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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

    VMware vSphere

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AAn enterprise workload platform, vSphere is used to improve the performance for a data center. It is used to boost operational efficiency, supercharge workload performance, and accelerate innovation.

    $995

    per year

    Pricing
    CentOS LinuxVMware vSphere
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard
    $995.00
    per year
    Enterprise
    $3,995.00
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CentOS LinuxVMware vSphere
    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 LinuxVMware vSphere
    Considered Both Products
    Open Source
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    73%
    Would buy again
    8 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    30 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    82%
    Happy with the feature set
    9 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    8 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    25 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    Features
    CentOS LinuxVMware vSphere
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of CentOS Linux and VMware vSphere
    Feature
    CentOS Linux
    -
    Ratings
    VMware vSphere
    7.2
    67 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings7.062 Ratings
    Management console00 Ratings7.067 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings6.060 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.062 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    CentOS LinuxVMware vSphere
    Small Businesses
    Debian OS
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM AIX
    Score9.4 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
    Score9.1 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CentOS LinuxVMware vSphere
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (22 ratings)
    7.0
    (70 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (11 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.6
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CentOS LinuxVMware vSphere
    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
    VMware by Broadcom
    vSphere is well suited for multiple VMWare hosts and can be very useful in larger enterprises where vMotion is used to load balance and failover running virtual machines. In smaller businesses with one or two hosts then the features can be overkill. The addition of virtual TPM support is a very nice addition to provide vm security in a more Microsoft supported methodology.
    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
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • vMotion that provides seamless movement of Virtual Machines between physical hosts and datastores.
    • Ease of Manage: vCenter provides very good management experience to the users.
    • It provides hassle free upgrade of versions, which requires good planning.
    • Easy to manage datastore, networks, CPU and memory resources.
    • It also allows to convert the physical machine and bring it to vSphere Environment with minimum effort.
    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
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Allow enable EVC without requiring host shutdown
    • More detail in recent tasks. Instead of just showing a task called "Reconfigure virtual machine" also have a link to more detailed information as to what was reconfigured, changed or removed.
    • Allow searching tasks or events
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    We are constantly looking for change that will benefit our company. We are not ones to stick with a product simply because it is what we know, but rather looking for what fits us best. We can't imagine another product on the market today doing a better job of handling our infrastructure than vSphere.
    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
    VMware by Broadcom
    Very useful for environments where space and energy consumption are issues and management is not very keen on upfront spending on hardware every time whenever requirement comes from any dept for provisioning a machine for their occasional use, easily can be done in case of VMware vSphere in few clicks. Backup, security, monitoring and management everything is covered but at additional cost.
    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
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    I rarely ever have to contact support and when I do need to resolve an issue, there is always an abundance of kb articles and research information available that can help quickly resolve the issue. Depending on the type of support contract you have, you may get support from some offshore group in another country and this could be a little challenging because of the language barrier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Just make sure that when you implement, that the person implementing truly knows what they are doing and has a plan of action coming in. Since our initial implementation using a consulting service, I have implemented a few vSphere just from what I learned at the initial implementation and use over time, and the person implementing really needs to know what they are doing or you will miss out on features that may help you down the line
    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
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    vSphere has a lot more feature sets than Hyper-V but at a much higher cost of entry versus MS Hyper-V. I have not been able to play with Hyper-V as much as I would have liked, but the setup and ongoing maintenance seems to be easier in vSphere than with Hyper-V
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    The contract terms are very clear and can be updated as per the project requirement. Customer support is also included in the contract which help us to troubleshoot critical issues very easily. Training included in contract will really help the client team to empower and hands-on on the latest updates and enhancements
    Read full review
    Professional Services
    Open Source
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    As I said earlier, they're always ready to understand our issues and propose the best and most appropriate solution for issues all the time. The security patches solution is accordingly to the business needs. Another scenario is their Knowledge Base where
    they're many articles that help you in order to solve something which
    is wrong.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Having vSphere helped my business quickly recover from a ransomware attack which would have crippled us for weeks if we were not virtualized. I think the ROI on something like that is immeasurable.
    • vSphere has allowed my company to purchase bigger server hardware to host 3 or 4 virtual servers, which was at a cost much lower than buying 3 or 4 server hardware boxes, saving us thousands each time we need to upgrade hardware.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots