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CentOS vs Windows Server 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
4.0
CentOS supports business operations by reducing downtime and costs, providing critical infrastructure despite uncalculated precise financial metrics.
Sentiment score
5.5
Windows Server boosts efficiency and resource management, with users reporting significant cost reductions and improved virtualization and Azure services.
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.
We're very competitive commercially and technically because of it.
We've seen value in Windows Server because the systems work smoothly without any problems.
Windows Server offers excellent value for money, particularly when compared to alternatives.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.2
CentOS relies on strong community support for troubleshooting, while Red Hat users value official service and knowledge base.
Sentiment score
6.2
Customer service is generally effective, but technical support quality varies, and experiences with Microsoft are mixed.
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.
Our in-house team can also solve most issues.
If you go through a partner who sells or supports Windows, the support could be around seven out of ten, because Windows relies on these partners for assistance.
Microsoft's technical support for Windows Server has been lacking, with rare responses even with premium support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
CentOS efficiently scales for small and large deployments, compatible with various hardware, supporting vertical and horizontal resource scaling.
Sentiment score
7.6
Windows Server is flexible and scalable, efficiently adapting to varying organizational sizes despite some management complexity.
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.
I've worked in companies with 20,000 to 100,000 users, and it scales beautifully without issues.
It's definitely scalable.
The solution is used extensively in our organization, and we have plans to increase the usage.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
CentOS is favored for its stability, reliability, simplicity, and user-friendliness, supporting complex tasks with minimal issues.
Sentiment score
7.5
Windows Server is highly stable and reliable, with improvements since 2012, often rated 8-10 out of 10 by users.
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.
We have experienced no blue screens or crashes and often achieved an uptime of 2,000 to 3,000 days without any issues whatsoever.
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
The tool is stable.
 

Room For Improvement

CentOS struggles with kernel tuning, lacking user-friendly features, support, and updates, leading to user dissatisfaction and compatibility issues.
Windows Server users seek improved security, better integration, usability, optimization, pricing, automation, documentation, patching, and technical support.
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.
From a security perspective, sometimes, malware attacks and hackers take advantage of the tool's vulnerabilities.
Deploying antivirus and firewall software on the server is advisable, but having an external firewall adds an extra layer of security.
Windows Server needs to improve its speed and stability.
 

Setup Cost

CentOS provides an open-source, cost-effective solution with no licensing fees, offering optional support for enterprise needs.
Enterprise buyers struggle with Windows Server licensing due to its complexity, varied pricing, and high costs compared to Linux.
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.
It is quite expensive.
Previously, a Windows Server with two processors cost around two 154 euros annually, but now it is estimated to be around 3,000 to 4,000 euros for the same configuration.
On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most expensive, I rate it ten out of ten.
 

Valuable Features

CentOS is a stable, secure, cost-effective, and scalable open-source platform ideal for server environments with robust community support.
Windows Server excels in scalability, security, and integration, offering features like Active Directory and seamless Microsoft tool compatibility.
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.
Windows Server is a stable and scalable solution.
The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that every Microsoft product is scalable, flexible, secure, and available on a certain budget.
The IP directory is the most valuable feature.
 

Categories and Ranking

CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Windows Server
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
195
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 4.5%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Windows Server is 10.0%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Windows Server10.0%
CentOS4.5%
Other85.5%
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.
GS
Long-standing experience improves reliability and security, making it a trusted platform
It's difficult to see improvements when using it daily. They improved compatibility with other platforms, such as Linux. One improvement I was thinking about some years ago was the ability to manage an on-premises server from Azure. Now, they have created Azure Arc, and we are using it as a very good way of managing on-premises servers. What can be improved is on the Azure side. With Active Directory on the server side and Entra ID on the Azure side in our hybrid environment, we find issues with data syncing to Entra ID. In Entra ID, Microsoft omitted some parameters. In Active Directory, you can put an expiring date to an account, but you cannot do that in Entra ID. We have other means of doing that, but it's common to have consultants working for six months, requiring account expiration or renewal processes. The Entra ID Connect syncing tool could be improved. Though they moved the service to Azure and use an agent instead of having a dedicated server, it remains cumbersome to set up due to the differences between Entra ID and Active Directory.
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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%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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 Business78
Midsize Enterprise41
Large Enterprise88
 

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?
My experience with CentOS in terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is an open-source operating system, so there was no cost in terms of deploying it or getting the license for it.
What needs improvement with Windows Server?
The user interface of Windows Server needs improvement, especially when working with users, user accounts, and groups. There are multiple ways to accomplish tasks that do not align completely, so t...
What is your primary use case for Windows Server?
I integrated Windows Server in my infrastructure. We use Hyper-V technology extensively, as it is very important for us, and it functions quite well.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rakuten, Rackspace, Tyco
Find out what your peers are saying about CentOS vs. Windows Server and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,665 professionals have used our research since 2012.