Since 31 December 2021, CentOS has been shifted to the rolling release version. Means you will get the upstream version of it. Upstream versions are known for the latest packages and having the system updated to the cutting-edge version of the packages. Rolling releases usually have to deal with stability, bugs, and reliability issues. So people who are using CentOS for servers either have to shift to CentOS Stream, which I wouldn’t recommend for production servers (obviously, being a rolling release), or they have to migrate to a different Linux distribution.
For production servers, I would recommend you to migrate to the other distributions that offer high stability and well-tested packages.
In this tutorial, you will learn
Here is a list of the 4 best alternatives to CentOS
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
RHEL is the best and top-notch enterprise-grade operating system for Servers. Being an enterprise-grade operating system, it offers high stability, very few bugs, and high reliability, which is a perfect choice for production servers. You can use RHEL on other platforms as well, like IoT devices, automation technologies, cloud computing, and many others. With RHEL, you not only get the base OS, but you also get many tools that will help you manage and monitor your servers. RHEL is highly secure as it offers built-in authentication tools, customizable cryptography policies, SELinux, and much more. To enjoy all of its features, you will need to make a donation, and the minimum amount is $349 annually.
Rocky Linux
The best alternative to CentOS, I would say, is Rocky Linux. The reason why Rocky Linux is my personal choice is that it is fully community-driven, it promises stability, security, and reliability similar to RHEL, a generous 10-year support lifecycle, and well-tested packages before release, ensuring high stability, fewer bugs, and high reliability. All these factors make Rocky Linux the best choice for production servers. Even if you install Rocky Linux on your personal computer, you will notice the high-grade stability even after years of usage. I use Rocky Linux on my personal PC and it’s been around 2 years, everything works like a charm. To migrate from CentOS to Rocky Linux, there is a script called “migrate2rocky” that will migrate your server from CentOS to Rocky Linux. So, you don’t have to make your hands dirty configuring your server again.
Alma Linux
Alma Linux is a 1:1 binary to RHEL and thus it is highly compatible with RHEL packages. Alma Linux is developed by Cloud Linux and is supported by the community. It is Open-Source and completely free, and you can use it without any restrictions. Alma Linux was developed to handle the workload of enterprise servers, meeting the stability and reliability of RHEL.
Oracle Linux
Oracle offers its own Linux distribution, and it offers high stability, performance, and reliability. Oracle Linux is completely free to use and redistribute. Although many hosting companies may not provide an Oracle Linux image from their server control panel, you can upload it as a custom image and use it.
Conclusion
There are many other Linux distros like Debian and Ubuntu that provide rock-solid stability and reliability on production servers. So, you can use them too.
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