CentOS Reviews

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.

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.

It can be used for setting up virtual spaces and the development environment. We have CentOS VPS.

The user access level is most valuable. When you do administration with CentOS, the number of customizations that you can do for each user is higher than other solutions. It is very customizable.

Its memory consumption is much lower than any other OS.

The YUM install manager can be improved. It is below average as compared to the other install managers. This is the only major problem that I see with CentOS. They should reduce dependency on the YUM manager.

They can improve the help for features. It has so many features, but there is no help. They should provide more information and tutorials. Currently, because of the lack of knowledge or availability of resources, features are getting underutilized.

I have been using CentOS for around two years.

It is quite stable.

It is one of the top-notch products in terms of scalability. For scalability, many premium features are available.

Currently, we have around 12 to 15 users. We have plans to increase its usage.

We don't have much experience with their technical support.

Its installation was quite straightforward. There is not much in terms of the setup cost. It was quite straightforward, and it happened quite quickly. From scratch, it took around one and a half hours.

I installed it myself. For its deployment and maintenance, we don't have any technical team. We are able to manage with less than one person per month. We have a manager who manages it.

It is open-source, which means it is a free product. It has a one-time deployment cost.

I evaluated Red Hat.

I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate CentOS a nine out of ten.

Most of the time, I use CentOS for deploying Tomcat to run web applications. I use it to run Docker, as well.

The most valuable feature is that it is compatible with RedHat. 

In the future, CentOS will no longer be compatible with Red Hat. I would prefer that it remains compatible because when it changes, we will no longer be using it.

What is missing from this product is a real file system like CFS. Having a modern file system is important and in CentOS 7, btrfs was supported. However, in version 8 it has been removed. I don't understand why and I think that it was a very bad move and a very customer-unfriendly thing to do.

I have been working with CentOS for a few years.

CentOS is quite stable.

In the company, we have approximately 800 people who are using it. Beyond that, a lot of our customers are using it, as well.

I have never been in contact with technical support. We manage it ourselves.

For as long as I have been with the company, they have been using CentOS.

The installation is mostly straightforward. We have automated it.

There are no licensing costs for CentOS.

At this point, because of the announcement that it will no longer be compatible with Red Hat in the future, I do not recommend this product.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

Our company has fourteen administrators and developers who use the solution to develop code. 

The solution is open source.

The community collections and collaborations are valuable. 

The interface could be improved. 

I would like more features for the system manager. 

I have been using the solution for seven years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

The solution is open source so there is no formal technical support. The community is a great resource and the solution's developers post content or answer questions. 

We previously used Oracle Linux. 

The setup is easy. 

We implemented the solution in-house.

Four administrators handle ongoing maintenance and management. 

The solution is open source so it is free. 

We switched from Oracle Linux because the solution is free and now private. 

The solution is a good product and I recommend using it. 

I rate the solution a ten out of ten. 

Support of public systems

We are going with CentOS due to minimalistic and stable approach during OS build preparation.

The most valuable feature of CentOS is that it is easy to use.

The price of CentOS could improve.

I have been using CentOS for approximately five years.

CentOS is stable.

The setup of CentOS is easy.

CentOS is an expensive solution. There are other solutions that are rated at the top that are not expensive, such as Red Hat or Oracle Linux.

I rate CentOS an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for our telecommunications platform and call center application for video, text and audio calls.

The stability of this solution is its most useful feature. It is a high quality product and you know what you're getting. You also receive wide support from the community.

This solution is no longer suited to our business following the change they have made to the release process. It is no longer an enterprise solution. 

I have been using this solution for five years. 

We have not needed to scale this solution because we work with several small servers or containers.

We have not needed to make use of the support team. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. You do need a team for maintenance and we would recommend using maintenance tools like Ansible or Chef. 

Deployment was done in-house. 

This is an open source solution.  

I would not recommend this solution for enterprises. If you are looking for an enterprise solution, I would recommend Rocky, Linux, Oracle or Red Hat from our point of view.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

I'm using the solution for storage. It’s a specialized storage service.

The solution is very stable and secure.

It’s a simple, straightforward implementation.

For how I use it, it is a scalable product.

I taught myself how to use the solution. You don't need to worry about having to go through a very deep learning curve for CentOS. It's very easy to use.

CentOS is very close to the end of life.

I’d like them to improve the licensing options in the future.

I’ve been using the solution for a while. We’ve used it since version five and are now on version eight.

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It’s reliable. It doesn’t crash or freeze.

I usually work with smaller companies. Therefore, I don’t have issues with scaling. For me, it scales. I’m using one or two-tera hard drives, and it works well with no issues.

I have one client with ten users and other clients who have a bit less than that in terms of users.

We do not have plans to increase usage.

I’ve never directly dealt with technical support. I cannot speak to how helpful they would be or how responsive.

I installed CentOS from the command line and administer it from the command line or web media.

The initial setup is simple and straightforward.

I'm using it for different clients, one or two servers for each client, so I don't use it. I don't deploy it, I just do an individual installation.

The central source is under an open-source license. I use it this way due to the fact that I don't need any license for using it.

Even though it is near the end of life, I would recommend the solution to others.

I’d rate the solution ten out of ten.