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AlmaLinux vs Oracle Solaris 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
4.8
Switching to AlmaLinux saves costs, reduces risks, enhances communication, and eliminates vendor lock-in, ensuring enterprise compatibility.
Sentiment score
4.6
Oracle Solaris offers high ROI with stability, integration, reduced downtime, performance boosts, and cost benefits, enhancing operational efficiency.
The clearest measurable benefit is avoiding operating system subscription costs while maintaining enterprise Linux compatibility and stability.
Associate Systems Engineer at Dhanyaayai Enterprises Pvt Ltd
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.
In terms of ROI, there have been performance improvements because Oracle Solaris is lighter.
Technology Consultant at Clarinox Technologies Kenya
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.2
AlmaLinux offers reliable support with quick responses and robust documentation, praised by users and supported by active community resources.
Sentiment score
4.6
Oracle Solaris support is 24/7, efficient yet sometimes slow, with helpful tools and mixed user ratings on effectiveness.
AlmaLinux offers strong community support and excellent documentation.
Associate Systems Engineer at Dhanyaayai Enterprises Pvt Ltd
The best features AlmaLinux offers include its support, which is outstanding from TuxCare, as we are getting the fixes and patch sets for the OS very fast.
Cloud Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The customer support for AlmaLinux is good.
Ingénieur Systéme at Groupe Open SA
The technical support by Oracle is good.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
4.6
AlmaLinux excels in scalability, supporting diverse infrastructures efficiently, praised for stable performance and high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.1
Oracle Solaris excels in scalable performance, efficiently handling extensive workloads with robust file systems and virtualization, despite hardware dependencies.
It is very scalable and performs well both on small deployments and large-scale infrastructure with many servers.
Ingénieur Systéme at Groupe Open SA
AlmaLinux scales very well and can support everything from a small virtual machine to large enterprise deployments.
Associate Systems Engineer at Dhanyaayai Enterprises Pvt Ltd
AlmaLinux's scalability is very good because the predictable updates ensure there are no issues from that point of view.
Solution Architect at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
Regarding vertical scalability, Oracle Solaris is probably one of the most scalable operating systems in the industry.
System specialist at Savecore
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
AlmaLinux offers stable, reliable performance with minimal failures, ideal for enterprise workloads with timely security updates and extended uptime.
Sentiment score
8.2
Oracle Solaris is highly stable and secure, with rare crashes and minimal disruptions, making it ideal for reliable operations.
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
It is designed for enterprise workloads and follows a long-term support model, making it suitable for production servers, databases, web applications, virtualization platforms, and cloud environments.
Associate Systems Engineer at Dhanyaayai Enterprises Pvt Ltd
 

Room For Improvement

AlmaLinux needs improved host access control, documentation, hardware compatibility, support, memory management, software updates, and third-party repository integration.
Oracle Solaris needs improvements in hardware support, GUI, training, cost reduction, integration, package management, and open-source tool support.
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 EDAG
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
The firewall must be more capable because security is the main concern of every organization and every user.
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oracle Solaris needs to improve its compatibility with office tools like Excel.
Technology Consultant at Clarinox Technologies Kenya
Oracle is going to discontinue it, so I do not think any improvement is possible in Oracle Solaris.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
 

Setup Cost

AlmaLinux attracts enterprises with its free, open-source model and cost-effectiveness, enhancing budget management and resource allocation.
Enterprise users find Oracle Solaris pricing complex; it's beneficial for performance but costly compared to Linux, with desired pricing improvements.
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.
Solution Architect at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
I find the pricing of Oracle Solaris to be affordable compared to competitors like Windows.
Technology Consultant at Clarinox Technologies Kenya
 

Valuable Features

AlmaLinux delivers stability, RHEL compatibility, cost savings, and performance, making it ideal for organizations migrating from other Linux distributions.
Oracle Solaris offers superior virtualization, security, performance, ZFS features, and seamless Oracle integration, praised for stability and reliability.
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 a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The operating system is lightweight, which makes it easier to use on an average computer compared to systems like Windows.
Technology Consultant at Clarinox Technologies Kenya
Additionally, regarding security, you do not have to implement any antivirus software.
SR AVP–Presales Cloud & Platform Management Services at Path Infotech ltd
Oracle introduced a GUI environment with Solaris 11.5.
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

AlmaLinux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Oracle Solaris
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of AlmaLinux is 4.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Oracle Solaris is 2.6%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlmaLinux4.3%
Oracle Solaris2.6%
Other93.1%
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.
Shafiq Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Long-term server platform has supported secure banking operations and simplified virtualization
Oracle Solaris is a very good operating system. Most of the time, we do not need to change or replace any configuration. If at any point in time we need to change something, it is really simple and a user-friendly environment. Although it is a CLI, Oracle introduced a GUI environment with Solaris 11.5. Currently, 11.5 has the operating system GUI as well as the CLI. The technical persons working on the operating system most of the time prefer to work on the CLI. It is actually really good and easy to use. As it is a server-level operating system, most of the time you do not need any extra features in the operating system because you are not using the operating system on home machines, desktops, or laptop machines. The extra features are not needed if we are talking about the enterprise level or an official operating system.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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 Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise32
 

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...
How does Oracle Linux compare with Solaris?
When comparing Oracle Linux and Solaris, I believe that Linux is more secure and more flexible. It is also very suitable for enterprises that are already Oracle solution users. I found Linux to be ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Solaris?
I find the pricing of Oracle Solaris to be affordable compared to competitors like Windows.
What needs improvement with Oracle Solaris?
In my opinion, the GUI was missing, as I mentioned earlier. Oracle has already introduced it. There might be some additional security features. The firewall must be more capable because security is...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AlmaLinux OS 8 (x86_64), AlmaLinux OS 10 (x86_64)
Solaris 11, Solaris
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Siemens, IVV
Find out what your peers are saying about AlmaLinux vs. Oracle Solaris and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.