CentOS Linux vs. macOS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
CentOS Linux
Score 8.6 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
macOS
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
macOS is the graphical operating system for Apple desktop devices.N/A
Pricing
CentOS LinuxmacOS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CentOS LinuxmacOS
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
Community Pulse
CentOS LinuxmacOS
Considered Both Products
CentOS Linux

No answer on this topic

macOS
Chose macOS
macOS just makes sense to me. Each OS has its pros and cons.. macOS works for me. It's well designed, intuitive, and efficient. But it's not cheap... well, macOS is basically free, but you need the hardware to run it, and the hardware isn't cheap. Pick the right tool for the …
Features
CentOS LinuxmacOS
Operating System
Comparison of Operating System features of Product A and Product B
CentOS Linux
-
Ratings
macOS
9.5
4 Ratings
12% above category average
File Management00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Software Application Management00 Ratings9.84 Ratings
System Update Frequency00 Ratings9.84 Ratings
Operating System Security00 Ratings9.54 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CentOS LinuxmacOS
Small Businesses
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CentOS LinuxmacOS
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(22 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.6
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CentOS LinuxmacOS
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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Apple
Macs, macOS, and the appropriate Mac applications really shine in ease of use. Specifically, the system's media-handling features are excellent. The developer frameworks (libraries) are excellent and provide easy programmatic access to the operating system's features. macOS is very stable and is built on a solid foundation of a Unix kernel. The Swift programming language is very approachable, and macOS supports many scripting and programming languages, opening up a wide variety of coding libraries.
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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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Apple
  • Unified hardware and software drivers
  • Power users can have full access if needed
  • Upgrade cycles are so easy with OS transfer
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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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Apple
  • upfront costs to getting the most benefit from macOS requires you to purchase a Macbook...this is expensive
  • it's windows snapping function just isn't as good as Windows OS
  • as good as the M chips are, gaming just isn't a big strong suit
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Likelihood to Renew
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Apple
Its simply the best operating system
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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.
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Apple
I'm sure I'm biased. I've been using a Mac for 30+ yrs. I am significantly more productive on a Mac than on any other platform. It comes down to some personal preference and familiarity, but I just think the interface is more intuitive and streamlined
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Reliability and Availability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Apple
macOS tends to be very reliable, and Apple distributes updates as needed to patch known vulnerabilities or issues. It is very seldom that a macOS-based system is unavailable, and if that happens, the cloud-based storage and identity management support make it very easy to slot in a loaner machine while the user's primary machine is repaired.
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Performance
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Apple
The Apple Silicon hardware allows macOS to perform very well, with rapid response. Local processing for Apple Intelligence-related items is quite fast, and the response is impressively complete. Our experience with integrations to other enterprise systems is that the other system is usually the bottleneck in the process, rather than macOS.
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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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Apple
No answers on this topic
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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Apple
Just that simplicity of day to day activities and management. It's basically zero hassle with the ability to scale and power up if needed
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Scalability
Open Source
No answers on this topic
Apple
macOS is very easily deployed with central MDM/DDM management systems. There are several of these available to select, depending on the amount and type of deployment needed. We use Jamf Pro to support a "zero touch" deployment model, which makes it almost as easy to deploy 100 endpoints as 10 (other than delivery and unboxing).
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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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Apple
  • Apple supports their hardware longer than most manufacturers, which is good.
  • Apple's hardware is more expensive than similar equipment competition, which is bad but offset somewhat by its longevity.
  • Apple in an Apple world works great.
  • Apple in a Windows world has some work to do to get things talking.
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ScreenShots