I use Rocky Linux for production web servers. It runs Apache with Moodle, for example. I primarily use Rocky Linux for stable, production-ready services. I also use it for containerized workloads and testing automation scripts. My setup includes custom monitoring and optimized security hardening.
External reviews
11 reviews
from
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Consistent servers have reduced maintenance time and support reliable automation for web workloads
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Stability, long-term support, and compatibility with Red Hat are the top features. I also value its strong community, its package management, and reliability for production workloads.
Long-term support ensures I can run services securely without frequent major upgrades, saving time and reducing risk. Red Hat compatibility lets me use Red Hat tools, packages, and enterprise features seamlessly. The community is very active and responsive, and back-end management is straightforward with standard tools such as DNF and systemd and automated configuration.
Rocky Linux is lightweight and predictable, making it easy to automate deployments and maintain consistency across multiple servers. Its security updates are reliable, and it integrates well with cloud and container environments.
It has improved stability and uptime for our services, simplified maintenance, and reduced costs by avoiding frequent migrations. It also makes automation and deployment more consistent across environments.
Rocky Linux simplifies maintenance because security patches and updates are predictable and rarely break existing setups, so I spend 30-40% less time on server upkeep. Consistency comes from using the same Rocky Linux base across all environments (dev, test, and prod), so deployments work the first time, reducing rollout issues by approximately 25%.
What needs improvement?
One area for improvement is the ecosystem of pre-built third-party packages. Sometimes, I need to build from source. Additionally, documentation for niche use cases could be more detailed. Otherwise, it is very reliable and stable.
One small thing is that Rocky Linux could offer more official guidance or tools for cloud-native setup and container orchestration. It is mostly community-driven, so having a few official examples would save time.
An improvement could be more built-in tools or official support for automated testing and CI/CD pipelines. It is doable with the community, but official samples would make adoption faster.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Rocky Linux for approximately six years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Rocky Linux scales very well, from small virtual machines to large clusters, because it is lightweight, stable, and compatible with Red Hat tools for automation, containers, and orchestration.
How are customer service and support?
The official Rocky Linux project does not offer paid customer support, but the community support is very active and helpful through forums, docs, and chats. For enterprise needs, I can get support through third-party vendors.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used CentOS previously. I chose Rocky Linux because CentOS reached end-of-life, and Rocky Linux provides the same Red Hat compatibility with long-term support, making it a stable and reliable replacement.
How was the initial setup?
I recommend starting with Rocky Linux for any production or test environment where stability matters. Take advantage of its Red Hat compatibility, engage with the community for support, and plan automation and deployment using standard tools such as DNF, systemd, and containers.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a clear ROI. Using Rocky Linux reduced server maintenance time by approximately 30-40%, cut licensing costs compared to paid Linux distributions, and lowered deployment issues by 25%. This translates to both time and money saved without needing extra staff.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Rocky Linux has no direct licensing or subscription cost, which makes it very cost-effective. Setup cost is mostly time for initial configuration, but overall, it is low compared to paid enterprise Linux distributions. The lack of a subscription fee saves money while still giving enterprise-grade stability.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated AlmaLinux, Ubuntu, and Oracle Linux but chose Rocky Linux for its strong community support, Red Hat compatibility, and proven stability in production environments.
What other advice do I have?
I give this review a rating of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Migration from discontinued systems has gone smoothly and supports reliable hosting for government websites
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Rocky Linux is web hosting.
I have used Rocky Linux to host Drupal websites for my employer.
I don't have anything else to add about my use case or how I use Rocky Linux.
What is most valuable?
The best feature Rocky Linux offers is compatibility with Red Hat. This compatibility helps me because packages that aren't specifically available to the Rocky Linux repositories are able to be installed as long as the correct binary for the correct corresponding version of Red Hat and Rocky is selected.
Rocky Linux has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to migrate away from CentOS 7 as a result of the end-of-life for that operating system and then the end of CentOS 8, so we were able to move away from it without losing data and without having to rebuild VMs from scratch. The migration process went smoothly, with the main thing that stood out being the exchanging of repository links and the use of purpose-built scripts by our infrastructure and hosting team that took care of the heavy lifting.
What needs improvement?
I don't have specific suggestions on how Rocky Linux can be improved.
I don't want to add more about the needed improvements, even minor things or little annoyances.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In my experience, Rocky Linux is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Rocky Linux's scalability is good; it has handled growth or changing needs well considering that it was able to scale up our high availability environments for our web hosting services.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't needed to reach out for help regarding customer support for Rocky Linux.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used CentOS, and the reason for the change to Rocky Linux was because of the end-of-life of CentOS 7 and 8 since those distributions were being discontinued and we needed a platform to move to that wasn't going to cost us an arm and a leg for licensing.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment since there was definitely money saved at the time due to the lack of need for licensing since Rocky is available openly.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that there was no cost associated with licensing for Rocky at the time because it was available openly and freely.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Rocky Linux, we evaluated one other option, which was AlmaLinux, and we chose to go with Rocky instead.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others looking into using Rocky Linux is to be sure to look at tutorials on how to get started if they are new users to the Red Hat RPMs or if they are unfamiliar with Linux as a whole.
I think it's been a great operating system to use both professionally and personally, and I've been able to adapt Rocky Linux into my WSL environment on my personal computer running Windows 11 and WSL Rocky.
I found out about the interview through LinkedIn.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Rocky Linux a 10.
Migration has reduced costs and maintained seamless performance with familiar processes
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for Rocky Linux is that we had some web servers that we used as internal web servers on a LEMP stack with Nginx for some internal websites and systems. At the time, they ran on CentOS, but we felt it would be better to migrate them to Rocky Linux. I remember we had a script to migrate those servers and it worked very well. Since then, I have left the company, but my colleagues who are still there are using it with no problems so far.
How has it helped my organization?
Stability and good old trusted baseline.
What is most valuable?
In my opinion, the best features Rocky Linux offers are stability, compatibility, and community support, all of which I think are extremely necessary and essential for the distribution, and I find that all three pillars are very supported by Rocky Linux.
The big difference was the compatibility, one-to-one compatibility, and packages and repos, and that was the main thing that helped us significantly after all.
Rocky Linux has positively impacted my organization, specifically through cost savings, because we did not have to buy any licenses or extra licenses of other distros, such as Oracle or RedHat, and that helped significantly, giving us independence in this project without needing a budget specifically for it. This helped tremendously.
What needs improvement?
I cannot think of anything right now that could improve Rocky Linux. I think they should keep up the great job.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux on and off since its first release, right after CentOS changed its releases and both Rocky Linux and Alma started.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Rocky Linux is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For my case, Rocky Linux's scalability has been very good.
How are customer service and support?
I have not had any experience with customer support so far because I usually research things on my own, and the documentation and community help significantly in those cases.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used CentOS, and we switched because their release politics were not really going into the stable way that we always thought CentOS was praised for, which is why we chose to migrate.
How was the initial setup?
I decided to migrate those web servers specifically to Rocky Linux instead of another option because I actually tried both distributions, Alma and Rocky Linux, and I believe that the one that was most similar to how we used CentOS was Rocky Linux. This was the best choice after all.
If I recall correctly, I had some problems during the migration process, but it was not with Rocky Linux; it was with AlmaLinux installation. That was one of the main factors as because we had some bugs. Rocky Linux was a very good choice in the end and it is working efficiently.
What about the implementation team?
I have seen a return on investment because our team was very small and is still small in overall support in the company. One good thing is that we did not have to contract any other team member specifically for the migration since everyone was already well-versed with CentOS. This should count as a point, and while I do not have exact metrics of expenses, I believe it saved around some thousands of dollars for the company.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I did not have any experience with pricing because we used mainly the free version of Rocky Linux at the time.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing Rocky Linux, I evaluated other options such as AlmaLinux, and if I recall correctly, we also researched RedHat.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise others looking into using Rocky Linux to try it out, especially if they have servers on CentOS, as it is very valid for an upgrade. I know a lot of CentOS servers have already reached the end-of-life state, with no more updates or security updates, so I would recommend a migration to Rocky Linux. I rate Rocky Linux 10 out of 10.
Very simple to work with, easy to learn, and has a competitive pricing
What is our primary use case?
I'm currently running the solution at home to teach myself all of the flavors of Linux. If a new one comes out that I don't know or haven't worked on, I'll install it and see how easy it is to configure and set up. I evaluate it for users who don't have very strong computers and want to move away from Microsoft because they don't want to upgrade.
I evaluate Linux as a recommendation so that users can get away from Windows because Windows is so memory-intensive. For people who have an older machine and can't necessarily run Windows 10 or Windows 11, I usually recommend a Linux flavor based on the hardware they're running.
What is most valuable?
The UX design, the user front end, and the user GUI are very well done on the GNOME and KDE platform side. It's very simple to work with, easy to learn, and know where things are. I have worked with a lot of different solutions like Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, and CentOS.
Rocky Linux is very easy, and if you switch from one to the other, you can easily detect your tools in the front end. Since it is very similar to the file system breakdown of downloads and documents, it's very easy to show users where things will be.
What needs improvement?
The solution's audio integration for virtual machines could be improved. It took me almost a day to get my audio drivers to work while running it as a virtual machine. I run Oracle Virtual Box. Within Oracle Virtual Box, I would really like it if they looked at the audio integration or the audio driver specifically for virtual machines.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Rocky Linux for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Rocky Linux runs very well for me on low-resource systems, which only have four gigs of memory and one CPU. Rocky Linux is not very resource-intensive.
I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.
What about the implementation team?
If I put it on a low-spec machine, the solution's deployment will take a maximum of one hour, which is a reasonable amount of time. Comparatively, Windows takes much longer to deploy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Rocky Linux is a cheap solution. Compared to the market prices of other tools, the solution has a very competitive pricing. The solution comes at such a price that I can recommend it to users who do not want to spend money. I spend no more than $10 per year for Rocky Linux.
What other advice do I have?
For a Windows migration, I'll do a full backup to external, set up Rocky Linux, and bring it in. Then, I'll just import all the relevant files. Most solutions like Rocky Linux and Ubuntu have a downloads folder or documents folder. I try to recreate the user experience from a UX perspective to be the same.
One of the other Linux tools I'm currently evaluating is Zorin. Zorin looks almost identical to Windows. When you log in, the interface and everything looks very similar to Windows 11. CentOS, Rocky, and Zorin are three solutions that I recommend for users who want to move away from Microsoft but keep the same experience. I can make it look and feel the same way it looks and feels on Windows.
So, migrating a user from Windows is easy because as long as it looks the same, they don't really care what happens in the backend. They don't really care what happens when they click on a button. They just want to see what they saw when they worked on Windows.
I set Rocky Linux up to update once a week with the package management. It does its own updates, and as long as there's internet, there are no problems.
The transition to Rocky Linux wasn't as difficult as I had expected, but it wasn't as easy as I had expected because Rocky Linux is one of the lesser-known versions of Linux. When I had trouble with my audio drivers, very little information was available on resolving the issue. That was a little difficult, but it was purely because Rocky Linux is not as well known as Ubuntu, CentOS, or the bigger versions of Linux.
From that perspective, I struggled a bit. Otherwise, it was quite smooth. The only problem I had was on the audio side.
The solution's deployment time was very much dependent on the hardware that I was running it on. Depending on the hardware, it's quite simple because it has the same features as all the new Linux. I can also configure and run a little LVM installation.
I like the fact that, in a lot of ways, it's still the same as the old Linux and all the other Linux you know. It looks very similar, but it adds little tweaks, and it still looks like Rocky Linux when you're inside it.
Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.
showing 1 - 4