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AlmaLinux vs Docker on CentOS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 5, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
Organizations using AlmaLinux benefit from cost savings, efficient management, long-term support, and positive investment sentiment despite limited metrics.
Sentiment score
4.3
CentOS with Docker enhances cost-efficiency and time savings, offering up to 50% financial returns over traditional VMs.
We were looking for an open source and free solution. AlmaLinux fits in our requirement.
Technical Consultant at Prodevans Technologies
We saved approximately 70% of our budget with AlmaLinux, and the system is stable and reliable.
Systems Engineer at SARL Rajafood
Moving over to AlmaLinux saves a lot of time because of the long-term support, meaning I do not have to support the latest version every couple of years.
I could say it is maybe forty percent compared to before using Docker.
Network &Security Engineer at Natioanal Drug Authority Uganda
I have not seen a return on investment because the deprecation made it so there was none, and if anything, the ROI would have been negative since money and time were spent using something that did not progress.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
After switching to Docker on CentOS from VMs, I have seen a return on investment, saving 40 to 50 percent of our money as well.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.6
AlmaLinux support is praised for its helpfulness, although many users successfully rely on documentation and community resources instead.
Sentiment score
5.8
Extensive resources and community support minimize the need for direct Docker on CentOS customer service and support.
The customer support for AlmaLinux is good.
Ingénieur Systéme at Groupe Open SA
I have not had a reason to communicate with the technical support of AlmaLinux because everything has been smooth for me.
Cloud Security Engineer at Andela
I have never contacted any sort of technical support regarding AlmaLinux because I do not need it.
Junior Software Test Automation Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
We purchase the software and product from them, so when I have an issue with Red Hat or Docker on CentOS or Kubernetes, I create a ticket with the partner who works directly with the respective teams.
Solution engineer at Vijatech
Most things can be easily found as resources online to help resolve those issues.
Network &Security Engineer at Natioanal Drug Authority Uganda
Docker has lots of documentation and community support.
Senior DeevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
4.3
AlmaLinux is praised for scalable performance, efficiently managing deployments from small to large, with seamless integration and consistent updates.
Sentiment score
4.3
Docker on CentOS offers good scalability with robust hardware, but deprecated status raises concerns about future support.
It is very scalable and performs well both on small deployments and large-scale infrastructure with many servers.
Ingénieur Systéme at Groupe Open SA
We can scale in, scale out, horizontally, and vertically depending on the way we want.
Technical Consultant at Prodevans Technologies
AlmaLinux's scalability is very good because the predictable updates ensure there are no issues from that point of view.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
if we need more resources, we can just spin up a new Docker image, so scalability is good.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
If you have good hardware, you can scale Docker on CentOS as required.
Devops Engineer at a engineering company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Docker on CentOS is scalable; I can build virtual machines, EC2 instances, and scale from zero to however many I want.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
AlmaLinux is praised for its stability, reliability, efficient upgrades, timely security, and superior performance compared to Ubuntu.
Sentiment score
7.2
Docker on CentOS is stable but faces strategic challenges due to CentOS lifecycle changes and competition from Kubernetes.
Its security is another highlight, providing minimal disruptions, timely security patches, bug fixes, and a reduced attack surface.
system administration | DevOps | Softrware Developer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
AlmaLinux is a reliable and stable version of Linux.
Systems Engineer at SARL Rajafood
I have not encountered such issues with AlmaLinux, making it very stable.
Docker on CentOS is not stable anymore because it is not actively being maintained.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Docker on CentOS is quite stable.
Solution engineer at Vijatech
Docker on CentOS is stable, but as I mentioned, there are some improvements needed.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

AlmaLinux users face challenges with support, documentation, updates, resource allocation, and integration, seeking improvements in security and package availability.
Users want better documentation, security, and OS integration for Docker on CentOS, addressing compatibility and stability issues.
The AlmaLinux team can look into this and see what they can improve in terms of resource consumption and monitoring tools that can actually help the users of AlmaLinux pinpoint the exact processes or services that are causing that amount of resource consumption.
DevOps at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
If something is added to AlmaLinux that allows for some subscription or makes it exactly equal to RHEL, it would be perfect.
Devops Engineer at a engineering company with 5,001-10,000 employees
If AlmaLinux could provide ten to twenty years of fixes, that would be an improvement because I do not want to update the system all the time, as it becomes more challenging for me as a system administrator to track all the patches and everything I should patch on the system.
system administration | DevOps | Softrware Developer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
To achieve a higher rating of 9 or 10, they might need more automation features.
Solution engineer at Vijatech
The metrics of the containers in Docker on CentOS can also be improved, along with the monitoring part which needs enhancement.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The main issue comes from running out of space; that is when crashes happen.
Network &Security Engineer at Natioanal Drug Authority Uganda
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find AlmaLinux cost-effective for budget management, offering free setup, support, and updates as an open-source alternative.
Docker on CentOS is cost-effective, requiring simple setup but needing skilled manpower, with concerns about support and security.
In the open-source environment, I believe a Linux distribution is always free of cost.
Junior Software Test Automation Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
AlmaLinux is free, so there are no costs there.
I have no licensing cost, which means there is no burden related to licensing.
Open Shift Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
there is no licensing cost required.
Senior DeevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
There is no licensing in Docker on CentOS.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was all good; cost was never an issue.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

AlmaLinux improves PHP management, ensuring stability, security, and cost efficiency with RHEL compatibility, ideal for production environments.
Docker on CentOS offers volume mount, portability, and fast deployment, enhancing productivity and efficient resource utilization for scalable applications.
The tooling stability for DevOps is also significant, allowing easy use of infrastructure as code with Ansible or scripting playbooks that remain valid for years, making it especially important for the CI/CD pipelines.
system administration | DevOps | Softrware Developer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Because AlmaLinux is binary compatible with Red Hat, it provides a very stable and reliable operating system suitable for production environments.
Ingénieur Systéme at Groupe Open SA
The prompt patching and OS updates with AlmaLinux have helped our team by improving our FedRAMP compliance and vulnerability scan reports.
Cloud Software Engineer at Coupa Software
It also ensures a consistent environment where applications will work on every machine, not just the developer's machine, and offers resource efficiency, such as no full OS per application, allowing me to share my infrastructure with multiple containers and applications.
Cloud Operations Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Docker on CentOS has positively impacted my organization by making testing easier. I do not have to install older versions of applications and then make my system or service study.
Senior DeevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The benefits are significant as it is easy to operate and maintain, making it more flexible.
Solution engineer at Vijatech
 

Categories and Ranking

AlmaLinux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Docker on CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
25th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of AlmaLinux is 3.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Docker on CentOS is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlmaLinux3.8%
Docker on CentOS0.3%
Other95.9%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Naim Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at SMC Labs, LLC
Private cloud practice has become seamless and deployments run smoothly for my projects
I follow the documentation for AlmaLinux, which I believe could be more extensive for enterprise setups. My primary use case remains deploying private cloud infrastructure using OpenStack Yoga, thus suggesting improvements to cater to specific cloud instances like AWS Graviton or Azure NVMe. Driver or kernel updates for new hardware or cloud instances like AWS Graviton or Azure NVMe tend to arrive a little later in AlmaLinux than they do in the Red Hat distribution. Therefore, I suggest that faster releases of cloud-optimized images and updated hardware drivers could enhance AlmaLinux's competitiveness. Additionally, I find it sometimes difficult to find answers on forums due to the community not being as large as that of Red Hat or CentOS. My suggestion is to create an active forum or Q&A session where developers can directly address user problems, growing the community and providing optional enterprise support tiers for large organizations. Additionally, I have continued to consider improvements. For server administration and language runtime management, I encountered conflicts on production servers with older and newer versions of tools such as Python and Node.js. Simplifying the application space management would reduce the friction in multi-language development environments. Moreover, including more pre-configured or auto-remediation scripts like CIS Benchmark or STIG compliance would be immensely helpful for enterprise security hardening.
Boaz Katabazi - PeerSpot reviewer
Network &Security Engineer at Natioanal Drug Authority Uganda
Container orchestration has improved performance and resource use but exposes disk space issues
How fast the application runs is one of the biggest advantages for me in Docker, but on the downside, issues to do with space utilization arise sometimes. Since we implemented it, the system really improved and became responsive very fast. When you have limited space, the system tends to crash from time to time, so you have to ensure that you have enough space at any one point. We are using the orchestration feature in Docker. That was the main motive for having orchestration; it helps better manage the containers. I am comparing Docker on CentOS with the one that is running on Ubuntu, and in terms of scaling up, it is easy to work with when it comes to that. That is the main feature I have been benefiting from. Because it was first, we recently did it on Ubuntu, but initially, it was running on CentOS. We were comparing and seeing which one runs better, but I realized on Ubuntu it is much easier to work with. The lightweight architecture on CentOS affects my resource utilization significantly.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Construction Company
40%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlmaLinux?
Currently, we have not experienced pricing with AlmaLinux, as I have used the free version so far. However, when we move to the production environment, I am suggesting that we implement AlmaLinux t...
What needs improvement with AlmaLinux?
In terms of how AlmaLinux can be improved, while I praise the patching part, the support provided by TuxCare needs to be more prompt and responsive. We feel they are not taking ownership of address...
What is your primary use case for AlmaLinux?
My main use case for AlmaLinux is to build a custom image on top of the AlmaLinux image provided by TuxCare. I use that custom image to supply it through all the stakeholders, for example, differen...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker on CentOS?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that there is no licensing in Docker on CentOS, and the setup is easy; we just need to create the images for our application, so it is easy.
What needs improvement with Docker on CentOS?
Crashes are the main issue I see. I have not really noted down specific metrics, but I realize that when it comes to disk space utilization, it really goes up so fast. We are not using a CI/CD pipe...
What is your primary use case for Docker on CentOS?
We have servers running operating systems like Ubuntu and CentOS. Regarding Ubuntu, we are interested in LAMP stack, Ubuntu, or Jenkins on hardened Ubuntu, but we are not using LAMP stack. We are u...
 

Also Known As

AlmaLinux OS 8 (x86_64), AlmaLinux OS 10 (x86_64)
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about AlmaLinux vs. Docker on CentOS and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.