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

CentOS vs openSUSE Leap comparison

 

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
7th
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
25th
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 August 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 5.0%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of openSUSE Leap is 4.6%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CentOS5.0%
openSUSE Leap4.6%
Other90.4%
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

"I would always recommend the solution to others."
"It’s scalable."
"A valuable features of CentOS is that it's quite stable and doesn't crash often. It's also quite intuitive."
"The most valuable feature of CentOS is the speed and it is very easy to use."
"The ROI is incalculable. We could not do our business without CentOS/Red Hat."
"CentOS is very easy to use, and all the commands are user-friendly."
"We used the solution as an operating system."
"The product's initial setup phase is very straightforward."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
"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."
"openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman."
"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."
"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 most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"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's most valuable feature is the BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots."
 

Cons

"I think CentOS can be improved, but it's not really a viable option anymore."
"CentOS could be improved by being more secure. Of course, we use a firewall, but security is always a concern."
"The server system is a little bit tough to manage."
"The price could be better. They could add more drivers in terms of peripherals and other things. Add more drivers for the Linux specifications in the next release. Right now, they are just pushing to have more drivers for Windows instead of Linux."
"CentOS could improve by having troubleshooting logs."
"CentOS should extend the support of the solution. The solution is set to have no update support in 2023."
"There is no notification before updates are applied to the solution, which occasionally means that new functionality isn't compatible with how the product is currently being used, and causes issues."
"I've found certain issues where I couldn't find any documentation to help me solve them."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"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."
"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is open-source, which means it is a free product. It has a one-time deployment cost."
"There is no price or licensing required — it's open-source."
"It's freeware, so we can use it without worrying about licensing."
"There are no costs for CentOS, it is open-source."
"The solution is free of cost to use."
"This is a free solution."
"CentOS is a free solution."
"There are no licensing costs for CentOS."
"The cost of this solution was reasonable and it was within our budget."
"The solution is open-source."
"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.
910,350 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Educational Organization
8%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise30
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: August 2026.
910,350 professionals have used our research since 2012.