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Amazon Linux vs Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Amazon Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
26th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

SAURAB K GANGURDE - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
“Amazon Linux delivers automated security updates— including live kernel patching in AL2023—ensuring protected workloads with minimal manual effort and zero-downtime patching.”
One improvement for Amazon Linux would be stronger support for running it outside AWS. Although Amazon provides local VM images for VirtualBox and VMware, they are intended mainly for development and testing. Unlike Ubuntu, Debian, or Red Hat, Amazon Linux is not designed or fully supported as a production OS in on-prem or hybrid environments. Expanding official support outside AWS would offer more flexibility for teams that maintain mixed infrastructure. Another area for improvement is the community ecosystem. Compared to Ubuntu or Red Hat, Amazon Linux has a smaller community and fewer third-party resources or tutorials. A larger ecosystem would make troubleshooting and adoption easier. Finally, improving backward compatibility between Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023—especially around package management (DNF vs yum) and updated toolchains—would simplify upgrades for teams managing large fleets.
reviewer2795433 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Cloud Operations Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Secure pipelines have reduced incidents and save significant setup and configuration time
One of the best features Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu offers is that it saves time because rather than trying to have a vanilla OS, such as Ubuntu on an EC2 instance, and then trying to secure it yourself, Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu is already secured with a ton of insecure features disabled on the VM, which saves us time and is quite cost-effective. The IAM integration has helped my team because it is quicker to set up and more secure since using AWS IAM roles is natively secure, where long-term credentials can be insecure, but by using already configured IAM roles, it is much more secure. Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu has positively impacted my organization because it is more secure to use rather than us trying to use a vanilla OS, lowering the attack surface of common OS-related vulnerabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product itself is very good; even if I switch organizations and they are not using Amazon Linux, I will share my experience that Amazon Linux has worked great for us in these use cases."
"With respect to scalability, security, and reliability, these services help me significantly."
"Amazon Linux has positively impacted our organization in a couple of ways."
"Whenever I deploy solutions on Amazon Linux, I almost never have to worry about the operating system."
"Amazon Linux is really easy to use, and almost all of the packages and third-party applications are available just one command away, with security kernel patches released very quickly compared to other distributions."
"One great feature is the ability to apply critical security patches without rebooting the server, which avoids downtime and is why we prefer to use Amazon Linux for production servers and low-latency applications."
"Being able to ship services to our customers efficiently and ensuring service reliability is a key benefit delivered by Amazon Linux."
"In my opinion, the best features of Amazon Linux include the stability and its standard Linux distribution, which in some cases is easier to deploy and manage than the Ubuntu distribution, but I feel comfortable with Ubuntu too."
"The benefits of Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu include its easy integration with every tool; it can be used as both an integration tool and a deployment tool, and with the help of scripts, we can easily configure Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu in an effective way."
"I have definitely noticed a reduction in incidents and time saved since switching to Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu, which saves at least between ten to twenty hours in configuration time, translating to potential savings of hundreds or even thousands of dollars."
 

Cons

"I rate Amazon Linux a nine out of ten. I choose this rating because I am concerned about the repository possibly containing vulnerability packages, though this could happen with any system."
"I faced some challenges with Amazon Linux in this scenario."
"For the improvement of Amazon Linux, I think there should be UI features in the future, as Amazon Linux currently has only terminal capabilities without a UI, and I hope to see documentation updates as soon as possible so when documentation expires, I am updating it and referring to it soon."
"I have honestly never had any problems with Amazon Linux, aside from disk space issues."
"Amazon Linux can be improved by having the documentation contain more examples of use cases."
"In terms of improvements, the one thing I would say which I wish Amazon Linux was better at is that sometimes I find that I need to compile my own software because some dependencies are not within Amazon Linux."
"Amazon last provided some security patches that were not very fast, which was one reason I did not rate it higher, along with a few things, such as some particular versions of Python that are not readily available in Amazon Linux."
"Amazon Linux is not supported outside of EC2. You cannot install it on a local system, whereas you can install Ubuntu and Red Hat on your local system."
"There is a maintenance overhead to using Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu since the customer is responsible for patching both Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu and the OS, and although security issues are somewhat handled, Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu third-party plugins may still be insecure, and hardened images can be too restrictive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Government
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Linux?
Right now, I don't think there are any specific areas to improve in Amazon Linux.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Linux?
The use cases for this in our company is that we have a customer that internally uses it for several applications, and they are a telecommunications company that has virtual machines and Linux mach...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Linux?
I use AWS, Azure, and I'm starting to use GCP, Google Cloud Platform. I have also used ZoomInfo. I have been using the product since its creation. I have not used the ZoomInfo product. With Amazon,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu?
The organization handles the payment for Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu. I am not certain about how they calculate the usage percentage and pricing.
What needs improvement with Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu?
I have not seen many disadvantages with Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu. From an improvement perspective, implementing AI features would be beneficial. If AI could be integrated for scripting in the Jen...
What is your primary use case for Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu?
I am using Jenkins on Hardened Ubuntu for procuring the infrastructure to deploy our applications and procuring databases for various tasks.
 

Overview

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