No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Amazon Linux vs openSUSE Leap comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
openSUSE Leap
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
28th
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 November 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Amazon Linux is 1.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of openSUSE Leap is 4.4%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Amazon Linux1.8%
openSUSE Leap4.4%
Other93.8%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Saurab Gnagurde - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Analyst | Aws Cloud Ops | Dev Ops | Fin Ops at Tata Consultancy
“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.
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

"Combined with AWS managed infrastructure, it provides enterprise-grade reliability suitable for production workloads."
"It has been positive because Amazon Linux increases the speed of delivery due to the fast boot up times and the integrated tooling."
"Amazon Linux provides a secure, stable, and high-performance environment that is optimized for the AWS ecosystem itself."
"With respect to scalability, security, and reliability, these services help me significantly."
"Amazon Linux is highly scalable and very reliable, making it an excellent choice overall."
"Being able to ship services to our customers efficiently and ensuring service reliability is a key benefit delivered by Amazon Linux."
"In my experience, the best feature Amazon Linux offers is the Red Hat package manager way of working because sometimes I receive automations and scripts that are compatible with Red Hat and CentOS Linux."
"The outcomes combine massive savings of over one million in under a year by migrating workloads to Graviton-based instances running Amazon Linux, as AL two thousand twenty-three is optimized for ARM at the compiler level, allowing applications to run more effectively and function on smaller instances."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Amazon Linux could be improved by providing more third-party software packages."
"Compared to Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, Amazon Linux has worse support, which often leads us to rely heavily on documentation."
"I would love it if Amazon could provide fleet management of their operating system for updates and configuration, as that's an area I would need more attention to."
"Amazon Linux can be improved by providing day-to-day patching updates."
"Amazon Linux can be improved because currently it does not provide much longer session durations and sometimes it does not provide some of the tools I want to be included."
"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."
"One minor frustration has been the lack of EPEL support, which forced us to manually compile a few niche packages that were previously easy to install."
"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."
"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is open-source."
"The cost of this solution was reasonable and it was within our budget."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Comms Service Provider
23%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Linux?
I do not feel there are any major improvements needed for Amazon Linux at this time.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Linux?
Amazon Linux is primarily used for development and operating services. I operated a real estate transaction site and also ran a used car parts sales website on this platform.
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Linux?
I give Amazon Linux an overall rating of 9 on a scale from 1 to 10. The reason for that score is that it is comparable to general Linux distributions, and in addition, it can be used in good integr...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Linux vs. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.