CentOS Reviews

It can be used for data centers to run the servers.

CentOS is a test bench for Red Hat. When Red Hat is testing new software, they will test it out in CentOS and Fedora. They will give it to the public, the public will complain about all the issues, then they will fix it, and include it in Red Hat.

I am not using it for the organization. However, I am using it in the business. For example, I help many clients back up Linux servers or protect Linux servers. But I am a Linux user at home, and I have been implementing products that revolve around Linux.

CentOS was one of the best Linux distributions out there. There was no community-based operating system like CentOS, except for Red Hat.

CentOS is very efficient and very powerful with many capabilities.

Anyone who has been using CentOs from the beginning of time has been using it because it has been a stable platform. Many companies have made solutions based on CentOS because it was a stable platform.

Unfortunately, Red Hat has changed the direction of the project.

The community is shocked that CentOS is no longer that stable branch, it's that development branch. 

They have now started a new project that some vendors are involved with, which is called Rocky Linux. 

Rocky Linux is a new Linux distribution that continues with what the community started with CentOS. The community now is making creating their own CentOS, because of Red Hat's decision to make this CentOS a test bench.

Most of the vendors in the market right now are making appliances, whether it be a firewall or a storage appliance, and most of them are using CentOS. Imagine the impact this will have on the vendors, on an international level, because they are relying on CentOS to be the most stable Linux distribution, and they chose the solution based on stability.

Red Hat made the decision of making CentOS a test bench, which means it will no longer be stable. Vendors will either push the new unstable update to customers, which is not something they would likely do or they would need to change to another Linux distribution.

It's a major decision for many companies to make. Because it is now a test bench many people are forced to change.

I was using CentOS because it was very stable, and now it's not. Will I use it? No. 

The main reason people use CentOS was because of its stability. Now that the stability has been compromised, no one will use it, unless they are Red Hat developers. The people who are learning Red Hat will also like it. But for us, the community, who might have been relying on CentOS as being a very stable platform, we will discard it.

I have been using CentOS for five years.

We used version CentOS 6, and CentOS 7, but the latest one is CentOS 8.

CentOS had proven to be very stable, but now with the updates, CentOS is not the stable operating system that it used to be. 

CentOS is not supported commercially. CentOS is a community project. If you have any issue, you open the forums online, you post about it, and they solve it for you. 

Red Hat is the one that is charging for it. You can buy Red Hat and purchase support from them and they'll support you.

If you know your way around Linux, then it is easy to install CentOS.

Most of it is the command line. There is a graphical user interface installation, but if you know CentOS, you don't want to do anything with the graphics. Instead, you will want to do everything with the command line, otherwise, you should consider Ubuntu.

I can install any Linux on my own, with no worries.

There are no licensing fees for CentOS. It's a DPL project, there is no licensing cost.

CentOS, Red Hat, Oracle Linux, and Fedora all share the same binaries, they have the exact same distribution, with very minor differences. 

CentOS started as a community project, a community enterprise operating system. It's basically free Red Hat. Red Hat was rebranded and called CentOS and released to the public.

I have had a really good experience with CentOS 6 or CentOS 7, but I have abandoned CentOS completely since Red Hat has made its position of CentOS very clear. CentOS now is discontinued. 

Red Hat is releasing CentOS Stream, which is new. Before, what used to be the situation? Red Hat would release the Red Hat Linux distribution online version six, for example, at the same time, Red Hat would release CentOS 6. Red Hat and CentOS 6 had no differences, except the fact that with Red Hat you can actually get a support contract, whereas, with CentOS 6, you cannot get a support contract. 

CentOS and Red Hat are the same. There's no difference between CentOS and Red Hat.

There used to be no difference between CentOS and Red Hat, but now CentOS is like Fedora.

There's no difference, it's just a test bench, with the latest updates, but it is not as stable as it is before.

Now, there was something called Fedora. Fedora is a Linux-based distribution. Usually, you have the latest updates, the brand new technologies, everything is in the Fedora, but it's not stable. Fedora is not stable.

Red Hat is the one controlling CentOS. Whenever Red Hat would release a version, they would release the same CentOS to the public. The only difference was that CentOS is supported by the community, and Red Hat is supported by Red Hat, the enterprise by the business. They used to have a test bench, which is Fedora. Fedora is a distribution based both on Red Hat or CentOS, but packages are very up to date, which is not stable. Now, Red Hat made a decision to stop CentOS and make something new called CentOS Stream. This CentOS Stream is just like Fedora.

It's not as stable as Red Hat. Before Red Hat was releasing a free version and a paid version. Both the free and the paid were the exact, same, they were identical, there were no differences. 

It has the same stability and the same everything. Now, CentOS is a test bench in which Red Hat releases the newest and latest code so that they can try it out on the community, to ensure that it is fine before they include it in Red Hat. CentOS is like Fedora. Good for testing, not for production, and not for servers.

For the time being, I would not recommend this solution to others. 

At one time CentOS was definitely a nine out of ten, but now with these recent updates, I would rate CentOS a zero out of ten. Imagine if you would create something for a specific purpose, but then in the middle, you would change it and make it the exact opposite. That would make any person who chose it, hate it.

I am very frustrated with the way the CentOS project has gone. I would rate it a Zero out of ten.

We just see it as an operating system to run our applications. We're in the media industry and we make a lot of TV programs and OTT items. We have developed backend applications that make, let's say, 10 locations happen or make OTT happen.

Everything is running on CentOS due to the fact that it's lightweight. It's not a huge overhead. It's not like Windows eating up a lot of CPU resources. 

The performance in the past, the open-source approach, has been great. 

It helps us with our internal applications for very low pricing.

All our applications internally have been running on CentOS since 2006 when I joined the company so we have been developing on things like that.

We use the solution due to the fact that it's a lightweight, powerful, stable OS. It's being used for a lot of different use cases. 

The stability is very good.

The pricing is good. We pay a minimal fee.

Often, the solution doesn't scale as you expect.

I cannot recall if there are features that need improvement or if there's anything that should be added.

For me, it just has to perform and carry our application. I don't really care about how the user interface looks like as we don't use the user interface. We have an application running on it and that needs to be stable and that's the only thing. Therefore, we have no issues with the solution and don't feel it's missing anything.

The solution is stable, however, it could always be even more stable if possible.

CentOS recently announced some changes. I'm not sure what they will be, however, we look forward to seeing what they come out with. 

I've been using the solution for about ten to 12 years or so. It's been a very long time.

The solution is very stable. The reason that we have standardized the usage of CentOS is the stability. It has proven to us to be very stable compared to other options. 

I'm running around 1,400 CentOS VMs at the moment.

In terms of scalability, of course, things don't scale always as you want, however, it's a powerful solution.

The Dutch organization where I work has eight people on the payroll, however, we are not the users. We are the people building the backend and we have hundreds of thousands of people using the applications running on the data center. The people that watch OTT or watch television make use of parts of the installation.

I'm not on the operational side of the business and therefore have never been in touch with technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are.

We are using Ubuntu, CentOS, and also Red Hat. It really depends on the applications. If we buy applications or we use applications from vendors, if they say it has to run on Red Hat we'll run Red Hat. If they say it better runs on CentOS, it will run on CentOS. We have all the different file systems as we run applications that we buy or rent from vendors that make the applications.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. We have been using it for a long time it's an automatic deployment and has templates. People just have to click on the template being installed in the background. It's an automated process in VMware.

The end-user can go to the portal and they can just select which type of machine they want to have and which CentOS release is being deployed. It's a matter of minutes until they can log in.

A company really doesn't need outside assistance. It's fairly automated and simple to manage. 

The pricing is very reasonable. From what I understand, we pay a minimal fee, if we pay anything at all.

We use different versions of the solution. It's a mixture depending on the application. Some applications are not upgraded by vendors and therefore we are using old versions. We try to stay with our own applications on the latest and greatest, however, generally, it's a mixture.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations.

CentOS is an operating system for business. Basically, it is used for application servers used for deploying.

We've improved ourselves via testing. 

When we want to create a new environment or test a new product, for example, if we have to deploy maybe testing passwords with high ability, we first try to deploy it. 

We prefer to use a CentOS platform for testing new implementations. Basically, we don't have to spend money and resources when we are not very secure in implementing a testing solution.

CentOS is compliant with Red Hat packages, so we don't have to spend on a subscription for little projects or small projects. That's the reason we use it.

The initial setup is easy.

It is scalable. 

The solution is stable and reliable. 

It's free as a community product.

The package manager could be improved. For example, for my background, I prefer Debian. For me, the Debian package managing it fits a better solution. Sometimes using RPE and packages is a little complicated trying to resolve some dependencies.

The GUI interface could always be better. 

I've used the solution for around four years. 

The solution was stable. There were no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

It is a scalable solution. 

We do not have plans to increase usage. We may, in fact, reduce usage as we migrate. We are trying to migrate to Kubernetes however this is a very slow plan. For maybe three or five years, we will continue using Red Hat or CentOS.

We have about ten people using the solution. They are IT administrators. 

We never had CentOS support. Right now, we use Red Hat support. In terms of Red Hat support, it's a very good. If we have issues, we often turn to the community first. 

For the production environment, we use Red Hat Linux and for the testing or relevant environment, we use CentOS.

Right now, with a Kubernetes solution and maybe we need a new solution as we are trying to move onto SecureNet. If we use, for example, EKS and right now, maybe in the future, we don't need to deal with an operating system. In the future, if we cause CentOS, we might use it in a smaller, more basic implementation.

We did not use anything previously. 

The implementation process is very easy. When I started to learn about Red Hat, for example, it was a little difficult. Right now, it's very, very easy.

The deployment took 15 minutes to half an hour. It didn't take long. 

We have three people that can handle deployment and maintenance. They are computer science engineers or people with a Linux background.

The initial setup was handled in-house by our team. We didn't use any consultants or integrators. 

We are using the community version. It is free.

I did not personally compare other different solutions. 

We're a customer and an end-user.

We are using the latest version of the solution and are working on a migration.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We have a team of ten who use the solution for Linux-based SIEM and network monitoring. 

We particularly like that we can remove the graphic user interface to minimize attack settings for the operating system. We access applications on the operating system from our web interface and other machines. 

We would like Red Hat to keep supporting the solution but they have decided to get rid of it and there isn't much we can do about it. 

Our company has been using the solution for three years. 

Our team loves working with the solution because it is very stable. 

We experienced a few crashes that were due to human error, not issues with the operating system. We experienced a crash when upgrading from version six to seven but managed to rectify it with assistance from the knowledge base. 

The bugs that we encountered were fixed with constant live updates that were quite straightforward and useful. 

The solution is very scalable. We started using one machine with two nodes but scaled it up to four nodes. 

I utilized support when upgrading from version six to seven and experiencing kernel issues. The technical team was able to give us excellent service and assistance.

I rate support a six out of ten because there is always room for improvement in response time. If you make a request for immediate assistance, you might not get help until a day later but when the support comes it is quite good. 

Neutral

The initial setup was a bit complex but workable after training, reading through distribution papers, and increasing knowledge base. The solution can be learned and mastered after some time without too much difficulty. 

We deployed the solution in-house and sometimes got stuck but figured it out after a couple of weeks. 

The longest deployment took a month because we made a few errors. CentOS support helped us through the configuration of some applications so we managed to get it up and running. 

Setup of the solution is rated an eight out of ten. 

We use the free, open-source solution because we cannot afford the price for Linux. 

Because the solution is being depreciated, we are considering moving to Ubuntu but haven't made that decision yet. 

The operating system is very good and stable. We hope to continue to work with it, but are not sure if that is possible because Red Hat has decided to depreciate it and not develop it further. 

Considering that there will not be further development, I recommend considering alternate solutions. 

It is good for ensuring that only approved applications are allowed to run. Other applications, which have not been approved by IT, are picked up as violations. You really can define at the start of it, what is approved, what is not approved, and you can clearly identify if there's an exhibition of unapproved applications and that get filtered or blocked by the tool.

The security and IT team can go back and question the user to see why that particular application was run or maybe do further investigation in terms of seeing if that machine has attracted any malware.

The solution is stable.

It’s scalable.

The initial setup is pretty simple.

The solution could be a bit more user-friendly. In terms of commands, it's all CLI and there isn't any GUI which can make it challenging to use for some people.

We have been using it for the last two years.

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze. It’s reliable.

We have found that the solution can scale.

Our company has 15 to 20 users leveraging it right now.

I’ve never directly dealt with technical support. I can’t speak to how helpful they are.

We were using Redhat Linux. We just had the application need, which is why we adopted this product.

It was just an application requirement. The application we are managing requires CentOS, which we had to install. There wasn't any choice.

For CentOS, the setup itself is straightforward. It didn't take much time. We installed it in one day. It was just the image that was installed. It also doesn’t take much staff to deploy or maintain the product.

The licensing is per device.

I’m not sure which version of the solution we’re using. It might be version 8.

I’d recommend the solution to others. However, it all depends upon if the application needs it. If there is an application dependency, yes, you will need that. However, it'll come from a specific need.

We have not been using the OS as such. We have been just managing the application on the OS. We have been only supporting the application. We don't do anything, particularly on CentOS. We are doing all the settings on the application that's running on top of it.

That said, the product is okay. It's good, stable. It hasn't given us any issues, and we have no performance problems. I’d rate it overall an eight out of ten.

We have very varied, different uses. Mostly it's an appliance for applications.

It's required for some of the applications we have. In order to run those applications, we have to have CentOS.

It's easy to install.

They're changing how they're working, and I really enjoy the easy updates. Now they're going to a streaming version, which I don't like. We want to control the updates manually. We have an application that we don't want to be updated without our knowledge.

If you want to do something special on install, you can. But when they have 68 questions about how you want to install, you answer each one of them. A very simple, default install would be nice.

I've been using CentOS for more than 12 months.

The solution is extremely scalable. We have about 200 people using it at this point, mostly engineers or database guys.

We'll probably have a minor increase in usage, but not a huge increase in how many nodes we'll have.

CentOS has no technical support. You just look it up if you have a problem.

Red Hat is the paid version of Linux. They take out all the Red Hat stuff and make CentOS Linux with no support. But a lot of people use it, and a lot of people post. So if you have a problem, you just look online and it's fine.

I did use Red Hat a long time ago, and I switched because they couldn't seem to decide how they wanted to charge for their service. I was perfectly happy to just pay them, but it would range by huge amounts. I couldn't maintain that.

The initial setup is in between straightforward and complex. It could be easier. There are too many options, and I'd like a lot less.

Deployment takes a half-hour, and we did it in-house. One person, myself, takes care of deployment and maintenance.

There are zero licensing costs for the solution. 

There are admin costs. We run it on VMware, so there has to be VMware cost.

There were a few other options, but CentOS is heavily used and that helps.

Just be aware of the changes they're about to make, which is from the regular updates to streaming. That's major.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten. It's easy to install, it's easy to manage, it's free.

It's normally next to our operating system, which helps us to install our servers, et cetera.

I'm satisfied with the product. It fulfills our desired needs.

We haven't had any issues with performance. The stability is good.

The initial setup is easy.

You can work with the UI or in command line, if you prefer.

It is scalable. 

It would be ideal if Red Hat would continue the CentOS versions in an open-source format. They seem to be moving away from that. Now only paid versions are available. 

I've been using the solution for six to seven years. I've used it since CentOS 5.

The solution is stable, and the performance is good. For years, we have had no complaints. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable.

The solution scales well. 

We have about 50 or more systems set up in our organization. I'm not sure how many users are on it. 

I'm not sure if we have plans to increase usage right now. 

I've never used technical support. If we need to troubleshoot, we look at blogs and forums. 

I have previously used Windows. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It's very easy to set up. We did not find it complex in any way. 

The UI makes it very easy. You just go through it step by step. Of course, if you like, you can also do command line as well. 

How long it takes to deploy depends on the speed of the system. It's got very good capacity and a nice configuration setup. It can usually be installed in 20 minutes to half an hour. If a person has experience with Linux, they can likely install a server in 15 minutes. 

We used it as an open-source solution. We did not have to worry about licensing. 

We are using the latest available version, which is on the cloud only.

My understanding is that CentOS is a Red Hat product now, so CentOS is now converted to CentOS Stream. It's not open-source anymore. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use CentOS in conjunction with our applications and databases.

It's free — it's an open-source solution. It has all the features of Red Hat, but you don't have to pay for the subscription. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same as Red Hat Linux. It uses all of the same repositories, the only difference is that it's open-source.

Integration with other platforms could be improved. There should also be more repositories. There are ways to get data from the repositories, but it could be enhanced.

I have been using CentOS since 2019.

Version 7 is stable — not the recent versions; I believe they have some issues. We are using a stable version as of now. We haven't faced any issues so far.

CentOS is scalable.

I have contacted their support, but it's not commercial technical support. On their website, there are blogs and other users that help. They have a large community that can answer most questions.

Before CentOS, we used Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The reason why we approached CentOS is that it has the same flavor, but there is no subscription. Earlier, we were paying for Red Hat Linux on a yearly subscription. In order to minimize the cost, especially for some of the applications, it didn't make sense to pay on a yearly basis. 

The initial setup is not very straightforward — it's intermediate. Linux is not an easy thing to install. If you don't have the knowledge, it can be a little difficult.

I believe there is a desktop version available that has a UI but we haven't tried it. That might be a little easier to install; but since it's on a server, we needed to use the command prompt.

We installed it ourselves.

There is no price or licensing required — it's open-source. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of nine. 

I would definitely recommend this solution to others. Not the desktop version — I don't have experience with it. On a server level, I would definitely recommend it.