CentOS - Absolutely the best value for the money
October 24, 2019

CentOS - Absolutely the best value for the money

Bear Golightly | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with CentOS

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.

Pros

  • As it is derived from the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution, most instructions for installing enterprise software on Red Hat also work on CentOS, including the package manager.
  • CentOS lags behind Fedora (the other free Red Hat derivative supported by Red Hat), which makes it a solid choice for the enterprise (or even SMBs - stability is universally appreciated!).

Cons

  • CentOS isn't (and may never be) a strong contender for a desktop (GUI) Linux distribution.
  • The cost of ownership is debatable, but the purchase price is zero dollars ($0), which is hard to argue with.
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.
You can justifiably expect to get your money's worth from the CentOS community, and you paid $0. Sometimes there is a delightful surprise. Sometimes the surprise is less delightful. Either way, the problem you're having is probably well-documented if you just look.

Do you think CentOS Linux delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with CentOS Linux's feature set?

Yes

Did CentOS Linux live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of CentOS Linux go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy CentOS Linux again?

Yes

If you need a Linux host for running server software, you almost can't go wrong by installing CentOS - the Red Hat ecosystem is one of the most highly-supported Linux distributions.

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