Kali Linux vs. Ubuntu

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Kali Linux
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Kali Linux is an open source, advanced penetration testing platform supported by Offensive Security headquartered in New York.N/A
Ubuntu
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Ubuntu Linux is a Linux-based operating system for personal computers, tablets and smartphones. There is also a Server version which is used on physical or virtual servers in the data center.N/A
Pricing
Kali LinuxUbuntu
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Kali LinuxUbuntu
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
Kali LinuxUbuntu
Considered Both Products
Kali Linux
Chose Kali Linux
The hard feature to be beat Kali with is the amount of preinstalled tools. I.e. Ubuntu is great but you would have to install each and every tool separately.
Ubuntu
Chose Ubuntu
We chose Ubuntu largely because of the large user base and because desktop setups can be easy to learn for people used to Windows computers and, of course, other distributions of Linux. Not a single one of the people we work with has had formal education or training with …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Kali LinuxUbuntu
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Debian OS
Debian OS
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Veracode
Veracode
Score 8.5 out of 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Veracode
Veracode
Score 8.5 out of 10
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Kali LinuxUbuntu
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(6 ratings)
8.3
(44 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.3
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(6 ratings)
User Testimonials
Kali LinuxUbuntu
Likelihood to Recommend
Offensive Security
Kali is quite honestly appropriate for use on a Test Lab, a Virtual Machine, it will even run on a Raspberry Pi. It is the most popular tool used in most all training courses. It can be uses in home labs, work labs and production environments to perform real life scans for vulnerabilities among other things. It is the most popular tool for Cybersecurity tool.
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Canonical Ltd
If somebody whishes to be an IT professional, learning the basics of Linux is amust. Ubuntu [Linux] is one of the most beginner-friendly, widely supported, easy-to-use-relative-to-the-fact-that-its-still-linux OS on the market. As somebody who learned the basics of UNIX/LINUX on Ubuntu, it was a very good experience. It is customizable, has a lot of improvements over the years, and live up to be a viable alternative to any modern OS in 2021 as well.
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Pros
Offensive Security
  • Provides high security.
  • Does great job with penetration testing.
  • Has good number of testing tools with in.
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Canonical Ltd
  • PACKAGE MANAGEMENT. You can update everything - OS installed software, you name it with either a few clicks in a GUI or a single command.
  • No bloatware.
  • No need for antivirus software.
  • Certainly the price is right.
  • My 83 year old grandmother has been using it - and because of this I rarely need to provide tech support. But I still visit my grandmother.
  • You can choose from a variety of user interfaces or rock it in the terminal.
  • Generally speaking, Ubuntu is as polished an OS as any you might pay for.
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Cons
Offensive Security
  • Usage wise, it is tough for use by beginners. Can be improved.
  • With Kali Linux have noticed driver related issues especially with Nvidia graphics cards.
  • Kali Linux can be improved for use as a day to day OS.
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Canonical Ltd
  • The repository system could be a little better, as some of the software needed is not easily available there.
  • Ubuntu sometimes does not play nicely or easily with some modern firmwares.
  • Some people report slow responses with newer versions of Ubuntu, although we have not experienced any.
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Likelihood to Renew
Offensive Security
No answers on this topic
Canonical Ltd
Experience with other Distributions.
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Support Rating
Offensive Security
No answers on this topic
Canonical Ltd
We did not use the managed commercial support, but instead relied on community forums and official documentation. Ubuntu is very well documented across both instructional documentation from the developers themselves as well as informal support forums [ServerFault, YCombinator, Reddit]. It's easy enough to find an answer to any question you may have
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Alternatives Considered
Offensive Security
The hard feature to be beat Kali with is the amount of preinstalled tools. I.e. Ubuntu is great but you would have to install each and every tool separately
Read full review
Canonical Ltd
Windows 10: Expensive, with more security problems, more difficult to keep updated and less variety of free / open source applications. Its use encourages bad information security practices. OpenSuse Linux: A different distribution at source (Suse Linux), use of rpm packages (with fewer repositories and incompatible with Ubuntu Linux dpkg packages), and whose main objective is to be a "testing ground" for its paid version / professional, SUSE enterprise Linux.
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Return on Investment
Offensive Security
  • Till now Kali Linux have not made a single penny negative impact on our companies business , its so powerful and useful at the same time for our company.
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Canonical Ltd
  • Systems administration with Ubuntu is easy with little deep knowledge about it. Docs and community publications are great resources for any task you need to perform on any Ubuntu server and the organization can save several salaries of specialized sys admins in favor of more active roles.
  • Having been an Ubuntu user for many years personally, setting up new Ubuntu servers on my organization came with zero cost for me. I just deployed one instance from my hosting/cloud provider and started working right after it was running, no need to ask support or hire new staff for these tasks.
  • Replacing paid options with Ubuntu have also saved thousands of dollars on Windows Server licenses. I've migrated Windows/SQL Server based systems to Ubuntu/MySQL/PostgreSQL several times during my career and saved about USD 5000/year in licenses to many of them.
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