Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CentOS vs SUSE Linux Enterprise comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 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
5.8
CentOS offers cost savings, operational stability, and efficiency, enhancing web management with strong community and AI support.
Sentiment score
4.9
SUSE Linux Enterprise provides better ROI and cost savings for SAP deployment than Red Hat, enhancing revenue by 10-15%.
I have seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of money saved because I do not pay for the servers.
Technical Lead InfraOps at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
The money saved was significant, approximately fifteen percent of our IT budget.
Senior Support Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
It saved a lot of time through troubleshooting, which gives us substantial room for improvement in terms of fixing things.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
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.
Senior cloud engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.6
CentOS support relies on community resources and documentation, with Red Hat as a paid alternative for formal assistance.
Sentiment score
5.6
SUSE Linux Enterprise support is generally praised for expertise, though experiences vary, with high costs for certain interactions.
I would rate the customer support for CentOS a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
I've seen many people across the globe interacting, and when users encounter issues, the community provides solutions.
Presales Engineer at Crayon
I would rate the documentation about eight in terms of usefulness.
Technical Operations Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Senior Lead DevOps Engineer at Kyndryl
The customer support is good; whenever we have opened a case, they have provided detailed explanations of the issues and resolutions.
Senior cloud engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
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.
Devops MAnager at DXC Technology
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
CentOS is praised for its scalability, handling large user bases effectively and reliably across diverse IT environments.
Sentiment score
6.0
SUSE Linux Enterprise is praised for its strong scalability, ease of maintenance, cloud compatibility, but faces some kernel issues.
CentOS is scalable and user-friendly without requiring complex configurations.
Presales Engineer at Crayon
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.
IT infrastructure executive at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
CentOS's scalability for my organization has handled growth and changing needs smoothly.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Its scalability is quite good since we are using Azure, which allows us to easily scale up or down our resources as needed.
Senior cloud engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
SUSE Linux Enterprise is widely recognized for its strong scalability, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes, from small businesses to global enterprises.
Senior Lead DevOps Engineer at Kyndryl
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
CentOS is widely regarded as stable and reliable, often rated highly for its consistent performance and efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.9
SUSE Linux Enterprise is praised for its stability and reliability, with occasional minor issues in newer versions and Hyper-V.
CentOS is stable, reliable, flexible, and very useful.
IT infrastructure executive at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
CentOS's simplicity and stability make it easy to use.
Presales Engineer at Crayon
I believe CentOS is stable, but we are gradually moving away from it.
Technical Operations Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
When HANA is utilized by many applications, I notice that while utilization does increase, we have never faced lagging or server unresponsiveness.
Senior cloud engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
I would rate stability for SUSE Linux Enterprise an eight out of ten.
Solution specialist Data and AI at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

CentOS users seek better security, user-friendliness, third-party integration, frequent updates, and stability, as it shifts from a stable platform.
SUSE Linux Enterprise requires improvements in package management, security policies, cloud integration, UI, documentation, licensing, and support services.
The documentation and support could be improved, along with compatibility with newer hardware as hardware continually evolves over time.
Presales Engineer at Crayon
Kernel parameters, sysctl config details, tuned profiles, process prioritization, optimized disk, and input scheduler choice are all points for performance optimization.
IT infrastructure executive at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
CentOS RADIUS server handles sensitive authentication data, so improving security is the priority.
Technical person at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Senior Lead DevOps Engineer at Kyndryl
The software manager was different, making it challenging to install certain applications.
Lead Desktop Support Technician at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
The license we subscribed to should carry over within the same instance family.
IT Manager at a wellness & fitness company with 5,001-10,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

CentOS is a cost-effective, open-source operating system favored for its free availability and minimal setup costs.
SUSE Linux Enterprise provides flexible pricing, emphasizing support over licensing, with mixed affordability perceptions but justified by scalability and support.
There was no cost in terms of deploying it or getting the license for it.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
CentOS is a free product with free updates.
Technical Operations Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Presales Engineer at Crayon
Upgrading an instance results in overlapping or double subscription fees.
IT Manager at a wellness & fitness company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would rate pricing for SUSE Linux Enterprise considering one is a high price and ten is a low price.
Solution specialist Data and AI at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The licensing cost is a bit high.
Senior cloud engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Valuable Features

CentOS is a stable, secure, and cost-effective platform with excellent compatibility, ideal for enterprises seeking reliability and performance.
SUSE Linux Enterprise excels in stability, security, easy administration, cost-effectiveness, and adaptability, ideal for enterprise workloads.
CentOS has helped me most through its enterprise-level stability.
Technical person at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
The update cycle changed when CentOS was prioritized for updates, causing stability issues.
Technical Operations Manager at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Senior Technical Support Engineer at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
SUSE Linux had a clean user interface, which was a valuable feature for me.
Lead Desktop Support Technician at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
It has a stable and reliable OS.
IT Manager at a wellness & fitness company with 5,001-10,000 employees
The LVM is very easy to configure, along with simple disk scanning compared to other systems.
Senior cloud engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
77
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
6.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 4.4%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SUSE Linux Enterprise is 5.8%, down from 8.0% 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 Enterprise5.8%
CentOS4.4%
Other89.8%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammad Wasif - PeerSpot reviewer
IT infrastructure executive at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
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
Senior Lead DevOps Engineer at Kyndryl
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.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Operating Systems (OS) for Business solutions are best for your needs.
879,259 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
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
 

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?
I am not entirely sure about the license I purchased for my local machine, but I assume it is the community version, while for the AWS one, I do not entirely remember the pricing.
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?
I would rate pricing for SUSE Linux Enterprise considering one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with SUSE Linux Enterprise?
SUSE can make improvements to SUSE Linux Enterprise. I have suggestions about what they can add to the product to simplify users' lives. They need to intensely work on their marketing strategy.
 

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: December 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.