Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon Linux vs Kali Linux 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.8
Amazon Linux users saved costs, improved productivity, and achieved operational stability with quick setups and AWS integration, boosting ROI.
Sentiment score
6.2
Kali Linux improves vulnerability testing, offering cost-effective security benefits through AWS deployment and open-source tools for businesses.
With Amazon Linux, selecting and launching instances on a public cloud provider means the machine spins up in fewer than ten seconds, making it efficient.
Cloud Solution Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
One great feature is LTS, which is long-term support provided by Amazon itself.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
We saved 30% in terms of the cloud infrastructure.
Senior Data Engineer at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
Integrating Kali Linux with DevOps tools has resulted in reduced operational costs due to automated test cases, making it a worthwhile investment with significant returns by decreasing the attack surface area and the frequency of attack incidents.
SWE-1 at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If we had installed it on-premises or through other means, it would have incurred significant money and effort to create the VMs, deploy it on machines, and then delete and format it after use.
Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I have saved time by avoiding the lag I sometimes face on the TryHackMe in-built machine, and I have learned more efficiently.
Associate Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Amazon Linux's customer service is praised for round-the-clock support, knowledgeable guidance, and effective support plans tailored to user needs.
Sentiment score
5.2
Kali Linux provides strong community support and documentation but lacks direct customer support, relying on user self-research.
Amazon has the best expertise and they are available 24/7.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
Timely and helpful responses for performance, updates, or AWS integration issues.
QA Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It offers specific advantages and constraints depending on the use case.
Cloud Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Since most of the tools and other things are community-based, the documentation and other community support are very good.
Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I was able to solve the problems I was experiencing.
Product security engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Amazon Linux offers excellent scalability and efficiency in AWS, though instance restart times could be improved for better performance.
Sentiment score
7.5
Users find Kali Linux scalable and flexible, supporting diverse platforms, ideal for penetration testing and educational purposes.
The beauty here is that we can scale it immediately, which also saves cost.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
The scalability of Amazon Linux is very good; we run it on top of scalable EC2 instances, and we do not find any issues there.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Amazon Linux is highly scalable because it allows for EC2 instances to scale up and down based on what you want.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
You can use it on cloud, VPS, and on-premises.
Security Researcher at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
I would describe Kali Linux's scalability as very scalable because I can deploy it on a range of different machines, whether that is my laptop or using maybe Raspberry Pi or Android.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Regarding the scalability of Kali Linux for my work and projects, whenever I was conducting brute force attacks and provided more than two or three million lines of payload, the system would freeze.
Product security engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon Linux is praised for stability, security, and robustness, ensuring minimal downtime and reliable performance in production environments.
Sentiment score
8.0
Kali Linux is praised for stability and dependability, recommended for virtualization, with occasional issues resolved using older versions.
Combined with AWS managed infrastructure, it provides enterprise-grade reliability suitable for production workloads.
Software Engineer at INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING
My applications had a high availability (HA) environment, so even when one availability zone was down, traffic moved to a different availability zone without any issues.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
We evaluated Amazon Linux, and it is very stable.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Due to the huge user base that uses it, it is kept up to date regularly.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Kali Linux is stable for my use cases, though not the latest version.
Product security engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Kali Linux is very stable for my needs.
Consultant at Cognizant
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Linux needs better vendor integration, frequent updates, compatibility, documentation, support, patch compliance, and hybrid/multi-cloud capabilities.
Kali Linux users seek better automation, UI, security, and support, with improved installation, hardware detection, and beginner-friendly resources.
Documentation explaining the differences between Ubuntu and Amazon Linux would be valuable.
full stack developer at 71Lbs
Since we are working in a real-time manner and need to scale things immediately, the time it takes to boot an instance and then deploy things is preventing me from giving it a perfect rating.
Senior Data Engineer at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
My advice for others looking into using Amazon Linux is to make sure the command line is easy and that Amazon Linux has more performance than other Linux environments and is more secure than other Linux environments as well.
DevOps Engineer at Wissen infotech
If real-time customized port scanning can be added, for example, instead of a default port such as 8080 or 443, if we can use a customized port such as 9876, that capability would be great.
Senior Technical Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I face significant challenges with Kali Linux regarding a major issue with the Grub loader becoming corrupted, which makes it very difficult to recover data.
Senior Solution Architect & Delivery Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
If there were video courses attached to how to safely use it, especially for absolute beginners with no previous experience using Linux operating systems, I think that could be very useful.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Linux is cost-effective with no licensing fees, easy setup, predictable costs, and supports budget-friendly Graviton instances.
Kali Linux is a cost-effective, open-source solution for enterprises seeking a comprehensive operating system with no licensing costs.
With Amazon Linux itself, there is no cost associated with using it, so I would say it is very good from a pricing perspective.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
If I am a new AWS customer, the AWS Free Tier typically includes, for the first six months, micro instances such as t2.micro or t3.micro for free.
Software Engineer at INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING
I am paying around $300 to $400 per month because I use many services.
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Kali Linux is free software, an operating system that's available to download without any cost or licensing fees.
Associate Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
I simply create a VM, so there are no costs involved.
Senior Solution Architect & Delivery Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Kali Linux has been positive, as it operates under an open-source model.
SWE-1 at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Linux enhances productivity and security with AWS integration, cost-effectiveness, and efficient resource use, boosting overall organizational efficiency.
Kali Linux is favored for its pre-installed security tools, user-friendly design, and customizable features for efficient cybersecurity tasks.
Amazon Linux handles this automatically. It is optimized for EC2, AWS hardware and software, mostly secure and stable, and there is no additional cost.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
In terms of service security, there are many constraint security protocols and policies that help me create our own networks, security groups, and inline policies.
Software Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Amazon Linux's security updates have been helpful in general because I have had to be more specific in using the Identity Access Management (IAM) service so that we can have role-based permissions in preference to just keeping it open.
Fullstack Developer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Kali Linux has positively impacted my organization by improving efficiency in penetration testing; its open-source nature permits extensive customization and inclusion of numerous comprehensive pre-installed tools, contributing to a secure network environment with effective monitoring of network applications.
SWE-1 at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
A unique and really helpful feature of Kali Linux, compared to other operating systems, is that many of the offensive security tools are already pre-configured and pre-installed.
Product security engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Kali Linux positively impacts my organization by allowing us to monitor changes and security posture for the company.
Consultant at Cognizant
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kali Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Amazon Linux is 0.7%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kali Linux is 3.7%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kali Linux3.7%
Amazon Linux0.7%
Other95.6%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

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.
Ciyagi Ciyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect & Delivery Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Runs efficiently across devices and streamlines penetration testing workflows
Kali Linux could be improved by including more tools. I would personally like to see improvements in Kali Linux, particularly regarding Grub issues that sometimes occur when installing the VM. Additionally, I have experienced problems when updating Kali Linux from a higher version to a lower version, which resulted in crashes. These Grub issues should be resolved. I face significant challenges with Kali Linux regarding a major issue with the Grub loader becoming corrupted, which makes it very difficult to recover data.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
University
14%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Linux?
From a technical perspective, Amazon Linux could improve in broader availability of third-party packages, simplified system-level troubleshooting tools, and more beginner-focused system administrat...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Linux?
My primary use case was Amazon Linux as the default operating system for EC2 instances supporting Docker-based container deployments, CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, Kubernetes worker nodes, back-en...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Linux?
Amazon Linux is an operating system, and I can install any of the other tools such as DevOps tools and other back-end services, back-end servers, and also AWS tools. I primarily used it in an EC2 i...
What do you like most about Kali Linux?
I use the tool with Nmap to perform network audits. We use it to find vulnerabilities in our network through attacks. It's for those who want to launch or create viruses or perform attacks on syste...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kali Linux?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Kali Linux has been that it was free to use.
What needs improvement with Kali Linux?
I think Kali Linux is good, but there is a widespread misunderstanding related to Kali Linux because many people believe Kali Linux is a tool for hackers and that anything can be hacked using it. T...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Linux vs. Kali Linux and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.