--- title: CentOS Reviews meta\_title: 'CentOS Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2' meta\_description: Filter 425 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to find out how CentOS works for a business like yours. aggregate\_rating: rating\_value: 4.4 review\_count: 425 scale: '5' date\_modified: '2026-08-09' parent\_category: name: IT Infrastructure url: https://www.g2.com/categories/it-infrastructure --- # CentOS Reviews & Product Details CentOS is a community-driven, free software project that provides a robust and reliable Linux distribution, serving as a foundational platform for open-source communities, cloud providers, hosting services, and scientific data processing. Derived from Fedora Linux, CentOS Stream offers a continuously delivered distribution that tracks just ahead of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), with major releases every three years and each maintained for five years. This structure allows CentOS Stream to function as a production operating system, a development environment, or a preview of upcoming RHEL releases. Key Features and Functionality: - Continuous Delivery: CentOS Stream provides a rolling-release model, delivering updates that precede RHEL's official releases, ensuring users have access to the latest features and improvements. - Community Collaboration: The project fosters a collaborative environment where Special Interest Groups (SIGs) develop and package software tailored to specific needs, such as cloud infrastructure, storage solutions, and virtualization technologies. - Enterprise Compatibility: By closely tracking RHEL, CentOS Stream ensures compatibility and stability, making it suitable for enterprise deployments and development environments. Primary Value and User Solutions: CentOS Stream addresses the need for a stable yet forward-looking Linux distribution that bridges the gap between development and production environments. It offers a reliable platform for developers to test and deploy applications that will be compatible with future RHEL releases, thereby reducing the time and effort required for migration and ensuring smoother transitions. Additionally, the active community and SIGs provide specialized solutions and support, enhancing the overall ecosystem and catering to diverse user requirements. * * * Seller [CentOS](https://www.g2.com/sellers/centos) Discussions [CentOS Community](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/discuss) Solution Type Best-of-Breed Overview by Benn Solomon Show More ## Value at a Glance Averages based on real user reviews. ### Time to Implement 2 months ### Return on Investment 12 months [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/pricing) ## Top-Rated Alternatives [ ![Ubuntu](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Ubuntu") Ubuntu 4.5/5(2,399) ](https://www.g2.com/products/ubuntu/reviews) [ ![Red Hat Enterprise Linux](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Red Hat Enterprise Linux") Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.6/5(977) ](https://www.g2.com/products/red-hat-enterprise-linux/reviews) [ ![Windows 7](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Windows 7") Windows 7 4.2/5(903) ](https://www.g2.com/products/windows-7/reviews) [ View All Alternatives ](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/competitors/alternatives) ## User Insights Average based on 425 real user reviews. Implementation Time 2 months Perceived Cost $$$$$ [Log in to unlock pricing and user insights](/login) ## CentOS Integrations (13) What do users say about integrations? Integration information sourced from real user reviews. [ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") ActiveDirectory Domain Controller for Windows 2016 ](https://www.g2.com/products/activedirectory-domain-controller-for-windows-2016/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Apache Maven ](https://www.g2.com/products/apache-maven/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Chrome OS ](https://www.g2.com/products/chrome-os/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") cPanel ](https://www.g2.com/products/cpanel/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Fortinet IPS Rules for AWS Network Firewall ](https://www.g2.com/products/fortinet-ips-rules-for-aws-network-firewall/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Kubernetes ](https://www.g2.com/products/kubernetes/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Magento Open Source ](https://www.g2.com/products/magento-open-source/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Make ](https://www.g2.com/products/integromat-by-celonis-make/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") MySQL ](https://www.g2.com/products/mysql/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") ownCloud ](https://www.g2.com/products/owncloud/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Splunk Enterprise ](https://www.g2.com/products/splunk-enterprise/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") WordPress.org ](https://www.g2.com/products/wordpress-org/reviews)[ ![Product Avatar Image](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Product Avatar Image") Zammad ](https://www.g2.com/products/zammad/reviews) Show More ![Sohail M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Sohail M.") SM Sohail M. Senior System Administrator Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 5/23/2022 "Best distribution so far" 4/5 What do you like best about CentOS? Everything, Flexibility, stability, repositories, and security overall experience of mine with CentOS is too good. Open-source community integration makes this product more interesting. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? it's not too old the way CentOS converted now to streamline projects from IBM, I cannot complain because if they will do the mirror distribution between Redhat and CentOS this will set a bad impact on Red Hat Enterprise Server. But so far I don't see any complaints about the Stream project as well. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering CentOS: That is the best Linux distribution after enterprise Linux in fact it's the beta project for Red Hat enterprise right now. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? Well, it's helping me to cut costs for the enterprise operating system cost as well as helping me to replace the user end licensing cost for Microsoft Windows licensing. It's all win-win for me Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![GAURAV K.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "GAURAV K.") GK GAURAV K. Infrastructure Consultant (Technical) Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 7/22/2022 "Open source community developed Linux" 3.5/5 What do you like best about CentOS? CentOs is open source developed platform which is free alternative to paid linux in market. It has similar 15 stacks that are available with paid linux like licensing, security package management with commerical support. If you have to maintain normal server where data breaching is not a serious issue then centos is best fit. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? As it is a free tool there is no offical support only community support you will be provided. For updating any patches we need to depend on community to develop it. There is no offical certified administrator for centos technical support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? It is an excellent choice for running applications for small to medium level setups. Its manageable platform suits wide variety of deployment. It also allows corporates to save money that they cannot afford for paid version of linux. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 10/24/2024 Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Animation](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Animation") UA Verified User in Animation Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 4/6/2023 "good product" 4/5 What do you like best about CentOS? open system for freedom of operation less cost insted of paying a lot with microsoft operating system server easy to use Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? none, all working well nothing to say in negative Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? we install it to have a server for our web application, using php, cubernetes and docker Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Praveen M.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Praveen M.") PM Praveen M. AWS Engineer Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 11/25/2022 "CentOs is mainly for server administration purpose." 5/5 What do you like best about CentOS? CentOS is mainly used to setup servers, and it is almost like RHEL. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? It is not as easy as windows for daily use; it is mainly for technical purposes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? RHEL is a paid service, but CentOS is fulfilling the exact purpose as an open source product. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More 11/28/2022 Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Verified User in Information Technology and Services](/assets/icons/anonymous-avatar-purple-4ae1032bdb50ee5682003170c8184aee790d25958bd397abbd384ba52c596a7b.svg "Verified User in Information Technology and Services") UI Verified User in Information Technology and Services Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 12/9/2022 "Lovely product" 4/5 What do you like best about CentOS? The significant upsides of CentOS are its reliability, good virtualization support and ease of installation. We used it for most of our servers and were quickly able to run KVM on CentOS Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? Commands are not readily available, and it isn't easy to initially switch from ubuntu to Centos. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? CentOS is helping businesses by increasing the reliability of their systems and by supporting various hardware acceleration tools; it is helping businesses to do more with less Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Atef A.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Atef A.") AA Atef A. Web Developer Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 7/12/2022 "Unfortunate end to CentOS" 5/5 What do you like best about CentOS? CentOS offered a world-class server operating system for free. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? The software itself is great and there is not much to dislike about it. What I do dislike is the decision to end its life cycle and switch to a different operating system that doesn't support the software that is used to support such as cPanel. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering CentOS: CentOS is a solid and reliable operating system Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? Providing Open Source and Free Enterprise Level operating system. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Rakesh B.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Rakesh B.") RB Rakesh B. Senior Software Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 11/19/2022 "The best linux operating system so far" 5/5 What do you like best about CentOS? Raw native linux No bloatware One can easily switch from centos to redhat without much knowledge gap Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? Support these days have been a bit low which is moving community devs away Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? All our productions servers run centos Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Muneer C.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Muneer C.") MC Muneer C. Information Technology Engineer Enterprise (\> 1000 emp.) 1/14/2022 "Cent OS, The ultimate OS I have ever used!!" 5/5 What do you like best about CentOS? CentOS is a powerful operating system that I love, and it is easy to use and very dynamic. Its security features are incredible. It's an open-source operating system that we can modify or repackage as per our needs. RHEL and CentOS using the same distro. CentOS has an excellent GUI also. Thank you so much for the developers of CentOS; you guys contributed a marvelous thing for the world. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? The software update was a tedious task before with Linux distros, But in the latest rollover, they have updated and fixed the issues. Earlier, we need to update the package, and also the dependencies are separately, but now with a simple YUM command, we can do all update tasks in a single move. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? Linux is everywhere; we are using many Linux applications in our day-to-day life. Smartphones, smart TV, oven, fridge, even the latest ACs use Linux, and CentOS is an open-source distro of Linux. And Its server-side capabilities are marvelous. We were planning for RHEL for our DB server in the office; at that time, our CTO suggested CentOS. So it's avoided upfront cost and reduced the administration task also. There are so many supporting documents are released for CentOS. Thanks to the community. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Ashish R.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Ashish R.") AR Ashish R. Programmer Analyst Trainee Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.) 3/30/2022 "CentOS Review" 4/5 What do you like best about CentOS? As a development system, CentOS Linux performs magnificently. Development packages are widely available, and third-party compatibility is brilliant. CentOS Linux performs admirably in high availability clustering. It has native DRBD packages, making it simple to setup high reliability. CentOS Linux has so little "background apps" running; it can be easily scaled back to a basic minimum system to allow highest high - performance computing power to be dedicated to the app. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? It is extremely stable, but it could benefit from a more rigorous "exploratory" division where software update could be implemented. It loses end-user friendliness. It's a disaster as a laptop/desktop system. It would be suitable if there were more designed frontends for it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? Ease of adding new features The CentOS Linux package management solution ("yum") makes it simple to add new features without causing too many headaches. Most yum packages are well-designed, so you won't be releasing a load of garbage you don't need and get one thing. CentOS Linux is reliable. CentOS does an excellent job of incorporating new features from CVEs and kernel bug fixes with older, worked stable code. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Validated ReviewerIncentivizedSource: G2 invite ![Aditya J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Aditya J.") AJ Aditya J. Project Manager Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.) 1/13/2022 "one of the best operating system Centos" 4.5/5 What do you like best about CentOS? if you are like to work on Linux operating system centos is one of the finest operating systems. once you start wor in centos it is very convenient to work easy to integrate and install the software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What do you dislike about CentOS? it is easy to work in centos although initially, it is a bit different than another os if you compare it to windows or mac otherwise it is similar to other Linux operating systems. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Recommendations to others considering CentOS: I have used various other operating systems but centos are one the best operating system it is very easy to install software and integration with them you can maintain all of the things with the right commands it makes it very easy to use while some of the operating systems are not very convenient with some software it quite difficult to find a solution for those on other hand centos provide easy solution and easy integration process. hance I highly like to recommend to use of centOS. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. What problems is CentOS solving and how is that benefiting you? i am a developer so I use to work with different software languages like python, PHP, javascript, and various other software like cache frameworks, searching frameworks, etc. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com. Show More Current UserValidated ReviewerSource: Organic ## Questions about CentOS? Ask real users or explore answers from the community Get practical answers, real workflows, and honest pros and cons from the G2 community or share your insights. [ Ask about CentOS ](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/discussions/new) ![Aditya J.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Aditya J.") AJ Aditya Joshi • Last activity over 4 years ago how can I install and use CentOS 1 Upvote 1 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-can-i-install-and-use-centos) ![Ahmed S.](/assets/transparent-ad5be28fbcd25b7b08d2cebe1d957125437fb5407d75ee717965ad22c8808791.gif "Ahmed S.") AS Ahmed Shehata • Last activity over 4 years ago How to install package? 1 Upvote 1 [ Join the conversation ](https://www.g2.com/discussions/how-to-install-package) [ View all Discussions ](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/discuss) ## Pricing Insights Averages based on real user reviews. ### Time to Implement 2 months ### Return on Investment 12 months ### Average Discount 12% [ View More Pricing Information ](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/pricing) CentOS Comparisons ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_3f5575e82b67a95d23834e8db8dabb67/oracle-linux.png "Product Avatar Image") Oracle Linux 4.4/5(349) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/centos-vs-oracle-linux) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_46bd9233d89c58c6dbdf99f99bd301dc/ubuntu.png "Product Avatar Image") Ubuntu 4.5/5(2,399) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/centos-vs-ubuntu) ![Product Avatar Image](https://images.g2crowd.com/uploads/product/image/small_square/small_square_3146bdd0defa39278b58727400f0a807/linux-mint.jpg "Product Avatar Image") Linux Mint 4.5/5(190) [ Compare Now ](https://www.g2.com/compare/centos-vs-linux-mint) ##### ##### CentOS Features Memory Management - Operating System RAM management Device Management - Operating System I/O management Backup and Recovery - Operating System Data backup Error Detection - Operating System System operations monitoring [ View More Features ](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/features) ##### Categories on G2 [AWS Marketplace](https://www.g2.com/categories/aws-marketplace)[Operating System](https://www.g2.com/categories/operating-system) ##### Explore More [Best ERP solution for growing software firm](https://www.g2.com/discussions/best-erp-solution-for-growing-software-firm)[Top tools for identifying and securing digital assets](https://www.g2.com/discussions/top-tools-for-identifying-and-securing-digital-assets)[Where to find the best VoIP service for ecommerce business](https://www.g2.com/discussions/where-to-find-the-best-voip-service-for-ecommerce-business) [Which Quote-to-Cash software enables accurate revenue recognition and ASC 606 compliance for a finance team that cannot afford to get deferred revenue reporting wrong?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/which-quote-to-cash-software-enables-accurate-revenue-recognition-and-asc-606-compliance-for-a-finance-team-that-cannot-afford-to-get-deferred-revenue-reporting-wrong)[Top-rated ASM tools for continuous security scanning](https://www.g2.com/discussions/top-rated-asm-tools-for-continuous-security-scanning)[Pros and Cons Details](https://www.g2.com/products/centos/reviews?qs=pros-and-cons) [Show MoreShow Less](javascript:void(0);)