Rocky Linux Reviews

For the last two years, I have been using Rocky Linux for our project. I do all the things: installations of Rocky Linux, coding in Rocky Linux, and using Rocky Linux as a platform.

We use Rocky Linux as a base OS for our project, and on top of Rocky Linux OS, we are building our project. We have chosen Rocky Linux because it supports long-term support.

We are using Rocky Linux for one of our projects in CommScope, using it as a base OS, and on top of that, we are installing many RPMs and making it customized. We are adding numerous security patches, as Rocky Linux continuously provides security updates and patches, which is one of the best benefits we are getting. We are also using Rocky Linux for high availability purposes, with approximately 11 to 12 server clusters.

We are using Rocky Linux because it has strong security, compatibility with RHEL, and enterprise-grade stability, which is the main reason for choosing Rocky Linux. The plus point is that they regularly provide security updates and patches, which is very helpful to us.

Rocky Linux offers strong security and enterprise-grade stability as its best features. These are the two main advantages compared to others.

Enterprise-grade stability refers to the fact that it uses the RHEL source code, ensuring compatibility, and is suitable for servers, production environments, and critical applications, built to be a reliable, long-term support OS.

In terms of security, we are getting regular security patches and updates, which is one of the best use cases I've noticed positively impacting Rocky Linux in my organization.

Day by day, the vulnerabilities are decreasing, and as we have implemented good practices, there is less downtime.

Currently, I have nothing to say about how Rocky Linux can be improved.

The rolling update for Rocky Linux is very limited and focused on stability, so the software may not always be the latest version, which is something they need to improve.

I have been working in my current field for the last two years and eight months.

Rocky Linux is stable.

Regarding scalability, Rocky Linux is a very good OS, and we haven't faced any issues currently.

Currently, the customer support for Rocky Linux is not fully developed and is in a growing stage; the customer support is also not very responsive.

Previously, we were using CentOS, which reached its end of life, prompting us to switch to Rocky Linux because we found it is an LTS with stability and long-term support.

The pricing for Rocky Linux has no major difference compared to enterprise-level software, which is similar to enterprise-level Linux, so there isn't much difference and it's a good experience with both the older and newer versions compared to CentOS and Rocky Linux.

We checked some enterprise-level OSs such as Debian before choosing Rocky Linux, but we found we were more inclined toward Rocky Linux as it gives LTS support and stability, so we moved to Rocky Linux.

If you are looking for a long-term support OS, an LTS, then I recommend choosing Rocky Linux, as they are releasing many patches and updates regarding security.

Rocky Linux is best for someone who wants good scalability, enterprise-grade stability, substantial community engagement, compatibility with RHEL, and strong security. I also feel there is good documentation with Rocky Linux, along with providing long-term support, which makes it better to choose Rocky Linux.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Rocky Linux a nine out of ten.

My main use case for Rocky Linux is for the Nutanix environment, where we have a data center and everything is hosted there, including all the services and systems. Rocky Linux is the main OS of the Nutanix, which we use for hosting the servers.

In the Nutanix environment, Rocky Linux makes security hardening easier because we have guidelines to follow for those processes as per their advice.

My organization has seen positive impacts, particularly in security, as it is more secure and scalable. The commands are quite easy to use in the open-source environment, and scaling up or down is simple. Overall, it is more scalable and security-wise, it is good, and after using many commands, I become familiar with them.

The best features Rocky Linux offers, in my experience, are its simplicity, which helps us troubleshoot effectively, along with enhanced security features, security hardening capabilities, and the ability to perform regular patches.

My organization has seen positive impacts, particularly in security, as it is more secure and scalable. The commands are quite easy to use in the open-source environment, and scaling up or down is simple. Overall, it is more scalable and security-wise, it is good, and after using many commands, I become familiar with them.

I am not an expert on Rocky Linux, but I do not have anything to say regarding improvements; I think it is doing better.

I chose a rating of eight out of ten because Rocky Linux must grow more; it is not as comparable to Red Hat, which is why I took off those two points.

I have been using Rocky Linux for a couple of years.

Rocky Linux is stable.

The scalability of Rocky Linux is very good.

We take customer support from Nutanix, and I think Nutanix support users are familiar with Rocky Linux, so I find the customer support to be very good.

Positive

I am not sure what solution we previously used before Rocky Linux, as I am new to the organization. I think they might have used VMware, but those were not on Rocky Linux, and the licensing cost was likely higher, which is why we changed to Rocky Linux in the Nutanix environment.

Rocky Linux is a product of CentOS, and I have experience using CentOS as well. I think CentOS and Rocky Linux are similar to each other, with almost all of the features being similar.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Rocky Linux are favorable because they come bundled with the Nutanix environment, making the costs and licensing cheaper than the VMware environment, which is why we chose the Nutanix environment.

I have seen a return on investment, including money saved and time saved.

The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Rocky Linux are favorable because they come bundled with the Nutanix environment, making the costs and licensing cheaper than the VMware environment, which is why we chose the Nutanix environment.

Before choosing Rocky Linux, I evaluated options based on cost.

My advice to others looking into using Rocky Linux is to go ahead and use it. I give Rocky Linux a rating of eight out of ten.

I have been using Rocky Linux for three or four years. It is used for HPC, online assessments, and Ceph storage.

The solution is free and open source.

The OS choice in my project is quite specific. It is based on customer requirements, as they might want to use Rocky Linux or Ubuntu, depending on their needs.

The package versions can be quite older compared to other distributions such as Ubuntu.

I have been using this solution for about three or four years.

The deployment process is simple.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The scalability is quite good, though there are some issues with Rocky Linux. I would rate the scalability a five out of seven.

I rely on self-support and community resources.

Positive

I previously used VirtualBox but now tend to use Proxmox.

The initial setup is simple.

It involves a normal setup process using a USB drive or network installation.

It requires a plain installation. The server can be set up with UI, similar to a desktop installation in an on-premises environment.

I use Rocky Linux on the production server first. For Ubuntu installations, it depends on customer requirements.

The package management system requires attention when working with Rocky Linux.

There can be some issues with scalability that need consideration.

I would rate Rocky Linux an eight out of ten.

My typical use case for Rocky Linux is that it's the backend operating system for managing where we have a lot of scripts managing networks.

I don't have a use case for AI integration yet because we simply did not look into it, so I don't know if it's there or not.

The experience of working with Rocky Linux is the same as with other Linux distributions; there was no difficulty for me in learning how to work with it.

Rocky Linux is similar to other distributions. I did some research on Google, and then it was manageable without needing documentation.

To be honest, Rocky Linux is almost similar to each Linux distribution, so I have no specific reason why it should offer me its features.

I haven't noticed anything special that could be done better in Rocky Linux.

I switched less than a year ago from my previous company, and I think they have been using it for one or two years.

The experience of working with Rocky Linux is the same as with other Linux distributions; there was no difficulty for me in learning how to work with it.

First of all, there is in-house knowledge for handling technical support or community issues.

If I have specific issues that couldn't be resolved by myself, I either contact an outside ICT company with specialized engineers or contact the vendors.

We have not yet needed to contact a vendor regarding Rocky Linux.

Positive

It's equal whether it's now CentOS, Rocky Linux, or Ubuntu; actually, a bash script remains a bash script.

A server on VMware rolls out the template, so it's a one-hour job to deploy it.

It's equal whether it's now CentOS, Rocky Linux, or Ubuntu; actually, a bash script remains a bash script.

I'm just using tools, so I'm not in any decision making.

The decision is made at the customer, so it's not my decision. I'm not in any decision maker role.

All these decisions have been made. I'm just following it, and for me, there's no real preference between A or B.

I switched less than a year ago from my previous company, and I think they have been using it for one or two years.

It's a hard question to determine the most helpful or useful features in this tool.

I rate Rocky Linux eight out of ten. An eight means that I'm satisfied with it; a product having a ten never exists because things can always be better.

I have nothing really in mind that could make Rocky Linux a nine out of ten.

My main use case for Rocky Linux is that we had some web servers that we used as internal web servers on a LEMP stack with Nginx for some internal websites and systems. At the time, they ran on CentOS, but we felt it would be better to migrate them to Rocky Linux. I remember we had a script to migrate those servers and it worked very well. Since then, I have left the company, but my colleagues who are still there are using it with no problems so far.

Stability and good old trusted baseline.

In my opinion, the best features Rocky Linux offers are stability, compatibility, and community support, all of which I think are extremely necessary and essential for the distribution, and I find that all three pillars are very supported by Rocky Linux.

The big difference was the compatibility, one-to-one compatibility, and packages and repos, and that was the main thing that helped us significantly after all.

Rocky Linux has positively impacted my organization, specifically through cost savings, because we did not have to buy any licenses or extra licenses of other distros, such as Oracle or RedHat, and that helped significantly, giving us independence in this project without needing a budget specifically for it. This helped tremendously.

I cannot think of anything right now that could improve Rocky Linux. I think they should keep up the great job.

I have been using Rocky Linux on and off since its first release, right after CentOS changed its releases and both Rocky Linux and Alma started.

Rocky Linux is stable.

For my case, Rocky Linux's scalability has been very good.

I have not had any experience with customer support so far because I usually research things on my own, and the documentation and community help significantly in those cases.

Positive

We previously used CentOS, and we switched because their release politics were not really going into the stable way that we always thought CentOS was praised for, which is why we chose to migrate.

I decided to migrate those web servers specifically to Rocky Linux instead of another option because I actually tried both distributions, Alma and Rocky Linux, and I believe that the one that was most similar to how we used CentOS was Rocky Linux. This was the best choice after all.

If I recall correctly, I had some problems during the migration process, but it was not with Rocky Linux; it was with AlmaLinux installation. That was one of the main factors as because we had some bugs. Rocky Linux was a very good choice in the end and it is working efficiently.

I have seen a return on investment because our team was very small and is still small in overall support in the company. One good thing is that we did not have to contract any other team member specifically for the migration since everyone was already well-versed with CentOS. This should count as a point, and while I do not have exact metrics of expenses, I believe it saved around some thousands of dollars for the company.

I did not have any experience with pricing because we used mainly the free version of Rocky Linux at the time.

Before choosing Rocky Linux, I evaluated other options such as AlmaLinux, and if I recall correctly, we also researched RedHat.

I would advise others looking into using Rocky Linux to try it out, especially if they have servers on CentOS, as it is very valid for an upgrade. I know a lot of CentOS servers have already reached the end-of-life state, with no more updates or security updates, so I would recommend a migration to Rocky Linux. I rate Rocky Linux 10 out of 10.

The platform's ease of setup, reliability, and minimal maintenance are valuable features. The custom install scripts streamline the setup process, making it straightforward.

Improved integration with Windows, particularly Active Directory, would be beneficial for the product. Currently, this aspect requires additional effort.

I have been working with Rocky Linux for approximately 18 months, which aligns with its release timeline. We are currently using version 9.4 of the solution.

The product is stable and reliable. I rate the stability a nine. 

Approximately 40 to 50 customers are using the solution. Most of our on-premises servers run Linux, with some running multiple instances. I would rate the scalability as a nine. It performs very well in scaling scenarios.

I have not utilized official technical support and have relied on community resources and forums.

The setup is straightforward, with minimal manual intervention. Depending on the customer's requirements, it is deployed on cloud-based systems or on-premises hardware. 

The deployment typically takes about an hour. Virtual machines can be set up in this timeframe, with additional time needed for specific customer configurations.

I rate the process a nine and a half. 

The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three. 

The solution allows us to quickly set up multiple virtual machines, reducing costs and requiring less management than other systems.

 It is a robust solution for various server needs. I rate it a nine. 

I use the solution in my company to do some automation stuff to run Ansible, and it has an administration server to provide all the Linux control like a client node can be connected to that master node. Basically, it is an administration node, and I can manage all of the on-premises machines. Basically, it acts as a bastion host or jump host for me.

The most valuable feature of the solution is its stability. The tool's stability is similar to CentOS. The project for CentOS is not functional as of now, a reason why I moved to Fedora and Rocky Linux by another distributor.

I have certain problems with the tool's DNS part, making it an area where improvements are required.

I have been using Rocky Linux for three years and seven months.

Around 400 people in my company use the tool.

I have not contacted technical support for the solution.

I do use multiple operating systems, like CentOS, Red Hat, Fedora, and Rocky, which are all enterprise OS tools meant for commercial use only.

The product's installation, setup, and deployment are easy to manage.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. My company also uses AWS, Ubuntu versions, Amazon Linux versions, and Red Hat, so the images are used by opting for a cloud provider.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

I'm currently running the solution at home to teach myself all of the flavors of Linux. If a new one comes out that I don't know or haven't worked on, I'll install it and see how easy it is to configure and set up. I evaluate it for users who don't have very strong computers and want to move away from Microsoft because they don't want to upgrade.

I evaluate Linux as a recommendation so that users can get away from Windows because Windows is so memory-intensive. For people who have an older machine and can't necessarily run Windows 10 or Windows 11, I usually recommend a Linux flavor based on the hardware they're running.

The UX design, the user front end, and the user GUI are very well done on the GNOME and KDE platform side. It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are. I have worked with a lot of different solutions like Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, and CentOS.

Rocky Linux is very easy, and if you switch from one to the other, you can easily detect your tools in the front end. Since it is very similar to the file system breakdown of downloads and documents, it's very easy to show users where things will be.

The solution's audio integration for virtual machines could be improved. It took me almost a day to get my audio drivers to work while running it as a virtual machine. I run Oracle Virtual Box. Within Oracle Virtual Box, I would really like it if they looked at the audio integration or the audio driver specifically for virtual machines.

I have been using Rocky Linux for five years.

Rocky Linux runs very well for me on low-resource systems, which only have four gigs of memory and one CPU. Rocky Linux is not very resource-intensive.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.

If I put it on a low-spec machine, the solution's deployment will take a maximum of one hour, which is a reasonable amount of time. Comparatively, Windows takes much longer to deploy.

Rocky Linux is a cheap solution. Compared to the market prices of other tools, the solution has a very competitive pricing. The solution comes at such a price that I can recommend it to users who do not want to spend money. I spend no more than $10 per year for Rocky Linux.

For a Windows migration, I'll do a full backup to external, set up Rocky Linux, and bring it in. Then, I'll just import all the relevant files. Most solutions like Rocky Linux and Ubuntu have a downloads folder or documents folder. I try to recreate the user experience from a UX perspective to be the same.

One of the other Linux tools I'm currently evaluating is Zorin. Zorin looks almost identical to Windows. When you log in, the interface and everything looks very similar to Windows 11. CentOS, Rocky, and Zorin are three solutions that I recommend for users who want to move away from Microsoft but keep the same experience. I can make it look and feel the same way it looks and feels on Windows.

So, migrating a user from Windows is easy because as long as it looks the same, they don't really care what happens in the backend. They don't really care what happens when they click on a button. They just want to see what they saw when they worked on Windows.

I set Rocky Linux up to update once a week with the package management. It does its own updates, and as long as there's internet, there are no problems.

The transition to Rocky Linux wasn't as difficult as I had expected, but it wasn't as easy as I had expected because Rocky Linux is one of the lesser-known versions of Linux. When I had trouble with my audio drivers, very little information was available on resolving the issue. That was a little difficult, but it was purely because Rocky Linux is not as well known as Ubuntu, CentOS, or the bigger versions of Linux.

From that perspective, I struggled a bit. Otherwise, it was quite smooth. The only problem I had was on the audio side.

The solution's deployment time was very much dependent on the hardware that I was running it on. Depending on the hardware, it's quite simple because it has the same features as all the new Linux. I can also configure and run a little LVM installation.

I like the fact that, in a lot of ways, it's still the same as the old Linux and all the other Linux you know. It looks very similar, but it adds little tweaks, and it still looks like Rocky Linux when you're inside it.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.