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CentOS Linux

CentOS Linux

Overview

What is CentOS Linux?

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.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

CentOS Linux is widely used in various industries and for a multitude of purposes. Organizations rely on CentOS as a stable and reliable …
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Server material

8 out of 10
May 12, 2021
Incentivized
We use CentOS as the host OS for MongoDB servers in our analytics service. We also used to have it as the host for the user file Backup …
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CentOS rocks!

10 out of 10
July 06, 2019
Incentivized
CentOS is our go-to. For any software that can run on Linux, we choose it. We don't have to mess with Microsoft licensing and Windows …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Product Demos

DELL OMSA CentOS 6.4 DEMO 2014

YouTube

demo of free open source CentOS Linux, R, and RStudio for quant

YouTube

CentOS Linux Hot Plug CPU and Hot Plug Memory Demo

YouTube

VMware Tutorial Beginners | Session 14 CentOS Linux Hot Plug CPU and Hot Plug Memory Demo

YouTube

Learning Centos Linux : LVM Management on CentOS XenServer Demo Linux VM

YouTube
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Product Details

What is CentOS Linux?

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.

CentOS Linux Technical Details

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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(130)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

CentOS Linux is widely used in various industries and for a multitude of purposes. Organizations rely on CentOS as a stable and reliable operating system for hosting a wide range of services. It serves as the foundation for information cyber security virtual appliances, making it a popular choice among vendors in this field. Additionally, CentOS is well-suited for network services like web servers and network file sharing, providing a solid platform for organizations to deliver their online presence.

Academic institutions also find great value in CentOS, using it as the primary Linux distribution for instructional and research computing endeavors. It offers a stable research platform that is easy to manage and comes with a solid support path. Moreover, CentOS is preferred by developers for custom software development and deployment, as it provides a stable and secure environment while offering regular security updates.

For organizations looking for cost-effective solutions, CentOS is an excellent choice. It eliminates the need for costly licenses associated with other Linux distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Many companies use CentOS for hosting public-facing websites, infrastructure monitoring, DNS services, phone systems, and various other server roles. Its compatibility with RPM packages makes it cloud-friendly and allows mirroring of expensive Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers.

Overall, users appreciate the speed, stability, and ease of use that CentOS offers. It serves as the go-to choice for virtual machines throughout many organizations and is known for its reliability. Additionally, CentOS eliminates the need for Microsoft licensing and Windows updates, making it a hassle-free option for those seeking an alternative to Windows-based systems.

High Security and Stability: Many users have expressed their satisfaction with the high level of security and stability provided by CentOS. They value the peace of mind that comes from using a reliable operating system straight out of the box.

Smooth Performance: Users consistently praise the performance of CentOS, even on average hardware. They appreciate its efficiency and optimization, which result in a smooth and responsive user experience.

Versatile Deployment: The ease and speed of deployment in various scenarios make CentOS a versatile choice for different projects. Users find it convenient for their needs, allowing them to quickly set up their development environment or host necessary network services.

Network Configuration Issues: Some users have experienced difficulties configuring network interfaces in CentOS, particularly when using it outside of regular configuration. This has been a common frustration among reviewers.

Slow Server Updates: Reviewers have expressed a desire for faster server updates in CentOS. They feel that the current update process takes too long and they would like to see improvements in this area.

Limited User-Friendly Features: CentOS is not considered a good desktop solution by some users due to its lack of certain user-friendly features and an intuitive user interface. These limitations have been mentioned by multiple reviewers as drawbacks of the software.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-21 of 21)
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Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As it’s only for smaller clients and it’s best suited for our organisation and also it’s reliable. The patching cycle is okay and the applications need not be updated regularly so the downtime will be reduced hence it’s recommended for smaller clients as it’s less costly when compared to others.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Ubuntu Linux is another candidate that we've evaluated. It stacks up well against CentOS Linux, however it does have some quirks we need to deal with such as package management and stability. For the most part, the server version of Ubuntu is stable, but we stick with CentOS Linux because it seems to have a slight edge over Ubuntu in that realm as well. I have colleagues at other firms that are wholesale Ubuntu server infrastructure, and they are very happy with it and Ubuntu is favorable there. With the changes that have occurred or may still yet occur at CentOS Linux, we may go down the path towards Ubuntu. But for now, CentOS Linux is where we are parked and will remain for the foreseeable future.
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Ubuntu Linux LTS used to be a more bleeding edge and did not provide the reliability and stability compared to CentOS, but with the move to CentOS Stream. This is reversed and we're considering moving to Ubuntu even though that is a lot of work. We simply can't work with CentOS Stream and had to redo planning to use another OS.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
May 12, 2021

Server material

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOS has a better reputation than Ubuntu Server. In the past some of the packages were quite old compared to Ubuntu Server. CentOS 7 had longer support cycle than the 4 year Ubuntu LTS. And CentOS Stream promises even longer support.
It is harder to manage than Ubuntu Server, and less intuitive in some areas (like networking).
Jason Smith, DPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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 to use it again and wow, that was a nightmare. SUSE was just inconvenient to use, total weirdo Linux. It was almost like using BSD or something. Ubuntu, I like that for the desktop.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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 extensive user community, meaning they could very easily find support if needed from user forums. At that point, CentOS was a non-starter and we didn't move forward.
Bear Golightly | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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 easy to jump into CentOS, a derivative specifically designed as a slow-release free distribution.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I like CentOS over other flavors of Linux - mainly because it's widely used, supported, and it's based of RedHat Enterprise Linux. Comparing it to Windows as a server? No comparison - CentOS all the way - unless you want to reboot your windows servers every few days.
July 06, 2019

CentOS rocks!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We also use Ubuntu or Debian. They have their differences but it mainly comes down to what the software "officially" supports. You can get it to run on either but if there are scripts or packages already built it just saves time.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOs is the standard in the hosting industry when it comes to different versions of Linux OSs, it's almost an exact clone of Redhat so it fits in with every need pretty well as well as it being free to use as it is opensource. Ubuntu is a great desktop OS.
Valery Mezentsau | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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 servers are more useful for most of IT specialists and once carefully patched can be the same secured solution, but requires purchasing a license(es).
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Ubuntu Server has a lot of the same pros as CentOS, it can sometimes take a little more work to get the same level of security that you can get out of the box with CentOS. However, Ubuntu has a much better desktop than CentOS.
Windows Servers is also reliable and secure well maintained, but licensing costs.
VMware ESXi only if you compare CentOS as VM host, would go with ESXi.
Charles R. Coggins III | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am currently looking into Ubuntu Web Server. I believe I have 18.04 installed on my test lab. I have been trying to compare speeds and reliability to our CentOS Server. The hard part for me is finding a decent web panel to use. CentOS Web Panel is really nice and I have not really come across anything I like as much as it so far.
Aaron Smith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
While Ubuntu Server has a lot of the same pros as CentOS, it can sometimes take a little more work to get the same level of hardening that you can get out of the box with CentOS. However, Ubuntu offers a much better desktop experience than CentOS.

Windows Server is also very reliable and a fully patched and maintained Windows Server can also be reliable and secure, it does not offer the same performance as Windows has a lot of overhead if you are using the fully graphical environment in Windows. Additionally, the licensing costs can be extremely prohibitive with Windows Server.
Kenneth Hess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOS is different than other Linux distributions because it is as close to Red Hat Enterprise Linux as you can get without incurring the costs of Red Hat licensing. Most enterprises accept Red Hat and CentOS as a standard operating system. Some of the other distributions do not enjoy this widespread acceptance. For anything enterprise-related, you can always count on CentOS. That's not to say that the other distributions are bad--quite the contrary. The Debian-based distros are very good. In fact, Ubuntu has been an IT favorite since its inception. It's just that Red Hat has deep roots in the enterprise and CentOS is a Red Hat "clone" so it has that same acceptance by association.
germary zambrano | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • debian
CentOS is a derivative distribution, or rather cloned, of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which allows 100% compatibility with the binaries of the applications developed for RHEL. For this reason, and being "backed" by such an important company as Red Hat, it is one of the most used distributions, the opposite of debian that it is its base distribution and does not have a good backup
November 02, 2017

CentOS 7 simply the best

Olumayowa Mosuro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is more robust and easy to use, troubleshooting tips can be found online. You can also get community help as well. It is prone to security as compared to other OS. Updates are downloaded and installed in which an admin user can see the progress via the Command line interface.
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