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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

Operating SystemsUnspecified
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(129)

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 we have small clients we prefer to use CentOS, the installation is easier and it’s very stable and reliable. It’s recommended for faster security patching. The applications running on it don’t need to be updated as often and the cost is also very less than compared with other Linux essentials.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use CentOS Linux in almost every capacity except as an end user facing system. I use it as a mail server, web server, router, vpn endpoint, development system, high availability clustering node, virtual machine hypervisor, wireless access point, encryption appliance, and virtually every other kind of system, other than laptop or desktop. It excels at all of the server type roles that it is placed in.
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use various CentOS systems in our organization on over two thousand servers all over the world. We write custom software for CentOS and rely on it to be a stable and secure platform for our needs. CentOS needs to be reliable for our business org to function properly and not introduce issues.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOS has been my Linux flavour of choice for many years. I use it both personally and professionally for multiple purposes. We have CentOS running for our corporate firewall filtering, network file storage, web application development and MySQL hosting. We primarily use the operating system on headless machines, accessed over SSH. We utilize the command line interface, not the GUI options.
May 12, 2021

Server material

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
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 Service Front Ends. We use it both on bare metal and in virtual machines. We also have development and testing virtual machines setup with it as a host OS.
Jason Smith, DPA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use CentOS as the primary Linux distribution across all our instructional and research computing endeavors. It is used across all the IT infrastructure and supports many unique academic projects. The main problem that CentOS solves is that it provides a stable research platform that is easy to manage and most of all has a solid support path that extends well into the future.
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As our organization looked to shift to cloud development, we need to standardize on a cloud-friendly Linux distribution. We evaluated CentOS for this purpose within my development team with the idea being that CentOS offered compatibility with rpm packages, and could largely mirror an expensive Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) server, without the cost. Unfortunately, we found that CentOS 8 was not fit for this purpose.
Bear Golightly | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use CentOS for all of our Linux hosts and Linux containers, for webservers as well as application servers, and addresses the need for a solid platform to run generic code, without worrying about licensing or justifying initial cost.
July 17, 2019

Why I love CentOS

Joseph Ngugi Muiruri | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Most of our development team works with opensource tools and contribute towards the improvement of CentOS and other Linux based tools and our default Operating system is CentOS. Our system administrators and Linux engineers mostly operate with CentOS.
July 06, 2019

CentOS rocks!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
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 updates. It is fast, stable, and relatively easy to use if you are familiar with Linux at all. If you are having a problem a quick Google search will typically turn up an answer.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use CentOS for all of our Linux hosting servers that is over 2000+ servers in production and about 70% of them uses different versions of CentOS its a great alternative to RedHat which charges licensing fees whereas CentOS is opensource and perfect for our and our clients' needs.
Valery Mezentsau | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In most cases, I have been and still am using CentOS operating system as the base for information/cyber security virtual appliances. In my practice, I have been using a lot of different virtual information security appliance from different vendors. Most of the vendors are placing their Infosec related software on top of CentOS operating systems. Also, I have been using CentOS servers for a telephony system.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In IT, CentOS is used by our organization to host many of the service's organization-wide services. It is a great cost-free alternative to the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux product. It is built using the same source code as RHEL with just cosmetic modifications made due to licensing/trademarks. It delivers robust services on a free platform. CentOS is well-supported with regular security and operating system updates. It is well-suited for all network services, including as a network file share. Also run FreeSWITCH for the entire organization-wide phone system, which is also based on CentOS.
Charles R. Coggins III | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOS is currently being used as the primary OS for our Zabbix Server and our Web Server that hosts a couple of our websites. CentOS is a very stable build of Linux based off of Red Hat but it is free so you get a lot of the power and features of Red Hat Enterprise but you do not need to pay for any licenses. We are using it because we wanted to run our web server on a very minimalistic and quick operating system that we knew would we not really run into any issues with. I can say for as long as I have been dealing with the server side of things I have never had any problems with our web server or our Zabbix server.
Aaron Smith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOS is used by our organization to host many services organization wide services. We have various public facing web sites that utilize PHP, MariaDB, and DotNet Core that are hosted on CentOS servers. We also utilize a few CentOS servers to host applications such as UniFi's controller software, Zabbix for infrastructure monitoring and problem alerting, as well as DNS services. We also run FreePBX for our entire organization wide phone system, which is also based on CentOS.

CentOS gives us a secure and very reliable OS to host these services on commodity hardware for a very little financial impact.
Kenneth Hess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
CentOS is a RedHat clone that is widely accepted as the "Go To" Red Hat Linux clone for mimicking a production Red Hat environment. I use it for virtual machines for various services such as web server. CentOS is used as a standard OS. CentOS solves a major business problem which is enterprise service delivery. It delivers robust services on a free platform. CentOS is well-supported with regular security and operating system updates. It is well-suited for all network services, including as a network file share. It shares all the features of Red Hat including that of a virtual host. I use it as an OpenVZ hosting platform but it's quite capable as a KVM host as well.
germary zambrano | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Currently we use CentOS as a service bus to interconnect through different web servers and applications that provides information in different systems. It has also helped me because it is a stable and robust operating system that helps you not to hang up or get stuck at the time of execution.
November 02, 2017

CentOS 7 simply the best

Olumayowa Mosuro | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The centos 6.5 Linux operating system is used mainly for our Asterisk PBX solutions. This solution is used for our retention agents to communicate with customers via this system. The O.S is configured at the IT departments and is used for retention contact center.

We have addressed a lot of problems for our retention team as we have a more robust solution that can be managed on a reliable operating system. Centos is free open source Linux based system that is stable and prone to various and easy to use. The agents at the contact center can perform the various functions via asterisk solution perfectly.
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