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CentOS vs openSUSE Leap comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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

CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
openSUSE Leap
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
26th
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 October 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 4.7%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of openSUSE Leap is 4.4%, down from 6.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CentOS4.7%
openSUSE Leap4.4%
Other90.9%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammad Wasif - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure Engineer at Trigyn Technology
Has supported reliable deployments and simplified issue resolution in complex environments
The most suitable feature of CentOS is its exceptional stability, security, and long-term support, which make it a popular choice for enterprise and server environments. CentOS is widely recognized for providing a stable and secure platform, especially suited for server and mission-critical workloads. Whenever we face critical work, it is easy for our team to handle. For long-term support, each CentOS release generally guarantees long-term updates, ensuring reliability for extended periods. For package management, we use YUM and DNF in the new version for flexible and efficient software management. It depends on our users' requirements for installing CentOS. Licensing for CentOS is above my management details, so I am not aware of this information. CentOS always provides good feedback, is easy to handle, and easy to troubleshoot. The experience with CentOS OS has been very good over the last two months. I rate CentOS nine out of ten.
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

"The user interface of CentOS is intuitive, we can also use the command prompt."
"The stability of this solution is its most useful feature, as it is a high quality product and you know what you're getting while also receiving wide support from the community."
"The open architecture is useful for us. That's why we're using CentOS."
"It is a stable soultion."
"It’s scalable."
"Since joining my organization, which has been using CentOS, I've observed that all products with CentOS as a base OS run smoothly."
"The most valuable feature is performance."
"Asus technical support is very efficient."
"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."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"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."
"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."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Previous versions were unstable."
"The YUM install manager can be improved. It is below average as compared to the other install managers. This is the only major problem that I see with CentOS. They should reduce dependency on the YUM manager."
"CentOS is very close to the end of life."
"The GUI interface could always be better."
"The documentation and support could be improved, along with compatibility with newer hardware as hardware continually evolves over time."
"Currently, CentOS is not providing support, so you will not get new packages that are compatible with that operating system."
"The product lacks a graphical user interface that can help users automate certain systems using the native features offered by CentOS."
"In the future, CentOS will no longer be compatible with Red Hat. I would prefer that it remains compatible because when it changes, we will no longer be using it."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"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."
"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs involved."
"The price could be better. The cost depends on how the organization or a specific person licenses it. If you want the free version, there's Ubuntu which is supported by forums. You can pay for the license yearly or pay for a specific version."
"There are no licensing fees. CentOS is a free solution."
"The product is free."
"It is open-source, which means it is a free product. It has a one-time deployment cost."
"Once you buy the license, Linux will provide you with yearly or monthly patches, so your systems will be scalable for a long time."
"This is a free solution."
"CentOS is a free solution."
"openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 24, 2017
It's improved our company's system environments that run Oracle databases.
Red Hat is mission critical to our environment Red Hat has improved the mission critical environments running Oracle databases, while CentOS has improved our web environment and MySQL. Oracle and SAP Environment and all HPC environments. 10 years No issues Very stable i don´t find any problem…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
23%
University
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

Which would you choose - RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or CentOS?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is fantastic. It is an inexpensive solution that has excellent security, performance, and stability, and also lots of features. I specifically like that the solution has fe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CentOS?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing for CentOS, there is no cost for licensing or setup pricing, so it is easy to set up and scale up the server.
What needs improvement with CentOS?
CentOS can be improved, but I have not yet faced any kind of issue or hectic problem.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CentOS 7 (x86_64) - with Updates HVM
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CentOS vs. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,743 professionals have used our research since 2012.