Amazon Linux serves as my primary platform for hosting Nginx web servers and self-hosted Postgres databases. I have also set up HashiCorp Nomad, Consul, Prometheus, and Grafana on Amazon Linux, utilizing a maximum of self-hosted services including all services and APIs as part of DevOps-managed, self-hosted applications.

In a specific project, I used Amazon Linux for these self-hosted services with a tool called Nomad, which is equivalent to Kubernetes. I created a Nomad Consul setup with worker and master-slave nodes specifically on Amazon Linux, where I set up three Nomad servers, three Nomad workers, and Consul as a service mesh. I built an end-to-end use case on Amazon Linux, utilizing Postgres for self-hosting the database connection, which also runs on Amazon Linux.

I have also set up a Key Vault on Amazon Linux, which is a Kubernetes native solution released by the Linux Foundation. It functions as an RBAC authentication layer for application DevOps-level operations. I set up the Key Vault for our application two days ago, and we are using Postgres for it, both running on Amazon Linux, which is performing excellently.

Amazon Linux offers many excellent features. Compared to other operating systems, Amazon Linux is quicker and faster than CentOS, Ubuntu, or similar alternatives. Amazon Linux natively supports many AWS features, offers long-term support, and regularly updates security.

Setting up monitoring in AWS through CloudWatch monitoring, log monitoring, or alert monitoring is beneficial due to the clear documentation provided by Amazon. I have set up many things throughout my career using Amazon Linux, and it supports many dependency software and open-source software with free licensing, so there is no need for license purchase or dependencies. It supports all technologies including Nomad, Docker, and Kubernetes, along with many programming languages such as Java and Python with numerous agents available for installation, making it an excellent operating system complemented by strong documentation.

The documentation from Amazon has helped me significantly. When I want to set up something in Key Vault for application-level monitoring, I refer to the clear and well-released documentation from Amazon, which is superior compared to other operating systems. This clarity allows me to set things up quickly and upgrade from staging to production easily.

Amazon Linux has positively impacted my organization through excellent support. The good support provided helps upgrade effortlessly, and security vulnerabilities are professionally fixed quickly while releasing multiple AMIs. I notice this whenever I see an AMI being upgraded within two weeks, which is beneficial for us. Many open-source supported features are available, and the operational efficiency of upgrading to Amazon Linux compared to other operating systems has been significant. We utilize it extensively.

Amazon is bringing more upgrades through Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023, and I appreciate that the boot time is fast and upgrades are easy, which represents a positive aspect.

Everything is currently good with Amazon Linux for my needs, and I think Amazon is performing excellently. I have not faced any issues, but if there is any concern regarding the security side, I would appreciate proactive addressing, as we use this in production-level operations. It would be good to have prior knowledge of any potential issues. I am also performing OS hardening while expecting proactive addressing of any third-party vulnerabilities linked to bad software in the repository.

I have been working with Amazon Linux from the start of my career, providing six years of experience with Amazon Linux.

Amazon Linux is stable, and I find it performing consistently well overall.

The scalability of Amazon Linux is good. If I want to run any launch template or configuration with more scripts, the booting is very fast, allowing quick scalability without any confusion.

Customer support from Amazon is excellent. They provide extensive support for any obstacles we face and for everything we want to accomplish. When I raise a case with AWS, they assist effectively.

Positive

We have been using Amazon Linux from the start.

Before choosing Amazon Linux, we evaluated other options such as Ubuntu because they also provide support and have a competitive market presence compared to other Linux distributions.

We have not purchased Amazon Linux through the AWS Marketplace since it is offered in the AWS Launchpad itself, and we are using that OS.

In terms of money saved, many operating systems impose charges. We save considerable amounts since we do not have to pay for an OS such as Kali Linux. The free license and support mean we save considerable time launching. With Amazon Linux, selecting and launching instances on a public cloud provider means the machine spins up in fewer than ten seconds, making it efficient.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is quite positive. The pricing is free compared to many other operating systems that charge. I appreciate that there is no license renewal required, and it is a free tier for us, which makes it very convenient. Amazon's straightforward approach on these matters means no additional costs involved, making everything quite comfortable for us.

We use AWS, or Amazon Web Services, as our cloud provider.

Regarding specific outcomes or metrics with Amazon Linux, I can first say that production upgrades enhance security. Amazon Linux runs faster compared to other operating systems such as CentOS, Kali Linux, and Ubuntu, making the startup and boot-up script run fast during launch time.

I rate Amazon Linux a nine out of ten. I choose this rating because I am concerned about the repository possibly containing vulnerability packages, though this could happen with any system.

My advice for others looking into using Amazon Linux is to explore the many features available. Several aspects such as Session Manager for public cloud connection and startup scripts are useful. Security-wise, it is also robust, and various software packages are available in the registry. If something is not found, it is easy to install open-source software. Monitoring applications at a custom CloudWatch level is also supported, so I recommend exploring Amazon Linux first since it is free. Overall, I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

My main use case for Amazon Linux is deploying Django websites, apps, and APIs with Next.js. I handle deployment using Nginx and manage the complete setup for deploying full projects.

A specific example is the Django API backend with a Next.js frontend for the web dashboard at 71lbs.com, where users must log in. The entire project is deployed on Amazon Linux. I manage the integration of new deployments and created a setup using Nginx and the supervisor provided by Amazon Linux.

Amazon Linux and Ubuntu are similar but differ in implementation and setup. Both have similar functions and run very well, making Amazon Linux a good option alongside Ubuntu.

These features work well for me, though I am more accustomed to working with Ubuntu. My company uses Amazon Linux because of the initial setup they established. It is working very well and operates very fast with queries and everything on that server, so there are no current problems.

Since using Amazon Linux, I have performed long queries and updated information for the web system. I find that it works very fast and handles large queries for substantial amounts of information effectively.

Amazon Linux could be improved by including libraries for supervisor. On Ubuntu, supervisor runs Django services in the background, while Amazon Linux does not have this built-in and requires a different supervisor approach. Documentation or PDF files about well-known solutions for this would be beneficial.

Since Amazon Linux is based on Ubuntu, documentation explaining the differences between Ubuntu and Amazon Linux would be valuable. When I am accustomed to working with Ubuntu and want to use the same functions on Amazon Linux, I would prefer to understand the differences and how to implement features that exist on Ubuntu so I do not become lost in the process or have to search extensively for information.

I have been using Amazon Linux for two years.

Amazon Linux is stable.

Amazon Linux has good scalability. I remember when we upgraded one server to a different tier, the service upgrade was quick and very effective.

Customer support for Amazon Linux is very good. We experienced an upgrade that took only a few minutes to complete.

Positive

I used a different solution with a VPS running Ubuntu before, primarily because I had that available and possessed more knowledge about using it, as well as due to cost considerations, since I was not aware of AWS at that time.

I am not certain whether my company purchased Amazon Linux through the AWS Marketplace, as the server is managed by the company, but I believe they are using it from the AWS Marketplace.

I have heard about pricing and consider it good. The setup was somewhat difficult because of a lack of knowledge. I am not certain about the cost and licensing because I was not involved in that part of the process.

I do not have information on whether I have seen a return on investment.

Before choosing Amazon Linux, I evaluated Google Cloud Platform. My company selected Amazon Linux because they have all their services already working on AWS.

My advice to others looking into using Amazon Linux would be to be conscious about the differences between Amazon Linux and Ubuntu, as they look similar and have similar properties, but they need to have more knowledge for the initial setup, especially for downloading packages and dependencies. I would recommend obtaining more information on that topic.

Before concluding, I would suggest that your platform could provide examples of pricing and examples of which companies work with AWS and which languages they use. Perhaps you could create a list of websites using Django and Next.js as well as those using JavaScript. When I have a new project, I could check if my project will fit on AWS and how the pricing will be structured, because whether I run microservices or a VPS or EC2 server, it would be helpful to know the pricing, features, and everything before purchasing and discovering everything after the project is developed and deployed, with no way to roll back. I give this product a rating of eight out of ten.

Positive

Positive

The use cases for this in our company is that we have a customer that internally uses it for several applications, and they are a telecommunications company that has virtual machines and Linux machines for several purposes.

In my opinion, the best features of Amazon Linux include the stability and its standard Linux distribution, which in some cases is easier to deploy and manage than the Ubuntu distribution, but I feel comfortable with Ubuntu too.

The rich documentation with Amazon Linux is beneficial for my migration processes; I think that one of the strongest parts is the documentation. AWS has a lot of documents and official documentation, which is pretty good in most cases, even though in some instances, you have to use the documentation for third parties.

It helps with workflow by being pretty useful for automation tasks.

Right now, I don't think there are any specific areas to improve in Amazon Linux.

I say it's stable because I'm a pretty big fan of the Linux platform in general, so for me, it is the most stable distribution and the most stable operating system, especially since I know that they use the latest kernel.

I say it is also scalable because when AWS starts a project that works with something, they do things in a very good manner; AWS is a very stable distribution.

I rate the support or customer service of Amazon as very good because our customer has a support contract, so they pay a lot of money for access; my team can reach AWS engineers 24/7. It's really good support.

I haven't used a lot of support in the case specifically for Amazon Linux, but the few times I have to request support for that platform, the engineers have been very proficient and they have a lot of knowledge in the platform.

For me, the initial setup is complex, but I don't have sufficient elements to emit a concept in that part.

I use AWS, Azure, and I'm starting to use GCP, Google Cloud Platform.

I have also used ZoomInfo. I have been using the product since its creation. I have not used the ZoomInfo product.

With Amazon, I use AWS in infrastructure, EC2, S3, RDS, etcetera. Mostly infrastructure products, and in Azure, I use virtual machines, VNETs, and SQL Azure, etcetera.

I have used Amazon Linux machines, but in some cases, I deliver Ubuntu servers, but I have used Amazon Linux machines as well.

I use that feature in Amazon Linux, absolutely.

I don't remember if I use the optimized kernel in Amazon Linux because I have used the Linux functions and the Linux functionality per se, but I'm not used to that functionality in AWS.

I don't have so much experience regarding the pricing and licensing of Amazon Linux.

We are partners with Amazon, we are registered partners, and we have several people certified in AWS, but we need to get much more business and pay the subscription to go to the next step in our level of partnership.

I rate this review with an overall rating of 10.

I have experience with the product. AWS Lambda functions and the S3 bucket are the Amazon products I deal with mostly.

I am generally satisfied with Amazon Linux; I appreciate the EC2 instances as well.

The ecosystem of software packages in Amazon Linux has helped us keep up to date with the artificial intelligence trend, where people are using ChatGPT to code, and they are also using Amazon Developer Q to program applications much faster, and then also to meet requirements with the Google Play Store and Apple Store.

The rich documentation of Amazon Linux is beneficial for my migration processes; it is very helpful.

Amazon Linux's security updates have been helpful in general because I have had to be more specific in using the Identity Access Management (IAM) service so that we can have role-based permissions in preference to just keeping it open.

Amazon Linux can be improved by having the documentation contain more examples of use cases.

I have been working with Amazon Linux for at least five years.

The initial setup was very friendly for me; it was very friendly on Mac. I did not have any severe challenges installing or updating.

I do not use the optimized kernel in Amazon Linux.

I tried a little bit with Alexa services, but considering, it has been a while since I updated the integrated AWS CLI feature in Amazon Linux.

I find the pricing friendly because it is per hour; I use the pay-as-you-go option so that if the application does not have a lot of users, it is cheap. However, when there are many users, the users then pay for the expenses of the application.

There is a need for features including integration with other marketplaces; when you build, launch once, and deploy everywhere, it would be easy to just deploy once if there was that integration. That would be a nice feature to have.

I would recommend Amazon Linux to others. I give this review a rating of 7.

My primary use case for Amazon Linux is hosting production-grade applications and microservices running on EC2, EKS, and container-based architectures such as Docker and Kubernetes. Amazon Linux provides continuous security and maintenance updates, including rapid vulnerability patches, which helps keep workloads secure with minimal manual effort. Its security hardening features and minimal footprint reduce the attack surface, offering better protection against common threats.

In my previous organization, almost all our servers ran on Amazon Linux, and I worked with it extensively for about five years. In my current role, we continue to use Amazon Linux primarily for cloud migration projects and for running microservices that require a lightweight, AWS-optimized Linux environment.

In my current role at Quantum Integrators, I am involved in migrating SAP workloads and other applications from a private cloud to AWS, and Amazon Linux has been a core part of this process due to its consistent performance, seamless integration with AWS services, and minimal configuration effort during migration.

Amazon Linux has positively impacted our organization by improving security, reducing operational overhead, and providing a stable, AWS-optimized platform for running production workloads. Its continuous security and maintenance updates, along with features like automated patching and a minimal footprint, help us keep our systems protected without requiring heavy manual effort. This has significantly reduced downtime and strengthened our overall security posture.

Because Amazon Linux is designed specifically for EC2, we’ve seen noticeable performance improvements—faster boot times, better networking throughput, and strong compatibility with AWS services like CloudWatch, SSM, and ECR. This has made application deployments smoother and more reliable.

For teams running microservices and containerized applications, Amazon Linux has provided a lightweight, consistent, and high-performance environment for EKS, ECS, Docker, and Kubernetes workloads. Its predictable update cycle and long-term support have also helped reduce version drift and operational complexity across multiple environments.

Overall, Amazon Linux has simplified server management, improved security compliance, lowered maintenance effort, and delivered reliable performance for cloud-native and production workloads.

One of the best features of Amazon Linux is that it is built and optimized specifically for AWS. Since it is an AWS-native operating system, it receives continuous security and maintenance updates directly from Amazon, including rapid vulnerability patches. In Amazon Linux 2023, kernel live patching is also available, which allows critical security updates to be applied without rebooting — a major advantage for production and low-latency applications.

Because Amazon Linux is tuned for EC2 and AWS hardware, we see better performance in terms of networking throughput, boot speed, and I/O, thanks to optimizations for Nitro, ENA networking, and NVMe-backed storage. It is lightweight, secure by default, and has a minimal attack surface, which reduces overall risk and operational overhead.

Another strong feature is its long-term support model. Amazon Linux provides a stable and predictable release cycle, with Amazon Linux 2 offering long-term support and Amazon Linux 2023 offering a 5-year lifecycle per release. This stability is valuable in production environments where consistency and predictable updates matter.

The OS also comes with essential AWS tools preinstalled — such as the AWS CLI, SSM Agent, EC2 Instance Connect, CloudInit, and ENA drivers — which eliminates additional setup and ensures seamless integration with AWS services. It fully supports container and microservices workloads, including Docker, Kubernetes tooling, ECS, and EKS, making it suitable for cloud-native applications.

Although Amazon Linux is primarily CLI-based (as it’s designed as a lightweight server OS), it is extremely efficient for automation-driven environments. The kernel and system parameters can be further optimized for high-performance compute workloads, databases, and web applications by tuning networking settings, file limits, enhanced networking, and memory configurations.

Overall, Amazon Linux delivers a secure, high-performance, and cost-effective environment for AWS workloads. Its native integration, automatic patching, predictable lifecycle, and optimized kernel are the main reasons we prefer it for production servers and large-scale cloud deployments.

AWS provides meaningful cost savings for Amazon Linux workloads through long-term commitment options like Savings Plans and Reserved Instances. Compute Savings Plans offer the most flexibility across EC2, Fargate, and Lambda, while EC2 Instance Savings Plans deliver the best pricing for specific instance families. Standard and Convertible Reserved Instances also help reduce costs based on 1–3 year commitments. These options have helped us optimize our overall compute expenses effectively when running Amazon Linux on EC2.

One improvement for Amazon Linux would be stronger support for running it outside AWS. Although Amazon provides local VM images for VirtualBox and VMware, they are intended mainly for development and testing. Unlike Ubuntu, Debian, or Red Hat, Amazon Linux is not designed or fully supported as a production OS in on-prem or hybrid environments. Expanding official support outside AWS would offer more flexibility for teams that maintain mixed infrastructure.

Another area for improvement is the community ecosystem. Compared to Ubuntu or Red Hat, Amazon Linux has a smaller community and fewer third-party resources or tutorials. A larger ecosystem would make troubleshooting and adoption easier.

Finally, improving backward compatibility between Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023—especially around package management (DNF vs yum) and updated toolchains—would simplify upgrades for teams managing large fleets.

I have been using Amazon Linux for approximately 6.5 plus years.

Yes, Amazon Linux is stable. In my experience, the operating system itself has been reliable and consistent across production environments. Even during situations where an AWS Availability Zone faced issues—such as the recent DNS-related outage in one of the US-East-2 Availability Zones—Amazon Linux continued to function normally. The temporary impact was related to the AWS infrastructure, not the OS.

Because my applications run in a high-availability (HA) architecture across multiple Availability Zones, traffic automatically failed over to the healthy zone without downtime. Amazon Linux handled the transition smoothly, which reinforced my confidence in its stability for production workloads. Overall, it has remained secure, stable, and dependable in day-to-day operations.

Amazon Linux is highly scalable because it runs on AWS infrastructure, which allows instances to scale up or down quickly based on workload demand. The OS itself is lightweight and optimized for EC2, so it starts faster and performs consistently during scaling events. When paired with AWS Auto Scaling groups or container platforms like EKS and ECS, Amazon Linux can be launched in large numbers within minutes to handle traffic spikes.

A major benefit is the elasticity provided by AWS—resources can be increased when needed and released when demand decreases, which helps control cost. This avoids the limitations of traditional on-premise systems where scaling requires purchasing new hardware. In daily operations, Amazon Linux has been reliable and efficient for applications that require quick scaling and consistent performance across large fleets of EC2 instances.

I would rate AWS customer service 10 out of 10. I have used the AWS Support Center multiple times, and in most cases a support engineer has responded within a few minutes. This has been consistent not only for Amazon Linux–related issues but also for other AWS services such as EC2, S3, and databases.

AWS support has been available 24/7 in my experience, and the engineers are knowledgeable, quick to troubleshoot, and clear in their guidance. They provide step-by-step solutions, help identify the root cause, and ensure the issue is resolved efficiently. Overall, AWS customer service has been reliable, responsive, and extremely helpful whenever we needed assistance.

Positive

Yes, I’ve seen ROI with Amazon Linux. It integrates smoothly with other AWS services and tools we use, including Jenkins pipelines, which reduces setup time and simplifies CI/CD operations. Since Amazon Linux is free and doesn’t require any additional licensing, it provides immediate cost savings compared to paid Linux distributions.

The long-term support (LTS) model, consistent security patching, and predictable release cycles also reduce the operational effort required to maintain servers. These factors help lower maintenance costs and improve stability, which contributes to overall ROI in our production environment.

Before choosing Amazon Linux, we also worked with other Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Red Hat. While these flavors are reliable and widely used, our workloads were already heavily dependent on AWS services such as EC2, S3, CloudWatch, IAM, and VPC. Because of this, Amazon Linux became the natural fit for us. It integrates seamlessly with the AWS ecosystem and provides an optimized experience for EC2-based applications.

Compared to other Linux distributions, the main differences we noticed were in the level of integration and performance tuning. Amazon Linux comes with AWS-tuned kernel parameters, ENA networking optimizations, and built-in tools like the AWS CLI, SSM Agent, and CloudInit. This allowed our workloads to run more efficiently with lower CPU overhead and faster boot times.

Ubuntu and Red Hat offer larger communities, more package availability, and broader on-premise support, which are advantages in hybrid environments. However, Amazon Linux is lightweight, stable, secure by default, and specifically optimized for AWS hardware. Since our entire infrastructure relies on AWS services, choosing Amazon Linux simplified management, improved performance, and aligned better with our cloud-native architecture.

I would rate Amazon Linux a 9 out of 10. In my experience using it for production workloads over the past several years, Amazon Linux has been stable, lightweight, and well-optimized for AWS environments. The built-in integration with AWS services and continuous security updates makes it easy to manage, especially when working across EC2, EKS, and containerized applications. Overall, it has been reliable and efficient for the type of workloads I handle on a daily basis.

With AWS, I work with products involving networking, migration, and other services. Currently, I work in an industry where I use Amazon Linux for various use cases.

I find Amazon Linux valuable for its direct functionality. The best features include the core capabilities that make it suitable for our operations.

Amazon Linux could be improved by including additional features and continuous improvements in various areas.

I have several years of experience with Amazon Linux.

With the optimized kernel, there are certain benefits and limitations to consider. The support quality has been a factor in my experience with the service.

Regarding the optimized kernel, I can explain that it offers specific advantages and constraints depending on the use case.

Positive

I have experience with Palo Alto and have mentioned it previously. I also have experience with AWS services and can discuss how they have been helpful. I have some familiarity with AWS CodeStar and other AWS tools. I do have experience with Amazon Linux and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery. We are customers of AWS rather than partners. We use AWS services to solve our customer problems. To my knowledge, we are not partners who make products out of AWS services or sell through AWS, though I am still new to this role and may not know all the details. My review rating for Amazon Linux is between one to ten.

My use case for Amazon Linux is mostly for running containers.

I am using SELinux for enhanced security in Amazon Linux, and it is helpful for me.

I find that the functions or features of Amazon Linux that are most valuable are ones that I haven't specifically mentioned.

The main benefits I receive from Amazon Linux are saving time and streamlining some work processes.

I use Python, as Amazon Linux includes some pre-installed libraries and tools such as Python, Ruby, and Node.js.

In my opinion, for improvement, Amazon Linux could make better integration with third-party vendors, perhaps enhance user experience or lower the price compared to other Linux solutions.

For the future, it would be great to see Amazon Linux have more wide functionality to work with other systems.

I have been working with Amazon Linux for eight years.

I rate the stability of Amazon Linux as a nine.

I understand the scalability aspects and I think they are adequate.

I would rate the technical support from Amazon Linux as good enough.

I believe the response time and quality of support could be better, so I see quality as a single point of feedback.

Positive

I work with both Amazon Linux and Ubuntu because Ubuntu provides more wide functionalities than Amazon Linux.

The initial setup for Amazon Linux is straightforward, and I understand it well.

Regarding the pricing model of Amazon Linux, I think it could be more flexible or a bit cheaper for users, as I find Ubuntu is cheaper than Amazon Linux.

I am not using IPv6 and I'm okay with that.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon Linux an eight.