TrustRadius Insights for CentOS Linux are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
High Security and Stability: Many users have expressed their satisfaction with the high level of security and stability provided by CentOS. They value the peace of mind that comes from using a reliable operating system straight out of the box.
Smooth Performance: Users consistently praise the performance of CentOS, even on average hardware. They appreciate its efficiency and optimization, which result in a smooth and responsive user experience.
Versatile Deployment: The ease and speed of deployment in various scenarios make CentOS a versatile choice for different projects. Users find it convenient for their needs, allowing them to quickly set up their development environment or host necessary network services.
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CentOS Linux Reviews
11 Reviews
Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees)
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We use various CentOS systems in our organization on over two thousand servers all over the world. We write custom software for CentOS and rely on it to be a stable and secure platform for our needs. CentOS needs to be reliable for our business org to function properly and not introduce issues.
Pros
Stable
Reliable
Secure
Cons
Undoing the move to CentOS Stream.
Increasing the lifetime of CentOS.
Provide already tested updates to users.
Don't use the users as guinea pigs for testing.
Likelihood to Recommend
CentOS 7 has a longer support life than CentOS 8, and in that case, should be used in production environments until the support ends. Moving to CentOS 8 now would be a mistake with the switch to CentOS Stream, and the decreased support model for CentOS 8. Because of this, CentOS 8 is not a production stable environment.
CentOS has been my Linux flavour of choice for many years. I use it both personally and professionally for multiple purposes. We have CentOS running for our corporate firewall filtering, network file storage, web application development and MySQL hosting. We primarily use the operating system on headless machines, accessed over SSH. We utilize the command line interface, not the GUI options.
Pros
Extremely Stability
Widely Used - Lots of reference material available
Runs fast, even on older hardware
FREE!
Cons
Moderate learning curve, not ideal for a Linux novice
Support for newest software updates may require installing unofficial distros
Support life cycle recently changed, pushing users away from traditional CentOS
Likelihood to Recommend
I have been a CentOS user for over 10 years and remain loyal to the core OS. When it comes to stability and speed, there's no other OS I'd recommend over it. I base this recommendation on my personal experience, as I have multiple development and production servers running the CentOS software today. It's running on newer and older hardware with ease, and the price is right!
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
We use CentOS as the primary Linux distribution across all our instructional and research computing endeavors. It is used across all the IT infrastructure and supports many unique academic projects. The main problem that CentOS solves is that it provides a stable research platform that is easy to manage and most of all has a solid support path that extends well into the future.
Pros
Excellent "L" in the LAMP server.
CentOS is a total workhorse and very stable distribution.
Security and other updates are a breeze with YUM.
The community support and documentation is as good as it gets.
Cons
Sometimes we have to add some esoteric repositories to YUM, and that is a bit of a pain.
Sometimes we fight with SE Linux if it is enabled.
I wish I could get a CentOS t-shirt.
Likelihood to Recommend
Here is where CentOS really excels. If you have a shop where there are seasoned Linux administrators who do not need to have their hand held to do this and that, CentOS does really well. Since it is community oriented there are no funny license hoops to jump through or administration to waste your time. CentOS is well suited in our academic environment.
We use CentOS for all of our Linux hosts and Linux containers, for webservers as well as application servers, and addresses the need for a solid platform to run generic code, without worrying about licensing or justifying initial cost.
Pros
As it is derived from the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux distribution, most instructions for installing enterprise software on Red Hat also work on CentOS, including the package manager.
CentOS lags behind Fedora (the other free Red Hat derivative supported by Red Hat), which makes it a solid choice for the enterprise (or even SMBs - stability is universally appreciated!).
Cons
CentOS isn't (and may never be) a strong contender for a desktop (GUI) Linux distribution.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you need a Linux host for running server software, you almost can't go wrong by installing CentOS - the Red Hat ecosystem is one of the most highly-supported Linux distributions.
CentOS is the standard flavor of Linux that we've used for our VMs, throughout the company. Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, you know you are getting a solid Linux distro.
Pros
Base image for virtual machines
Great OS for running Docker
Based of solid RedHat enterprise linux, so compatible with pretty much everything
Cons
I haven't had a reason to try anything else really
Likelihood to Recommend
I use CentOS as my flavor of linux, at work and at home. Its supported by many / most cloud providers, so it's my standard base VM image.
Most of our development team works with opensource tools and contribute towards the improvement of CentOS and other Linux based tools and our default Operating system is CentOS. Our system administrators and Linux engineers mostly operate with CentOS.
Pros
It is highly customizable.
Very secure.
Very stable distribution with a wide user community.
Cons
It is a little complex because few c/c++ libraries will give dependencies issues.
Installing/uninstalling packages in RHEL is a little bit of a headache.
Not being able to run certain things on CentOS because everything is so out of date.
Likelihood to Recommend
CentOS is great for businesses and developers that don't need the newest releases. CentOS is more stable and secure because of that - it always uses stable (but older) versions of their software.
When developing/publishing PHP based projects, we always prefer to use CentOS. We always use unmanaged services so there is no problem of sticking to older versions of PHP. We use PHP 7.1 / Laravel 5.4 without any problems on CentOS.
On the other hand, when we are working with Ruby-based projects- we do face dependency issues with c/c++ libraries while installing certain newer gems on CentOS.
We use CentOS for all of our Linux hosting servers that is over 2000+ servers in production and about 70% of them uses different versions of CentOS its a great alternative to RedHat which charges licensing fees whereas CentOS is opensource and perfect for our and our clients' needs.
Pros
Server Management
Web Hosting Management
Secure compared to Windows
Cons
Support for cloud and containers
Documentation is not comprehensive
Issues reported take a while to get corrected.
Likelihood to Recommend
CentOS is well suited for Linux-specific operations, although you can run a VM on it and install Windows, it is best to use it has the native operating system. Where it's not suited for is for Desktop or any solutions where it calls for Windows OS. Over all CentOS can be used with alternative softwares that require windows.
VU
Verified User
Professional in Information Technology (51-200 employees)
In most cases, I have been and still am using CentOS operating system as the base for information/cyber security virtual appliances. In my practice, I have been using a lot of different virtual information security appliance from different vendors. Most of the vendors are placing their Infosec related software on top of CentOS operating systems. Also, I have been using CentOS servers for a telephony system.
Pros
First of all, CentOS is one of the most secure and stable OSes straits from the box.
High performance on the average hardware.
In most of my scenarios—easy and quick deployment.
Huge KB community that helps to build and support different services on CentOS.
Versions lifecycle.
Cons
Configuring network interfaces sometimes causes a lot of issues, especially when you are using it out of regular configuration.
Server updates—would be better to decrease the time for that.
CentOS is not a good desktop solution.
Likelihood to Recommend
For the same type of tasks/roles that I have been using, I would definitely recommend CentOS for my colleagues. 9 out of 10 because it is a very stable and secure solution, but for some different tasks, there are lots of other Linux OSes that could be a better fit. For example, RHEL sometimes has better support of software vendors. Or, Ubuntu-like systems are better for GUI and desktop experience.
In IT, CentOS is used by our organization to host many of the service's organization-wide services. It is a great cost-free alternative to the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux product. It is built using the same source code as RHEL with just cosmetic modifications made due to licensing/trademarks. It delivers robust services on a free platform. CentOS is well-supported with regular security and operating system updates. It is well-suited for all network services, including as a network file share. Also run FreeSWITCH for the entire organization-wide phone system, which is also based on CentOS.
Pros
Easy installation process with sensible and secure defaults.
Its very stable and reliable.
Good package management.
Fast security patching.
Cons
CentOS is community-supported, so some software vendors will not officially support it because it isn't Red Hat.
CentOS is not a great desktop platform, only for servers.
Likelihood to Recommend
Very well suited for cloud-based infrastructure and installations, very well suited for server infrastructure, especially if it's a public facing service. Great for VoIP apps.
