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MariaDB on CentOS vs Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 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

MariaDB on CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
30th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (R...
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
388
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

YK
Senior Software Developer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Reliable relational database has handled heavy payment traffic and has improved query speed
The best features MariaDB on CentOS offers is that it is a default database, so we can easily install it. It was a seamless installation out of the box. The other thing which we need and which MariaDB provides is the speed. For pooling and handling multiple connections on a single instance, MySQL and some other services provide their enterprise edition that we need to pay for. However, for MariaDB on CentOS, it is freely available and built-in. With respect to that, it is all seamless. We do not need to pay for anything, and we are utilizing the best connection pooling capability. We also got some performance speeds over our queries. It is also very much compatible. It is all the same as MySQL. It fully supports MySQL. It is already compatible with our previous projects, and if we introduce some new kind of thing, it can handle everything. MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted our organization because we were on a different relational database and that was not holding that much connection and that much speed. After implementing MariaDB, it gives us so much ease to handle those issues. It has things inside it so we do not even need to change the configuration; it handles it with very ease. The replication thing is very good, and we have fewer read replicas because of the connection handling. The reader latency is very less. We do not get any idea that the data we are fetching from a master to a slave instance is different because the reader latency is very less. The primary thing that we got from MariaDB on CentOS is the connection handling capability. The connection was dropping, so that is totally resolved. We did not even find any single instance of this type of case after implementing MariaDB. The second thing is the speed. Sometimes it performs faster. When we do EXPLAIN and everything, it shows us what indexing it has been using, and they are much more efficient than the other relational database. It handles everything in a good way. It is a balanced configuration. By default, it provides a balanced configuration, so we do not need to look into that side. The faster query speed and the better replication feature that is open source, and we also have community support for that. The security updates are very fast. It also supports storage engines for different types of data we can simply use. One of the things that is not ideal is that the version which is default is sometimes older than the very latest.
RO
Server administrator at Northrop Grumman
Empowers collaboration through streamlined integration and extensive documentation
Improving Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) can be tough, however, a significant area is collaboration tools. We have many Windows users that use Outlook and Skype or Teams to collaborate on our network. They want Linux desktops due to the fact that they want to use containers. Their biggest complaint is, 'I need two workstations to do my container work and one to collaborate.' If somehow RHEL can start introducing or collaborating with Teams and Outlook so their users can work with their Windows peers, that would be great. But I don't think that's available yet. Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, there needs to be more of an education piece to it. For instance, when purchasing 10 or 100 node licenses, they could suggest, 'We also offer this 1,000 node license instead, and it'll save you specific amounts.' Just more education on their offerings would be helpful, because usually, we're coming out with the requirements, and then they just provide it to us. They could inform us about saving by bundling it differently or using alternative approaches.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"MariaDB on CentOS is faster than Oracle."
"MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted our organization in several ways."
"MariaDB on CentOS has positively impacted my organization by providing more features compared to Oracle MySQL, particularly in terms of performance, advantages, and implemented features, leading to migrations from Oracle MySQL to MariaDB on CentOS."
"I like RHEL's clustering capabilities and high-level architecture. It has high availability, built-in disaster recovery, SSH features, and scripting."
"The initial setup of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is straightforward; I find it very easy to set up."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) has helped to mitigate downtime and lower risk, and my assessment of its built-in security features for simplifying risk reduction and maintaining compliance is a score of eight or nine, as everything is clearly stated and listed in the documents, so it's easy for us to follow."
"When it comes to security, scalability, and robustness, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) excels in all aspects. That's why we rely on this operating system."
"My favourite feature is Ansible."
"One pro is that at the operating system layer, like, RHEL has better support from Red Hat, and if something goes down, I found many resources for troubleshooting and stuff online."
"Everything's so smooth with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that it's not something we really think about."
"I have not found another operating system that matches Red Hat Enterprise Linux; it receives a perfect score of ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"I think MariaDB on CentOS needs improvements in some memory-level implementations within the operating system, as I have noticed issues related to memory orientation, such as out-of-memory problems."
"One of the things that is not ideal is that the version which is default is sometimes older than the very latest."
"Many functionalities are not available in MariaDB on CentOS, so those aspects needed to be rewritten, particularly Oracle proprietary features."
"Risks, for example, specific to Linux, need improvements."
"As such, there are no specific features that we are looking for. We have frequent meetings with them. We have had some issues on the application side and the OS side for which we opened cases and discussed those concerns and questions in the meetings offered by Red Hat."
"It is challenging to use the knowledge base and the deployment documentation."
"Sometimes, the platform would be very slow, making it difficult to open labs."
"I want RHEL to stick to the open-source routes. As a company, we experience challenges in managing the budget."
"RHEL is a pretty polished product, however, if it becomes more mainstream compared to other Linux distributions and if more people adapt it, it would be used as a much more universal product. This would make it easier for people to adapt to RHEL."
"The biggest thing that is crushing RHEL is documentation. Their documentation is haphazard at best. The man pages that you can use locally are pretty good, they've been fleshed out pretty well, but the documentation from Red Hat itself really needs somebody to go through it and review it."
"There are performance issues with the response time when accessing the console, but I'm unsure if that's RHEL's fault or if it's due to the lack of CPU or memory on our machines. The enterprise interface could be improved. I can only use the keyboard to transfer files from one system to another. I want to use my mouse on the interface, not just scroll up and down. I would also like my logs archived as an RAR and sent to me."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"When I started using it, Red Hat Enterprise Linux was free for all and open-source. It is now paid with access to many features to upgrade and use their services."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers a straightforward pricing and licensing model."
"It is cost-efficient for the tasks it does and the improvements that it brings. For a professional environment, it is very cost-efficient. It was easy to purchase the subscription."
"We use open source. We only have a subscription for support."
"My company has acquired five to ten licenses from Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)."
"The solution's pricing is reasonable and less expensive than other products such as Windows or Oracle."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is suitably priced with various support tiers to match organizational needs and environments."
"Red Hat Enterprise Linux is expensive, particularly for governments operating with limited budgets."
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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
No data available
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business87
Midsize Enterprise49
Large Enterprise266
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for MariaDB on CentOS?
My main use case for MariaDB on CentOS in my last organization was in the telecom domain, where clients mainly focused on the database called MariaDB, for which we set up on-premises servers runnin...
What advice do you have for others considering MariaDB on CentOS?
I can share that after switching to MariaDB on CentOS, we saw great advantages in terms of high availability performance, particularly compared to other operating systems such as Linux and Unix pla...
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 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
It is open source. We can customize it as per our requirements.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing, the pricing is good; however, licensing is a bit confusing.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, RHEL, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) for AWS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Travel Channel, Mohawk Industries, Hilti, Molecular Health, Exolgan, Hotelplan Group, Emory University, BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, HCA Healthcare, Paychex, UPS, Intermountain Healthcare, Brinker International, TransUnion, Union Bank, CA Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about MariaDB on CentOS vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.