CentOS Stream 9 (X86-64) with support by Fleximg - Kernel 6.4

My main use case for CentOS  is that I use it as an enterprise server for running multiple software applications like Apache, JBoss, and other middleware software.

I can give you a specific example of how I use CentOS  as an enterprise server: multiple software as a service applications are deployed on CentOS servers, running Apache HTTP servers for web traffic, JBoss application server for application servers running Java applications, and multiple other purposes.

CentOS is the closest and best distribution other than Red Hat Enterprise Linux , making it a solid choice if you do not have the budget to spare.

In my opinion, the best features CentOS offers are that it is an easy to use Linux distribution based off Red Hat Enterprise Linux , which is very solid and very well known across the industry, providing a good mix of features and reliability. CentOS is my go-to Linux distribution.

What I find most valuable about its reliability or feature set is that stability and reliability are key factors. Our staff is very knowledgeable in Linux, which is rare, and we do not rely on the community. I have access to Red Hat's knowledge base site, which is a great source of knowledge material, and it translates brilliantly to CentOS.

CentOS has positively impacted my organization in several ways: stability, reliability, and performance have improved our company cost-wise, especially moving out of paid operating systems for running distributed software. The cost is the main factor in this positive impact.

I do not find anything that can be improved in CentOS. I am a huge fan of it, and there is hardly anything that Linux in general does not already provide. I think CentOS is the best and closest thing to Red Hat Enterprise Linux , which I consider the golden standard for Enterprise Linux .

CentOS is perfect as it is.

I have been using CentOS for more than ten years.

CentOS is absolutely stable.

CentOS's scalability is great, and I do not have a problem with it.

I do not know much about the customer support for CentOS, as we do not really need much support with our staff being very knowledgeable in Linux.

I previously used a mix of Microsoft and Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems, but since then, I switched almost everything to CentOS.

My experience with pricing and licensing for CentOS is that it was quite easy. The setup was not easy, but it is something that my team is very familiar with, making it easy for us. I understand that people who are not familiar with Linux may have a hard time with it.

I have seen a return on investment. My team had some time saved, but it was not significant. The money saved was significant, approximately fifteen percent of our IT budget.

Before choosing CentOS, I evaluated other options such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Ubuntu . I ended up choosing CentOS since that is where my staff is more knowledgeable, making it the operating system we would be more familiar with.

Regarding cost savings, we have saved from a few hundred thousand dollars yearly to one or two million in the last years of transitioning, mostly because of moving out of other paid operating systems. I do not have any knowledge on how this budget was spent on other ends.

My advice to others looking into using CentOS is that if you are looking for a Red Hat Enterprise Linux alternative, CentOS might be the thing for you, especially regarding costs.

I love CentOS. I have a CentOS sticker on my laptop, and it is not just another tool for work; it is something that goes beyond that. Open source software is a belief that is very strong with me. I gave this review a rating of ten out of ten.

My main use case for CentOS  is mostly development, as I use it when I have to create large builds over AWS  EC2  instances. That is the main reason I use CentOS .

A specific example of a project where CentOS was especially helpful for my development work is when I had an application with a backend build that took a long while to build on my local machines. I used an EC2  instance to do that because it has more compute power than my local machine, so I used it with CentOS to build my application.

Other than that, hosting front-end applications back when I started working in the field was also a use case for CentOS, as I would use an EC2 machine with CentOS to host my front-end application alongside the backend applications and containers.

When using CentOS on EC2 for builds, I noticed it is around three to five times faster, especially considering my local machine is not that great with CPU resources, so it is quite faster than my local machine.

The best features CentOS offers that stand out to me include it being lightweight and the UI and the whole ecosystem, which I prefer. There is not something very specific about it that I like, but the generic UI and the whole setup, and it was the start of my career when I started using it, so I kind of stuck with it.

I like CentOS interface or setup process because the instructions were quite clear; I was able to set up a whole new ecosystem without a tutorial or instruction set. The UI is clean, simpler, and I know where everything is.

The Windows-like UI is quite helpful.

CentOS has positively impacted my organization regarding cost savings; having a dedicated high-resource machine is quite expensive these days, and since the compute power is so cheap on AWS , hosting a machine with UI over the EC2 is quite easier for beginners like me.

Sometimes it is quite difficult to find drivers when I have CentOS locally on my machine. For example, I have an old Lenovo laptop where I experience driver issues sometimes.

I have been working in my current field for around six years.

For my use cases, CentOS is quite stable, and I have not found any problems with it.

I have not had to scale up in the traditional sense, but I remember increasing the storage and RAM inside AWS, and CentOS handled it without any problems.

I never had to reach out to customer support for CentOS, so I cannot comment on that experience.

Before CentOS, I primarily used Windows, but I switched because the licensing fees for Windows were quite high, while CentOS was not that expensive; the exact numbers escape me, but it was cheaper than maintaining a Windows machine.

Migrating applications or workloads to CentOS was quite smooth; I just pulled in my code for the build scenario, and since the code was inside a container, that made it an easy process.

I purchased CentOS through the AWS Marketplace .

In terms of documentation and community support for CentOS, I find it quite easy; these days, OpenAI's ChatGPT is really helpful for information, and generally, it is quite good.

I am not entirely sure about the license I purchased for my local machine, but I assume it is the community version, while for the AWS one, I do not entirely remember the pricing.

I evaluated other options before choosing CentOS, including Mint and Ubuntu ; I also considered Red Hat, though I do not exactly remember the name, but there are some expensive versions as well, which contributed to my decision.

CentOS is deployed in my organization in both on-premises and private cloud environments.

The cloud provider we primarily use for our private cloud deployment is AWS, and we also have a private server that is essentially a blade server where we have deployed it.

I have not dived into the security features of CentOS that much, so I am not sure I am a good person to answer that question.

I have pushed CentOS to the limit by testing an application where I had to accommodate multiple users; I increased the port number to allow 10,000 users to connect to that application hosted on a CentOS server.

CentOS handled that situation reliably; while there were some difficulties changing some settings inside the application, once I managed to tweak the settings, it worked very well, allowing around 10,000 users to connect and chat simultaneously.

The only compatibility issue I have faced with CentOS is with the biometric drivers, such as the fingerprint drivers, which were quite complicated, but generally, whatever I am trying to run works quite well.

My advice for others looking into using CentOS is that it is quite sane; there is not any bloatware on it, and everything just seems to work. I would rate my overall experience with CentOS an 8.

My main use case for CentOS  is setting up my RADIUS server. I have a RADIUS server, along with a DHCP server and Active Directory in Windows. I set up CentOS  to run FreeRADIUS on the server and connect through Active Directory accounts using AD Connect. I also tried using the Samba server connection for the AD connection.

I set up CentOS RADIUS server for testing usage because our institution is fully adapted to Microsoft features and Microsoft accounts. I am implementing CentOS RADIUS server because of its speed and ease of accessibility. When you set up a RADIUS server in a Linux-based environment, it is easy to connect with global accounts, which is why I chose CentOS.

CentOS has helped me most through its enterprise-level stability. CentOS is very stable and easy to use because of the interface. It is easier for me to use CentOS for my specific requirements than Ubuntu  server, which is mostly command-line. Security-wise, CentOS is also the best, comparable to Ubuntu  and others. CentOS supports FreeRADIUS, which is helpful for my needs.

What has helped me most is that CentOS supports the latest stable FreeRADIUS packages with easy installation via YUM or DNF setup and wide module compatibility, including databases such as MySQL , and it supports Active Directory and LDAP setup, making it suitable for setting up a RADIUS server. CentOS also has long-term support, frequent security patches, and other features that are helpful for this operating system.

Regarding how CentOS can be improved, I am primarily expecting stronger security features on the security side. CentOS RADIUS server handles sensitive authentication data, so improving security is the priority. Enforcing SE-Linux with custom policies tuned for FreeRADIUS and enabling automatic security updates would be helpful. I would also recommend improving CentOS minimal OS installation.

If CentOS could be made more lightweight and minimal during installation, that would be beneficial because memory usage and service conflicts exist in this OS. Improved logging and monitoring are also needed. Better insight would make it easier to diagnose issues, so integrating FreeRADIUS logs with the Elasticsearch stack, Grafana , or Graylog would be helpful. Enabling systemd-journald persistence and storage would also be beneficial.

CentOS, being Linux-based, is the best in security, but it needs more on the security side for CentOS RADIUS server. FreeRADIUS security improvements and security patches are needed. If possible, including a graphical user interface for future features would be most welcomed.

CentOS is stable in my experience.

CentOS scalability is good and can handle growing workloads easily according to my setup, which is not heavy-load work or heavy usage. According to my work, it is adequate.

I did not try CentOS customer support, so I do not have an idea about it.

I did not previously use a different solution. In my institution, they had used Microsoft RADIUS, but I did not prefer it. There was conflict in setting up the Microsoft RADIUS server, and connecting it with global accounts was also difficult, so I chose CentOS.

I have seen a return on investment using CentOS. I can share that mainly time is saved because of the interfaces I have used. This has helped me the most. When you plan to improve this system, you must include all features that are accessible through graphical user interfaces, which are also best for users.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that I have used the free version of CentOS with fully free versions of software also inside the operating system. I set it up as a local server and used it in that system only, so there is no extra cost for me in this environment setup. CentOS licensing was also free for that setup, so there is no cost for me.

Before choosing CentOS, I definitely evaluated other options, specifically Ubuntu. Ubuntu was the other option I had before deciding on CentOS.

My advice for others looking into using CentOS is that it is a Linux-based operating system with a graphical user interface. That is the main thing for whoever needs a Linux-based operating system to use as a server with a GUI, so it is best for its GUI. I would rate CentOS overall as an eight on a scale of one to ten.

My main use case for CentOS  is development and production servers. For development and production services, I use CentOS  to deploy, and I am currently using it to deploy Docker  Swarm applications for Dockerized applications for some legacy applications before we move them to Kubernetes .

In addition to my main use case, I have a few bastion servers I use for VPN connections.

The best features CentOS offers include stability, which I think is the most important. I have found CentOS servers to run very long without any issues, as well as clean updates that do not cause any downtimes.

CentOS's stability and clean updates have helped me in my day-to-day work and with my projects by providing predictable workloads and ensuring that I can assure stability for my stakeholders, which is the business. On features, security is always a good thing, and the important factor about CentOS is that security is a core feature. It is also part of the reason why the updates are so stable, which gives me the confidence to provide reports for the stakeholders.

Compatibility is great as Linux servers in general are usually amazing for deploying both development and production workloads, and performance has never been an issue because Linux is very good on resources.

I cannot think of anything that CentOS could be improved on at the moment. Considering the fact that I have not had any issues with needed improvements such as documentation, community support, or compatibility with newer technologies in the past number of years I have been running these servers, there is nothing to report.

I have been using CentOS for the past ten years.

CentOS is very stable.

Considering I use CentOS in legacy servers, I do not have a lot of experience scaling it.

I have not had any need to contact customer support for CentOS.

I have previously used Ubuntu  servers before, and the reason for my switch to CentOS was originally because of the security-forwardness of Red Hat based servers, as well as that hybrid kind of benefit you get from CentOS by receiving the updates from Fedora quickly in terms of the server environment. I found Ubuntu  sometimes can be relatively unstable, which is why I moved to CentOS.

I have seen a return on investment, particularly in terms of money saved because I do not pay for the servers. I only pay for the use of the servers; I do not pay for the operating system. I would not say it translates to fewer employees, but for time, it is greatly considered once again the stability. Time is always positively impacted by stable systems, so I would say there is a lot of time that has been saved.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for CentOS has been very straightforward, as I use the free version of CentOS, so there is no fee for that.

Before choosing CentOS, I did evaluate other options, with Red Hat being one of them, but at the time, it was paid, so that is why I ended up using CentOS.

My advice for others looking into using CentOS would be to make sure you set up your update schedule to be manual so that you can choose when and how to do your updates. If you want a stable environment, choose a good cloud provider and set it up in your own way. I have also used it for bare metal, so there is not much I can provide in terms of that. I want to say keep up the good work with CentOS. I gave this review a rating of nine out of ten.