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Technical escalations engineer team lead at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Oct 15, 2025
Has provided a reliable platform for virtual communication appliances over the years
Pros and Cons
  • "CentOS has impacted our organization positively by giving us an operating system for many of our virtual appliances, but for detailed information, you would need to consult someone in a higher position."
  • "I think CentOS can be improved, but it's not really a viable option anymore."

What is our primary use case?

My main use case for CentOS is that we use it on some of our devices for VoIP or unified communications.

A lot of our older virtual appliances run CentOS, which includes our conference bridges and telephony switches.

What is most valuable?

The best feature CentOS offers is that it's free.

Stability is an important feature among others.

CentOS has impacted our organization positively by giving us an operating system for many of our virtual appliances, but for detailed information, you would need to consult someone in a higher position.

What needs improvement?

I think CentOS can be improved, but it's not really a viable option anymore. It could be brought back, but that seems unnecessary now that Rocky Linux exists.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working in my current career field for almost 12 years.

Buyer's Guide
CentOS
January 2026
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

In my experience, CentOS is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I haven't seen any issues with CentOS's scalability as I haven't had to scale it.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not previously use a different solution.

CentOS was the standard for our appliances, though I did not have any input in that decision.

What about the implementation team?

Everything we did with CentOS was internal for the company, at Mitel.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

My advice for others looking into using CentOS is to use Rocky Linux instead.

What other advice do I have?

I do not wish to add anything else about the features, including security, performance, or ease of management.

I haven't noticed any specific outcomes such as reduced costs, easier maintenance, better reliability in our team's day-to-day work, or less downtime.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate CentOS an 8.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Other
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Last updated: Oct 15, 2025
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Mahender Nirwan - PeerSpot reviewer
Software developer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Aug 19, 2024
In-depth documentation available and command-line utility works well
Pros and Cons
  • "If I need to install a feature or fix a server issue, I can easily find answers online. The CentOS community is also vast and helpful."
  • "CentOS is pretty old now, so I wouldn't recommend anyone use it."

What is our primary use case?

Our clients are pharmaceutical companies, and they're hesitant to change anything that's working. They want us to continue with what's proven. So we stayed on CentOS 7 for a long time. If we changed, we'd have to provide extensive validation that the new operating system is perfect and has no vulnerabilities.

However, CentOS 7 reached its end of life a few months ago, forcing us to migrate to CentOS 9. This was a big effort because we have a lot of in-house servers. For the production servers on AWS, we didn't face any issues migrating from CentOS 7.

What is most valuable?

The in-depth documentation available for CentOS is great. If I need to install a feature or fix a server issue, I can easily find answers online. The CentOS community is also vast and helpful. Overall, I think it's a very good Linux distribution.

We work on the terminal. If you work on the server, the command-line interface makes perfect sense because we need to do automation, and that requires entering commands. The command-line utility works perfectly. I have no issues with it.

For security, we have an AWS load balancer in front of our servers. We don't give public access to our CentOS servers directly. That's why I haven't focused much on CentOS's security features, as AWS is ultimately responsible for the security.

What needs improvement?

One issue I recently faced, but I think it was due to my IT support guys, was that when the server storage gets full, the service crashes. It's very difficult to regain access and stability in that situation. That could be improved.

So, the stability might be improved. But I don't think it's a CentOS-level issue. The system administrators need to come up with a solution for that, but I don't think it's CentOS's fault. I haven't done any research [R&D] on this issue.

There's one thing for sure. We recently migrated from CentOS 7 to CentOS 9, and it was a bit difficult. For example, updating Windows is simple; you just download it, and it takes about 15-20 minutes. But that's not the case with migrating from CentOS 7 to 9. 

We had to back up the entire server, launch a new server, and then restore the backup to the new server. We couldn't directly migrate. I think that was a bit of a problem. The setup and updates are not that new in CentOS.

For how long have I used the solution?

Everyone in my company has used CentOS from the very beginning. So, we've been using it for the past five to six years. We used CentOS 7 for four or five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. We've hosted other solutions for about three to five years, and I've never seen an issue at the OS level. But upgrades are a different story.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a pretty scalable product. Currently, our production schools are hosted on CentOS. So, that is about ten lakhs (one million) users could be using it. I'm not entirely sure about the exact number, but since the application is hosted on the CentOS operating system, that's the approximate user base.

How are customer service and support?

A ton of articles are available on the internet about CentOS, so I haven't really felt the need for active support. But overall, you can say that the internet is still a great source of information on how to work with CentOS.

How was the initial setup?

The setup is pretty straightforward. We've installed other facilities that are just as good. There's nothing particularly different in the process.

The integration is as good as any other Linux platform. If another Linux platform can integrate with something, then CentOS can also integrate with it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I think we don't pay for it. It's a Linux distribution, so it's open source. But I'm not sure if they might be charging for support or not because I haven't contacted their support.

What other advice do I have?

For CentOS, I would rate it as nine out of ten.

CentOS is pretty old now, so I wouldn't recommend anyone use it. Everyone should follow the Docker container model at the moment. They should build their Alpine images of Dockers and host them. 

If they want to host them in the cloud, then AWS ECS (Elastic Container Service) works fine. If they want to host their services on-premises, they can use Kubernetes to host them.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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CentOS
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about CentOS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
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Arif-Kundi - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Mar 1, 2024
An open-source tool with a straightforward setup phase
Pros and Cons
  • "The product's initial setup phase was straightforward and not complex, especially if you are familiar with CLI."
  • "The product lacks a graphical user interface that can help users automate certain systems using the native features offered by CentOS."

What is our primary use case?

My company plans to drop the use of CentOS since Red Hat has stopped offering it support.

The tool was useful for hosting our company's website and email servers.

How has it helped my organization?

The value that my organization gained from the use of the product stems from the fact that we were able to use our email effectively, and we had only done a small deployment for the email servers.

What needs improvement?

The product lacks a graphical user interface that can help users automate certain systems using the native features offered by CentOS. The aforementioned area can be considered for improvement in the product.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have experience with CentOS.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

My company used to host email servers with the help of CentOS. There were around 400 users of the product in our company.

How are customer service and support?

My company has not used the technical support of the product since it was a tool that relied on the community-driven part to provide help to its users. My company could use search engines to get answers whenever we faced any issues with the product.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have no experience with other tools in the market.

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup phase was straightforward and not complex, especially if you are familiar with CLI. There can be an issue in the product's setup phase if you are a person who uses graphical interfaces.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

CentOS is an open-source tool.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

CentOS and other Linux products have almost the same features, but Fedora Linux, a product that is a more futuristic tool, was a bit buggy. The aforementioned area consists of details on why my company chose to work with CentOS.

What other advice do I have?

There was nothing special that I liked about the product in terms of features that were positive for team management in our company. My company only needed a robust system that was also secure. Though my company knew about various Linux products, a major reason for opting for CentOS stemmed from the fact that it was closer to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

I don't know about the stability and security features of the product since it was an area involving technical decisions that were taken care of by the technical domain in my company. Presently, there is no support available for the product, and I believe that the updates should also stop shortly.

We did not need any technical staff to take care of the product since everything was okay with it until our company took care of the updates and upgrades provided by the tool.

I feel that the product shouldn't be stopped, and CentOS should focus on improving the tool.

The management of updates in the product was straightforward, and it used to happen every week, after which it was usually promoted to production, but it was all manual work, and my company did not try to automate it.

I rate the overall product a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Senior Manager, Systems Engineering at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 20
Aug 11, 2024
Free, easy to deploy, and provides regular updates to avoid vulnerabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "The vendor updates the tool regularly to solve vulnerabilities."
  • "The solution must improve its security."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for file servers and emails. It is an operating system. Our email server, file server, and web server are running on CentOS.

What is most valuable?

The product is stable. We have to update it every once in a while. The vendor updates the tool regularly to solve vulnerabilities. We have to do patches. The software and hardware compatibility are updated. The vendor updates the versions to keep up with the new hardware.

What needs improvement?

The solution must improve its security. It must provide security against hackers. The security features must always be updated.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for more than 15 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool is stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten. It doesn’t shut down or crash.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The tool is not for large systems. We have about 20 users in our organization. We are not planning to change the solution for now.

How are customer service and support?

We get plenty of support from the web. Since the product is open-sourced, a lot of community support is available. We can find answers to our queries.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy. I rate the ease of setup an eight or nine out of ten. The time taken for deployment depends on what we have to add to the tool. Generally, the deployment can be done in about an hour.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The product is free. It’s open-sourced. It is the biggest advantage of the product.

What other advice do I have?

Many software applications are open source. We do not have to spend money on them. Many people are using CentOS. It is a popular OS for those who don’t want to spend lots of money on Windows. People who are knowledgeable in setting up servers use the product. Those who do not know the technical setup choose Windows. CentOS users are programmers with technical knowledge.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Sajjad Raza - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President | Services Group Leader at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jan 26, 2023
Reliable, easy to set up and quick to deploy
Pros and Cons
  • "The initial setup is very easy."
  • "If a proper GUI-based tool was connected remotely or on the machine, it could be a great addition to CentOS."

What is our primary use case?

On CentOS, we use Docker to run our different services, which are interconnected among themselves.

What is most valuable?

As far as my experience with CentOS is concerned, it's a stable product. It is stable and reliable.

The initial setup is very easy.

What needs improvement?

They could add a tool or a dashboard where we could properly monitor the machine's performance rather than using different commands. If a proper GUI-based tool was connected remotely or on the machine, it could be a great addition to CentOS.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used the solution for the last five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable product. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There are 1,000 people using the solution. 

How are customer service and support?

I've never dealt with technical support. Our DevOps team takes care of issues and troubleshooting.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before joining the current company, I was using Ubuntu Linux. When I used CentOS the first time, I didn't find any hurdle or issue in using that OS.

How was the initial setup?

It's easy to set up the solution. It's not overly complex.

As far as the installation is concerned, it hardly takes an hour, based on the configuration or the software we want to install. After that, it's another hour or so to configure it as per our needs.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I can't speak to the pricing. The DevOps team handles that aspect of the product. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

My organization asked us to identify the possibilities of using Oracle Linux. That's why I am studying options.

What other advice do I have?

We're end-users.

The solution can be deployed on the cloud and on-premises. 

I personally also tried to work on CentOS 8. It's easy to use.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Cloud solution architect at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Mar 4, 2024
All the commands are user-friendly, and it provides good stability and security
Pros and Cons
  • "CentOS is very easy to use, and all the commands are user-friendly."
  • "The solution’s stability could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

Many of my customers use Linux as their client operating system because it is more secure. Since it doesn't have a UI and there are a lot of anomalies and viruses affecting the UI-related applications, some customers prefer to have an operating system without a UI. I have seen most people use CentOS, Red Hat, or Ubuntu as a client operating system or server.

What is most valuable?

CentOS is very easy to use, and all the commands are user-friendly. Installing any package or application is pretty easy with CentOS. Security-wise, most of the latest security software and applications are compatible with CentOS. Updating the patches for CentOS is very easy.

CentOS is a stable, consistent, and secure solution.

What needs improvement?

The solution’s stability could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using CentOS for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

CentOS is a very stable solution.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is very scalable. CentOS is very good for any microservices or any application that has an auto scalability mechanism available. The number of users usually depends on how many users can access the OS through the network based on the bandwidth.

How are customer service and support?

The solution provides good technical support for all flavors of Linux.

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is very straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

The solution’s deployment takes hardly 10 to 15 minutes. You can use the image to manually deploy the solution, or you can use the DevOps or any automation methods to deploy it.

What other advice do I have?

CentOS provides very good cost efficiency. It is a very efficient operating system without any hassle or inconsistencies. I don't see much difference between CentOS and Ubuntu. Ubuntu has a few more user-friendly commands than CentOS. Once you are familiar with the flavors, CentOS is also very user-friendly. For a new user of Linux, Ubuntu is a little bit easier.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Yilmaz Cagri Isbuga - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Owner at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Real User
Leaderboard
Jan 16, 2023
Flexible and open-source solution that has many community resources for solving problems
Pros and Cons
  • "There are a lot of sources on the internet that you can use to solve any issues, and people share their experiences. It's not a closed system"
  • "The security could be improved because the server system isn't very secure."

What is our primary use case?

I chose CentOS because it's easy to understand and user friendly. If you read the code base and know the operation system that you're using and which folder contains which part, it's easy to use.

I started using CentOS because our website customers started to increase, and I couldn't manage them. I realized I needed to make a structured system to start this, and I installed the website panel from Windows. I started using Windows, but I was mostly making websites like Joomla, Mambo, and WordPress, which aren't compatible with the IIS system from Windows. I started having some problems with the email service from Windows.

For the past two years, I have been providing this solution to my customers. Currently, there are four people using this solution. One person does SEO for the back-linked part of a project. Another person works on UI/UX, and I also have a VHMGC engineer that knows the Smarty framework.

I'm using the terminal based version of CentOS, but I also prefer to use software that I build. For example, I use Plesk GUI, but if there's a problem, it's not fixed with my software interfaces. I have to log into the terminal and create it. I can use one of my machines that resides in my system with the proxy under the security. I have a lot of servers, so I'm able to log in on any terminal or the Windows space.

I'm a software engineer. I'm also working on a robotic base with the Raspbian base. Raspbian is the same as Linux, so I'm using the Debian part.

I'm using direct CentOS distribution from the ISO, but I'm not using the cloud. There are many differences between the cloud and dedicated servers.

What is most valuable?

There are a lot of sources on the internet that you can use to solve any issues, and people share their experiences. It's not a closed system.

What needs improvement?

The security could be improved because the server system isn't very secure. I prefer to use Cloud Linux because of the CPU base, and they have CageFS technology. Cloud Linux isn't open-source.

I don't immediately update the solution because I want to wait for a stable version.

I would like them to provide features on GitHub or any docker core without any installation.

The problem with CentOS is that updates are made by the community's free sources, which can cause problems. You have to dig in deeply to realize what the problem is.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used CentOS for 22 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable. I would rate the scalability as nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I haven't used technical support. I always use the community resources and forums.

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup is easy. The amount of time it takes to deploy the solution depends on your computer's speed and parts. Eight gigabytes/four core can take 20-25 minutes.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution is open source. Sometimes I donate a little bit of money to support the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the solution as nine out of ten. CentOS is a very flexible system.

My advice is to first activate the GUI in the desktop version, or else you won't be able to understand it.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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SHUBHAM BHINGARDE - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Engineer at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
Aug 6, 2024
Used as an operating system and easily integrates with other systems
Pros and Cons
  • "We used the solution as an operating system."
  • "Currently, CentOS is not providing support, so you will not get new packages that are compatible with that operating system."

What is our primary use case?

We used the solution as an operating system. We were using CentOS because it supported the Red Hat flavor. Now that CentOS has stopped providing the support, we have switched to Alma OS.

What is most valuable?

We used the solution as an operating system. The solution is simple to use.

What needs improvement?

Currently, CentOS is not providing support, so you will not get new packages that are compatible with that operating system.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution provides good stability.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Around 70% of our organization is using CentOS.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Ubuntu. We switched to CentOS because it was a business requirement, and our clients demanded it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

CentOS is an open source that is free of cost.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend CentOS to other users because it supports the Red Hat flavor. It is easy to integrate the solution with other tools and systems.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free CentOS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free CentOS Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.