My main use case for Amazon Linux was running production workloads, primarily using it to host backend services for the company and web applications on EC2 instances while helping DevOps with several tasks, one related to QA, as a QA Analyst and QA Engineer.

I hosted a production REST API backend on EC2 using Amazon Linux which handled user authentication and core transactions for a customer-facing web application, and it scaled reliably using AWS Auto Scaling and load balancing.

Using Amazon Linux delivered ROI in several practical ways, notably eliminating OS licensing costs, saving thousands of dollars per year compared to licensed enterprise Linux options, and reducing operational effort with an estimated 25 to 30% reduction in OS-related operational work due to AWS-native defaults and predictable updates.

Amazon Linux fit very naturally into our automation and security practices, regularly used with infrastructure as code and automated provisioning, which made it easy to spin up consistent environments across development, staging, and production, aligning closely with AWS best practices.

The strongest features of Amazon Linux are its tight AWS integration, security, and long-term stability, with one of the biggest advantages being how well it integrates with AWS services out of the box.

The tight AWS integration of Amazon Linux made my day-to-day operations much simpler and more reliable, as IAM roles work seamlessly at the OS level, eliminating the need to manage static AWS credentials on instances, which improved security and reduced configuration effort when deploying new EC2 instances or scaling automatically.

Another feature I found very useful in Amazon Linux is its predictable and well-curated package ecosystem, with stable and tested repositories for AWS environments reducing dependency issues and making system updates safer in production, along with smooth integration with automation and containerized workloads.

While Amazon Linux worked very well overall for us, there could be a few areas for improvement. For instance, the package ecosystem compared to more community-driven distributions like Ubuntu, where some packages can lag slightly behind in terms of versions, occasionally requiring extra effort when newer language runtimes or tools were needed.

I have been working in my field as a manual tester and then moved into automated testing for seven years in total, performing and executing test cases on some freelance platforms.

Amazon Linux is very stable, especially for long-running production workloads on AWS, having been able to run it on production EC2 instances for extended periods with minimal issues.

Amazon Linux scales very well, especially when used in AWS-native environments, working seamlessly with AWS Auto Scaling and load balancing to scale from a small number of instances to dozens or more during traffic spikes without needing OS-level changes.

Amazon Linux customer support is generally good, understanding that support is structured through AWS support plans and official documentation, relying on AWS for issues directly related to Amazon Linux behavior on EC2, with timely and helpful responses for performance, updates, or AWS integration issues.

Positive

We have not used any other solution before Amazon Linux.

Using Amazon Linux delivered ROI in several practical ways, notably eliminating OS licensing costs, saving thousands of dollars per year compared to licensed enterprise Linux options, and reducing operational effort with an estimated 25 to 30% reduction in OS-related operational work due to AWS-native defaults and predictable updates.

The pricing and licensing model of Amazon Linux is one of its biggest advantages, having no additional licensing cost and no per-core and per-instance OS fees, making cost planning straightforward by only paying for the underlying AWS infrastructure.

Before choosing Amazon Linux, I evaluated a few alternatives, specifically considering Ubuntu Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS.

I would advise that if you are planning to run workloads on AWS, Amazon Linux is a strong and practical choice, best suited for AWS-native, cloud-first architectures where tight integration with AWS services, security, and long-term stability matter. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

My main use case for Amazon Linux is mostly deploying servers using NGINX and application runner, and I use it as a base image in Amazon Linux itself when I write any Docker file.

In my current project, investment.in, I use Amazon Linux as a web server as well.

The best features Amazon Linux offers, in my opinion, are the yum command and the packages that are already included, along with other packages that I can easily install in the Linux environment.

These features help me in my daily work by making automation very easy.

Amazon Linux has positively impacted my organization by increasing productivity since automation is easy and fast, allowing me to set up servers easily, thus productivity increases and efficiency improves as soon as possible while deploying my application using Amazon Linux.

For the improvement of Amazon Linux, I think there should be UI features in the future, as Amazon Linux currently has only terminal capabilities without a UI, and I hope to see documentation updates as soon as possible so when documentation expires, I am updating it and referring to it soon.

When using Amazon Linux, I would prefer if any command goes wrong that an auto-command feature would appear there.

I chose eight out of ten because command line improvement is needed along with UI features, and the second thing is that you can use auto-command line features.

I do not think there are any other improvements Amazon Linux needs right now, maybe something related to security, performance, or compatibility.

My advice for others looking into using Amazon Linux is to make sure the command line is easy and that Amazon Linux has more performance than other Linux environments and is more secure than other Linux environments as well.

I have been using Amazon Linux for more than five years, because I started using Amazon Linux in college.

I have more to add about how I use Amazon Linux; using the command, using shell machines, and using the terminals in Amazon Linux could be a great experience.

I would like to add that Amazon Linux is easy to use with the command line and also user-friendly, with no need to download any third-party updates like RPM packages and then install; I just use the command line only to download directly and install directly.

I purchased Amazon Linux through the AWS Marketplace.

I think next time with Amazon Linux, whenever a bad command is returned, it could be auto-generated to create the perfect command, and that is something you can implement.

I give this product a rating of eight out of ten.

I usually ran GoLang applications on Amazon Linux. These applications are compiled for any Linux flavor or architecture. I have worked with API backends for VoIP APIs in the CPaaS platforms.

Recently I got a use case where I needed to implement a noise cancellation application for Amazon Linux as a backend application. This noise canceller specifically used an Intel procedure which is specific to architecture. I faced some challenges with Amazon Linux in this scenario. I had to switch to Ubuntu for that specific use case.

If you are building something of your own in a language such as GoLang or Python, it is really easy to set it up and just hit the go button. You just need to build your application and you can have a binary which can run on Amazon Linux easily. However, for specific tasks such as the noise reduction case, I have to install a package for a specific instruction which I had never worked with before. That was a new experience. It is really easy to install on Amazon Linux from the package right away, which is a really good thing.

We are scaling up and scaling down in the EKS environments with Amazon Linux only. Amazon Linux really works well for this.

Amazon Linux is really easy to use. Almost all of the packages and all of the third-party applications are available for Amazon Linux. They are just one command away to install them.

For example, if I use any CentOS based system, Ubuntu based system, or Debian based system, I have to keep updating my repository. Sometimes it is really hard to find some Amazon specific packages for those distributions. However, for Amazon Linux, it is really good and really handy that all of the information and all of the packages are available on just a few commands away.

Regarding the update side, I really appreciate the kernel patches for Amazon Linux. They are released straightaway. Whenever something is fixed in the security domain, it gets released pretty soon compared to other distributions for Amazon Linux. In terms of customer compliance with GDPR and similar requirements, it is really good to have that.

I have noticed benefits in my workflow with Amazon Linux. When I used to have a Windows laptop and whenever I needed a Linux instance, I used to spin up one on EC2. This brought me a lot of helpful things without owning a machine. Even if I am in an environment where I have very low network bandwidth and I have to compile huge images or build a big image, perhaps something related to AI or training a model, it is really easy to just spin up an EC2 instance and build that image there. The network connectivity and all those aspects help in that way.

It is really easy to integrate Amazon Linux with the conventional tools available for all Linux systems.

Amazon Linux has performed really well under heavy workloads.

I feel there can be a lot of extensibility for Amazon Linux, the same way we have for Ubuntu or Debian. That might be a good use case to look forward to.

I would love to get my hands on Amazon Linux on a laptop, if that is possible. Nowadays the machines are really powerful and if you have an operating system like Ubuntu and you love working with Linux, people will easily switch to Amazon Linux because they are running the same thing on their laptops and even in the cloud. That would be really beneficial in that case.

I have been using Amazon Linux since 2020 and it has been five years now. I have been using Amazon Linux to run production applications on EC2 instances and running some POCs, creating test applications around it. I have used Amazon Linux as my secondary computer in the cloud for four years.

Amazon Linux is really good and stable.

It is easy to scale Amazon Linux. If you want scalability and many out of the box features, you can choose Amazon Linux right away.

I have not had any chance to reach out to customer support.

Negative

I have used a couple of Linux distributions before Amazon Linux. I have used Linux Mint, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Debian. I still use them for some software which is recommended for it, but not much.

Amazon Linux was readily available on the AWS cloud, so it was an easy switch and there were no major setup complications.

I did purchase Amazon Linux a couple of times through the AWS Marketplace. However, these things are majorly managed by the DevOps team.

I saved around 100 to 200 hours of build time when I used to have a slow laptop before I switched to Mac. That was really helpful. I can do other tasks while the build is going on, so it increased productivity as well.

In general, I have saved many hours in my workflow. We are not in the era of generative AI where you have to research, implement, and test everything. Because I used to have a Windows instance, Amazon Linux was my go-to for any of the tasks.

I mostly found Amazon Linux documentation and community support very easily. Nowadays I majorly use Gemini or ChatGPT for my issues, which is really helpful.

Most of the time Amazon Linux meets the need in the security areas with latest patches for everything.

It is mostly for public cloud, specifically public AWS. We use Amazon Linux across all the environments.

It is really good. As I work in an enterprise environment, most of the pricing and other details are handled by other teams, not the backend engineering team. I have never faced any such issues.

I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

My main use case for Amazon Linux is deploying our ClickHouse cluster. ClickHouse is an OLAP database where we are spanning data across multiple terabytes, and we're using EC2 instances on AWS, which are based on the Linux operating system. We have a cluster of 16 EC2 instances based on Amazon Linux, and using those instances, we are deploying our ClickHouse cluster.

In addition to deploying our ClickHouse cluster, we are also using Amazon Linux for our ClickHouse Keeper, which is for the coordination, and we are using it for our CHProxy, which is the ClickHouse Proxy for user authentication, query limiting, and other functionality.

Amazon Linux provides us a great capability of deploying ClickHouse, as ClickHouse is much more compatible with Linux instances if you're deploying it on-premises, as the support team has advised us. We have specifically utilized Amazon Linux in our use case to deploy ClickHouse, and since we have configs that we need to manually deploy there, we have to work with Linux commands to change our configs. That sort of capability and ease of doing things is being provided by Linux, so we are very happy with Amazon Linux.

Stability is a great point since we rarely face any downtime with Amazon Linux in terms of Linux instances going down. Regarding security, since we have deployed this in the VPC, we need to ensure we have the right protocols opened, and Linux within itself provides us great capability to ensure we have high-level security as well. Amazon Linux integrates well with services like S3 for storing our data, and we are also using Route 53 for our routing services and DNS services for the ClickHouse cluster. It integrates well with AWS services, and we are also using CloudWatch for the metrics.

Amazon Linux has positively impacted our organization in a couple of ways. There were two ways to deploy a ClickHouse cluster: the first was to go with a cloud solution, and the other one was to go with Amazon Linux. We looked at the cost in both ways, and the cloud version was expensive for us, so we looked at Amazon Linux on-premises and tried to deploy our cluster by doing a certain POC. We found out there was a significant cost difference. It gave us much more control over how we store our data and what we can do with it, so we went with the approach of deploying a cluster on Amazon Linux. That was a positive impact for us in terms of having control over data, keeping it in a secure network of ours only, and it also saved us costs, giving us a full circle moment to save our expenses.

I believe Amazon Linux provides a wide variety of instances in terms of the RAM and storage that you want with the EBS volumes, so nothing can be improved in that regard. It's just that with the start time, when you're initially starting an instance, it takes a certain amount of time to reboot itself and set up the environment, and if that can be improved to instant speed, I think that will be much more helpful.

I gave it an eight because of the instant speed consideration. Since we are working in a real-time manner and need to scale things immediately, the time it takes to boot an instance and then deploy things is preventing me from giving it a perfect rating. That aspect is crucial, as it affects the time required to start up an instance and instantly deploy it.

I have been working in my current field for 4.5 years.

Amazon Linux is stable in my experience, and we did not face any downtime or reliability issues.

In terms of scalability, we find it easy to scale our workloads up or down, with the only drawback being the time it takes to restart or boot an instance. Otherwise, everything else is good.

We have been satisfied with all of this. We had good support from AWS if we faced any issues, and the documentation is really great. We faced no compatibility issues, so I think we are in good standing on that part.

We didn't reach out to customer support because we didn't face any issues, so I would rate the customer support a 10 out of 10.

Positive

Since our whole cloud network is deployed in AWS, we didn't look into other instances. We initially considered using Windows for the instances, but then we switched to Linux since the ClickHouse team informed us that Linux instances would be hugely compatible with the ClickHouse environment.

As a developer, I'm not directly impacted with the cost, but during the meetings I attended, there were discussions of saving up to 30% of cost savings by going with Amazon Linux.

As I mentioned for the cost savings, we saved 30% in terms of the cloud infrastructure. Time saved is significant since we are working with a real-time database, which saves us time compared to going with OLTP. With Amazon Linux coming in, we have also saved time in terms of query execution time, and those are the numbers that I can share.

My advice to others looking into using Amazon Linux is that it's a great piece of technology you can use to deploy your application environment. It works within a great environment of a private network, integrates well with other AWS services, keeps you in a close-knit ecosystem, is highly scalable, and ensures that you have high performance for your application while rarely facing any downtime. I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

I am working with Infosys, and the client is Denmark's Bank, Danske Bank, one of the largest banks in Denmark. I am part of a migration project with the bank servers moving from on-premises to AWS cloud. Amazon Linux was purchased from the Amazon Marketplace, and we have OpenShift, the Red Hat OpenShift container platform. As a migration engineer, I am not entirely certain how partnerships work with Amazon. My organization is large and its structure regarding how they manage their relation with AWS cloud is complex. We are using the service, with the OCP cluster purchased from the marketplace running on AWS and managed by Red Hat.

Regarding Amazon Linux, I observe that there is not much difference between Amazon Linux and Red Hat Linux. When I install packages, I notice that Red Hat Linux takes a little more time, and I am uncertain if it is based on the hardware or the security system. The RPM-based package makes it very difficult to install some specific packages in Red Hat Linux, but with Amazon Linux, it is easy to install RPM or DNF packages.

I have been using Amazon Linux for the last one and a half years.

Future features for Amazon Linux, like cost-effectiveness, should be improved because any organization, whether small, a startup company, or a large organization, primarily considers cost. Comparing to Ubuntu, an open-source alternative, I think Amazon Linux could benefit from some cost optimization because it costs a little more than Ubuntu in Indian Rupees.

Regarding maintenance for Amazon Linux, sometimes it requires maintenance similar to how Red Hat provides end-to-end support for Red Hat Linux.

Regarding Amazon Linux support, we used to raise tickets for any issues related to it. We connect on chat or interact with AWS engineers for critical issues. With the support system for Amazon Linux, I feel there is a lack compared to Red Hat, which provides a stronger support system.

I have overall experience of 6+ years, with six years, nine or ten months as of this January.

Regarding the stability of Amazon Linux, we are migrating thousands of servers from on-premises to AWS cloud for Danske Bank. I observed that while patching and updates from Red Hat systems are handled easily, with Amazon Linux we need to take extra care, particularly with legacy systems, since the latest versions work fine without issues.

In my experience with Amazon's technical support, all issues are resolved whenever I connect with their engineers, but the communication levels can be somewhat different, such as a priority system. I would give a score of 8.5 to 9 out of 10.

Positive

From an installation point of view for Amazon Linux, there is nothing difficult as we are using Terraform for deployment purposes. We use the Amazon provided AMI directly and deploy it, just as we do with other Linux flavors such as Ubuntu or Red Hat.

From my personal and system perspective, I have experienced over the last one year that any packages run easily in Amazon Linux, which I would recommend because I am a cloud engineer for AWS cloud for the last six plus years and I am aware of how these things are involved. For Amazon Linux overall, I give it nine out of ten because it executes commands very smoothly, and that is what I appreciate about it. I would rate this review nine out of ten.

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