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

Amazon Linux vs Windows 10 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
5.0
Amazon Linux enhances ROI by reducing costs, boosting efficiency, and optimizing AWS integration for improved operations across industries.
Sentiment score
2.4
Organizations find Windows 10 efficient, citing faster performance, reduced cyber risks, cost savings, and minimal crashes despite varied ROI opinions.
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
By switching the compute fleet from a paid distribution to Amazon Linux, we have reduced our OS-related overhead cost by 100%.
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Some wins commonly seen after switching, particularly when moving from general-purpose distributions such as Ubuntu, include approximately twenty to forty percent better price-performance ratio.
configuration and management deployment at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Relevant metrics include money saved, time saved, and fewer employees needed.
IT at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I have seen a return on investment with Windows 10 in that it basically saves our money.
Cloud Engineer at To The New
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Amazon Linux customer support is praised for quick responses, expert assistance, and 24/7 availability with comprehensive resources.
Sentiment score
4.5
Windows 10 support is generally decent, with varied response times and users often relying on online communities for help.
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
We have informed Microsoft, but the issue is still there, and it has been more than three to four months.
Technology\Cloud Architect | IT Infrastructure Security & Compliance at IDFC Bank
I would rate customer support a ten.
Cloud Engineer at To The New
The customer service and support from Microsoft are quite responsive and generally good.
Senior Manager at Morgan Stanley
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Amazon Linux offers seamless scalability and performance in AWS environments, excelling in quick scaling and stable performance across regions.
Sentiment score
6.1
Windows 10 is praised for scalability across devices, easily integrating into infrastructures and accommodating diverse organizational needs.
Since it is tightly integrated with AWS services, I can easily scale instances up or down based on demand using EC2 auto-scaling and load balancing.
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
The compatibility of container scalability with Amazon ECS and Amazon EKS, along with performance optimizations and low latency for workloads.
Assistant Professor, Technical Trainer at DIEMS Chh.Sambhajinagar
The beauty here is that we can scale it immediately, which also saves cost.
Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators
We can focus fully on our work without pressure or concerns about issues on our own PCs.
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
For scalability, I would rate it a nine or ten because performance-wise, Windows 10 has never given me those issues.
Senior Engagement Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I can increase the licensing amount easily when there is company growth or when new people join.
Assistant Vice President at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Amazon Linux excels in stability and reliability with predictable updates, seamless scalability, and effortless AWS integration for production environments.
Sentiment score
7.0
Windows 10 is stable and reliable, with continuous updates and rare issues primarily from third-party software or updates.
Combined with AWS managed infrastructure, it provides enterprise-grade reliability suitable for production workloads.
Software Engineer at INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING
Since it is purpose-built for the cloud, it lacks the bloat of traditional desktop-focused distributions, which leads to fewer crashes and higher uptime.
System Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Compared to other Linux distributions, Amazon Linux is significantly more stable for AWS workloads because it is pre-optimized for EC2 hypervisor and includes integrated AWS tools out of the box.
FullStack Developer at EnactOn Technologies
The challenges were related to third-party agents and their supportability.
Technology\Cloud Architect | IT Infrastructure Security & Compliance at IDFC Bank
Windows 10 is stable for my daily development work, providing frequent security updates and user-friendly updates, which are excellent.
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
I would rate the stability of the product an eight.
Senior Engagement Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon Linux needs better third-party support, enhanced documentation, improved integration, and expanded features to boost flexibility and usability.
Windows 10 is criticized for frequent updates, high resource use, stability, security, pricing, and needing better integration and customization.
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
Microsoft can improve their Teams product because everybody uses Teams, and it's very clunky and unfriendly in terms of scrolling back, downloading files, and moving back and forth within the different teams.
Senior Engagement Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Investment in Windows 10 may not be ideal as the world is changing with advancing technology in the AI age.
DevOps Engineer at CipherTV Corp.
The transitions within Teams are not smooth, and call quality in meetings is not great.
Senior Manager at Morgan Stanley
 

Setup Cost

Amazon Linux provides a cost-effective, flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model with no licensing fees, ideal for enterprises.
Enterprise buyers experience varied costs for Windows 10, with opinions differing on pricing fairness compared to alternatives.
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
For those buying a Windows license, it might be better to buy a Windows 11 license.
DevOps Engineer at CipherTV Corp.
Windows is considered overpriced, especially given the normal software functionalities.
Design engineer at a construction company with 201-500 employees
Windows 10 is cost-effective when compared to other competitors available such as Mac and Linux.
BI developer at Jubilee Life Insurance Company Ltd
 

Valuable Features

Amazon Linux enhances deployment with security, AWS optimizations, and tools, ensuring efficiency, scalability, and reliability for cloud-native environments.
Windows 10 is praised for its user-friendly interface, security features, application compatibility, and seamless online integration across devices.
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
When using mapping software such as QGIS or ArcGIS, the system remains stable, especially when handling heavy files.
Co-Founder at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Device encryption is a main priority for us as developers in a FinTech company because we have the most secure user data.
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
It improved our operations compared to Windows XP or Windows 7 and helped save time, reduce issues, and improve security.
IT at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windows 10
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
4.7
Number of Reviews
288
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Amazon Linux is 1.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows 10 is 3.3%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Windows 103.3%
Amazon Linux1.2%
Other95.5%
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.
R Pranavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Collaborative development has become more secure and efficient for our team
We have faced some issues with Windows OneDrive because if one developer has a folder in a common OneDrive folder, it took some time to show it to others. It becomes somewhat difficult to work, as there is latency on that, so if you update that, it will be more efficient and useful for the developers. My main focus on Windows 10 is the giving of regular updates, so it might take some time to update Windows, which is also mandatory. As a developer, when we are working with Windows 10, if it takes more time to update and restart the PC, it affects our efficiency at work. If we could stop the updates on a regular basis or if they were delivered faster, it would be easier. As a developer, the frequent updates are too annoying for working on it, so it would be better if we stop the frequent updates and only provide the most important ones. Performance issues over time due to background apps and programs piling up and using an SSD instead of a hard disk are also concerns.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Educational Organization
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business127
Midsize Enterprise64
Large Enterprise123
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon Linux?
I believe there is no need to improve Amazon Linux. It is definitely working in a very progressive and highly scalable way.
What is your primary use case for Amazon Linux?
My use case for Amazon Linux includes web and application hosting, microservices, container, database management, and virtual desktop services. I use Amazon Linux as a lightweight base image for Do...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon Linux?
I will provide a rating of eight for Amazon Linux. I am using a long-term support version of Amazon Linux, so there is no need for any other features. Amazon Linux provides different types of servi...
What needs improvement with Windows 10?
In my experience, there is nothing to be improved inside Windows 10. It is already very well set up. If I had to think of one thing that could be improved in Windows 10, it would be that we could m...
What is your primary use case for Windows 10?
My main use case for Windows 10 at work is to use it for applications, to run the applications or the .exe file, executable files. Sometimes I use IIS, Internet Information Services, for Windows le...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Linux vs. Windows 10 and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.