Why use AlmaLinux instead of CentOS?

With the announcement that Red Hat is choosing to no longer include a stable version of CentOS Linux, many CentOS users have been wondering what to do next. Thankfully, the CentOS stable community was able to step in and take over CentOS in the form of AlmaLinux. Today, we discuss why you might want to use AlmaLinux instead of CentOS.

What is AlmaLinux?

AlmaLinux is a free, open source Linux distribution. The Linux distribution focusses on long-term stability and is a 1:1 binary equivalent of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). It is designed to fill the gap left by the demise of the stable release of CentOS.

The demise of CentOS 8 & CentOS Stream

Red Hat has announced that CentOS 8 will no longer be supported for updates at the end of 2021. For many CentOS 8 users this was a stab in the back, as they relied upon a steady future. In fact, it was expected that the CentOS version would have support all the way through 2029. As an example, CentOS 7 came out in 2014 and got updates until 2024. This means that CentOS 7 got 10 years of updates, whilst CentOs 8 only got got 1 year.

Because of this, many people lost confidence in the new CentOS Stream release. CentOS 8 users did not feel taken seriously and once again had to spend a lot of time and energy to update their systems. On top of that, CentOS Stream did not handle apps and software that worked on CentOS 7 & 8 very well.

Now the question is: Is AlmaLinux a good replacement for CentOS? 

The answer to that question is yes. Why? AlmaLinux is a 1:1 binary-compatible clone (fork) of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This allows it to run in the exact same way as it does on CentOS, i.e. it has the exact same configurations and packages.

Why do we trust a newcomer like AlmaLinux? 

AlmaLinux was created by the CentOS Stable community and developed and built by the engineers behind CloudLinux. Alongside, Cloudlinux has been well known within the hosting community for years for Security, Density, and Manageability.

More information about AlmaLinux can be found at almalinux.org and you can join the community via chat.almalinux.org