security, Cisco and Juniper Junos are comparable but Huawei switches lag in terms of security due to various reasons like who owns and controls them.
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Scalability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Cisco
Up to now, we haven't had a major ground-shaking attack on our networks but we take no chances by using NX-OS alongside a SIEM. All endpoints and workloads are secure so I would say we have plenty of trust in their security model.
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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.
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Cisco
  • overall a good prodcut
  • overa all a good product it will help you in ROI by removing some tools from your environement
  • The software have HA and lastest technology features included
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ScreenShots