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AlmaLinux vs openSUSE Leap 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

AlmaLinux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
openSUSE Leap
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
18th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of AlmaLinux is 4.2%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of openSUSE Leap is 4.9%, down from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlmaLinux4.2%
openSUSE Leap4.9%
Other90.9%
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.
NK
Senior Manager at Cognizant
Provides BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots
I only use the tool for testing purposes on my team, but multiple people use it. We don't make a team effort to install the solution. When it comes to maintenance, we ask our company to buy SUSE Linux Enterprise. My team consists of 13 people. We are currently integrating the solution with Ansible to do some coding. Although not a full-fledged automation, we are integrating the solution with Ansible and executing a couple of playbooks connected to openSUSE Leap. I would recommend the solution to other users looking for an open-source solution. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have seen a return on investment through significant time and money savings."
"AlmaLinux has delivered a significant positive impact on my organization through cost savings while maintaining enterprise-level reliability."
"AlmaLinux offers the best features in that it is freeware for RHEL, and it is really reliable."
"AlmaLinux is lightweight, so my hardware resource usage is very low, and I am able to use it effectively."
"Overall, I would recommend AlmaLinux because it is a stable, simple operating system with a straightforward installation process that I have found reliable so far without any glitches."
"AlmaLinux provides free updates and security, unlike Red Hat, where support must be purchased separately."
"Positively, I can say that AlmaLinux has brought a sense of stability, and besides the security patches, we also noticed better virtualization for our use cases."
"Using AlmaLinux was a condition to do my job, and right afterwards, I have been enjoying it."
"This solution has helped my organization's security from the use of its firewall, and the features for blocking or allowing traffic are very effective and have worked well for us."
"The solution is very stable after it is configured. It is hard to have a panel slow, a problem, misconfiguration, or any kind of loss function."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
"openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"Leap has provided me with the ability to offer what I consider Enterprise class server O/S platforms to my smaller customers who are looking to improve their competitive stances without breaking the bank."
"The solution is easy for me to use because the backend is derived from FreeBSD and this is something I have been using for over 20 years."
 

Cons

"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."
"We feel they are not taking ownership of addressing a lot of vulnerabilities in some operating systems that are not patched even though fixes are available in open sources."
"AlmaLinux could have more software options. For example, if I need some software from Windows or something similar, it is missing some tools."
"While AlmaLinux does not provide the same vendor-backed support experience as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the available resources are more than sufficient for many organizations and administrators."
"AlmaLinux could be improved by having some basic components, such as ifconfig and netstat, pre-installed on the container image, as that would be really helpful for us."
"One area for improvement with AlmaLinux is the use of SELinux to secure and harden my server, which I find to be a complicated beast."
"It is not supporting the latest hardware, so that is not good."
"Regarding my experience today, I installed AlmaLinux 8, and everything is okay, but the significant problem is that AlmaLinux does not ship with Wi-Fi drivers."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is open-source."
"This is an open-source operating system that can be used free of charge."
"openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost."
"The cost of this solution was reasonable and it was within our budget."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlmaLinux?
In AlmaLinux, I do not have experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with AlmaLinux?
AlmaLinux could have more software options. For example, if I need some software from Windows or something similar, it is missing some tools. I would say you cannot assume AlmaLinux is so similar t...
What is your primary use case for AlmaLinux?
I use AlmaLinux to create simulations, Monte Carlo simulations using C++, and for that I need to use the terminal and put a lot of different jobs to process the code. AlmaLinux is a pretty fast sof...
What needs improvement with openSUSE Leap?
Both openSUSE Leap and the SUSE Enterprise version use the same kernel. Suppose I have a lower environment where I can run openSUSE to test all my products. It would be helpful if I could easily sw...
What is your primary use case for openSUSE Leap?
I use openSUSE Leap for testing purposes. Before officially using any server in our office, we test it using the solution. My office usually uses production servers on the SUSE Linux enterprise ver...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for openSUSE Leap?
openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost.
 

Comparisons

 

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. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,838 professionals have used our research since 2012.