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CentOS vs SUSE Linux Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 3, 2025

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
4.0
CentOS is valued for efficiency, reducing downtime and costs, saving time, and enhancing business operations without detailed financial tracking.
Sentiment score
4.1
SUSE Linux Enterprise offers higher ROI and cost savings for SAP deployments compared to Red Hat, enhancing cloud migration value.
We have saved approximately 50% of our revenue by using CentOS.
It saved a lot of time through troubleshooting, which gives us substantial room for improvement in terms of fixing things.
I have seen a return on investment by switching our clusters from on-prem to Azure public cloud, using our same Bring Your Own Licenses, which saved costs on licensing.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.2
CentOS depends on community support, with users utilizing forums and resources, while Red Hat offers paid technical service.
Sentiment score
6.6
SUSE Linux Enterprise boasts strong customer support with efficient responses, though costs and regional support quality may vary.
I would rate the customer support for CentOS a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.
I've seen many people across the globe interacting, and when users encounter issues, the community provides solutions.
I would rate the documentation about eight in terms of usefulness.
SUSE Linux Enterprise provides a stable, secure, and well-supported platform for enterprise workloads, with powerful management tools and robust support for clustering, cloud, and containers.
The customer support is good; whenever we have opened a case, they have provided detailed explanations of the issues and resolutions.
I rate the customer service 10 out of 10 because SUSE has 24/7 availability support, extended support, security, multi-Linux distribution support, upgradation, and everything is user-friendly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
CentOS efficiently scales for diverse users, adaptable for extensive growth in industries like scientific computing and microservices.
Sentiment score
6.3
SUSE Linux Enterprise offers scalable solutions for organizations, supporting seamless integration, maintenance, upgrades, and cloud compatibility to meet diverse needs.
CentOS is scalable and user-friendly without requiring complex configurations.
It allows users to scale resources vertically for upgrading hardware and horizontally by adding more servers, making it suitable for modern web hosting and containerized applications.
CentOS's scalability for my organization has handled growth and changing needs smoothly.
Its scalability is quite good since we are using Azure, which allows us to easily scale up or down our resources as needed.
SUSE Linux Enterprise is widely recognized for its strong scalability, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to global enterprises.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
CentOS is reliable and stable, with recent versions improving past issues, earning favor for its simplicity and consistent performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
SUSE Linux Enterprise is highly stable, with users rating its reliability between eight to ten, despite minor occasional glitches.
CentOS is stable, reliable, flexible, and very useful.
CentOS's simplicity and stability make it easy to use.
I believe CentOS is stable, but we are gradually moving away from it.
When HANA is utilized by many applications, I notice that while utilization does increase, we have never faced lagging or server unresponsiveness.
I would rate stability for SUSE Linux Enterprise an eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

CentOS requires enhanced user-friendliness, stability, support, and updates to address compatibility, security, and usability concerns.
SUSE Linux Enterprise needs improved management, integration, pricing, and support, alongside development of APIs, AI, and educational resources.
The documentation and support could be improved, along with compatibility with newer hardware as hardware continually evolves over time.
Kernel parameters, sysctl config details, tuned profiles, process prioritization, optimized disk, and input scheduler choice are all points for performance optimization.
CentOS removed long-term support, and version releases every two to three years are not ideal for production environments because they necessitate frequent updates.
Security is a top concern, and further strengthening default security policies, simplifying compliance management, and integrating advanced vulnerability management tools would be a valuable improvement.
The software manager was different, making it challenging to install certain applications.
The license we subscribed to should carry over within the same instance family.
 

Setup Cost

CentOS offers a cost-effective, open-source solution, praised for affordability and low total cost of ownership compared to Windows.
SUSE Linux Enterprise offers flexible support options with varying costs, appreciated for its open-source nature and straightforward licensing.
There was no cost in terms of deploying it or getting the license for it.
CentOS is a free product with free updates.
The enterprise subscription cost is at a certain level, but CentOS saves customers from paying additional money, optimizing costs for enterprises and startups involved in application development.
Upgrading an instance results in overlapping or double subscription fees.
I would rate pricing for SUSE Linux Enterprise considering one is a high price and ten is a low price.
The licensing cost is a bit high.
 

Valuable Features

CentOS is a stable, secure, and cost-effective open-source OS offering compatibility, performance, and robust community support for organizations.
SUSE Linux Enterprise is acclaimed for its robust security, SAP integration, scalability, stability, efficient management, and comprehensive support.
The update cycle changed when CentOS was prioritized for updates, causing stability issues.
In my experience, the best feature that CentOS offers is the network configuration of a device from the command-line interface, which is exceptionally clean.
The best feature CentOS offers is that it's free.
SUSE Linux had a clean user interface, which was a valuable feature for me.
It has a stable and reliable OS.
The LVM is very easy to configure, along with simple disk scanning compared to other systems.
 

Categories and Ranking

CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SUSE Linux Enterprise
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 4.5%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SUSE Linux Enterprise is 6.4%, down from 8.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SUSE Linux Enterprise6.4%
CentOS4.5%
Other89.1%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammad Wasif - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MoezCHEBBI - PeerSpot reviewer
Has delivered expert training and enabled smooth migrations using automated deployment tools
SUSE Linux Enterprise is a mature and reliable platform, but there are areas where it can be improved. Modernizing the system management tools is important as many users appreciate YaST for its centralized management, but there is a growing demand for more modern, web-based, and modular tools. The introduction of tools such as Agama, a web-based installer, and Cockpit in newer releases is a step in the right direction.SUSE has made progress with multi-Linux support, allowing organizations to manage and support not just SUSE systems but also other distributions such as Red Hat and CentOS; continuing to expand these capabilities, especially for hybrid and multi-cloud environments, will help organizations manage diverse infrastructure more effectively. Security is a top concern, and further strengthening default security policies, simplifying compliance management, and integrating advanced vulnerability management tools would be a valuable improvement.
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
 

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 do you like most about CentOS?
CentOS is very easy to use, and all the commands are user-friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CentOS?
CentOS is a free product with free updates. There are third-party companies available for support, but they charge varying amounts for their services.
What do you like most about SUSE Linux Enterprise?
The initial setup is simple and takes five minutes for deployment and if you have automation in place, it will take four minutes.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SUSE Linux Enterprise?
We are facing an issue with licensing usage. The subscription does not carry over within the same instance family, so upgrading an instance results in overlapping or double subscription fees.
What needs improvement with SUSE Linux Enterprise?
Whatever SUSE has is a better solution, and I'm not that much of an expert to suggest improvements or say how SUSE can improve, because SUSE is always improving themselves, and I know that soon the...
 

Also Known As

CentOS 7 (x86_64) - with Updates HVM
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications 12 SP3
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Air India, Akademicki Szpital Kliniczny (ASK), Allone, Altran, Apollo, ARCHIVA, Asia Innovatory Management School, ATLAS ELEKTRONIK GmbH, AutoData Norge AS, Baldor Electric, Business Connexion, CASIO, Ciclum Farma, Delta Lloyd, Edumate , HPE,  SAP SE,  Lenovo, BMW, T-Systems, UCX, Turners & Growers, Shenzhen Development Bank, Bosch Group, JK Tyres & Industries, IOCL, European Space Agency, Daimler AG, China Minsheng Banking Corp, Café Coffee Day, Unisys,  Petrochina Company Ltd, Fitch Ratings, ABeam Consulting Co Ltd, Tyro Payments, Rackspace, Pacific Textiles, ...
Find out what your peers are saying about CentOS vs. SUSE Linux Enterprise and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,655 professionals have used our research since 2012.