Choosing the best Linux distribution for your system can be difficult due to countless available options. Because Linux is an open-source platform, there exist so many different distributions out there. Anyone who has the necessary skills can participate in the distribution development and its building and release phases. There are over 600 Linux server and desktop distributions currently available at this moment.
Despite the numerous variants available, the industry is dominated by two main Linux distributions: CentOS and Ubuntu. Both are fantastic choices for any system, and each distro has its own set of advantages.
Today, we will compare CentOS and Ubuntu Linux distributions based on their development platform, features, pros and cons, and the idea behind their creation. It is difficult to find a better operating system for personal or business use, no matter how skilled you are. So, let’s start this journey with a short overview.
Overview of CentOS and Ubuntu:
CentOS:
CentOS was created as a part of the CentOS project by Red Hat Enterprise Linux. In the year 2004, it was first released in the software market. It is a community-driven free software project built to provide a robust platform for the open source communities to grow. CentOS is also a development environment for most hosting communities, cloud providers, scientific data processing, etc. The developers of CentOS collaborate with several upstream communities to help them distribute and layer their software conclusively on a stable platform.
CentOS allows you to develop in one of the best and most powerful available distributions. It is highly adaptable, as well as safe and robust. It features several corporate-level security updates that declare it an excellent choice for any user. For web servers, CentOS become the most popular Linux distro in 2010. However, it loses its popularity in 2012, as Debian increased its acceptance level by adding new features.
In the following year, the objective of the CentOS developers is to build CentOS Linux as a ruling community platform for expanding the new open source technologies from other projects such as OpenStack.
Ubuntu:
In 2004, Linux was already established, but this operating system was distributed among the various unsupported community and proprietary editions. At the time, Mark Shuttleworth created a small Debian developers team who worked hard and founded Canonical. After that, they decided to develop an easy-to-use Linux desktop which is now called Ubuntu. As soon as the first release of Ubuntu was launched, people were fascinated globally because thousands of specialists ad software fans were switching to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu now comes in dozens of specialized derivatives and a variety of flavors. This distribution is entirely free to use and available in over 55 different languages. Ubuntu is diverse in terms of features and package groups that can accommodate any project needs. This significant Linux distribution is mainly utilized for running web servers and employed in large-scale developments. Ubuntu has launched many distinct editions in the market that comprise its usage on the cloud, server, and desktop. Talking about the safety it provides, Ubuntu offers full disk encryption and the facility to encrypt the private and home directories.
Pros and cons of Ubuntu and CentOS:
| Linux Distribution | Pros | Cons |
| Ubuntu | Ubuntu is a freely available, open-source Linux distribution. | Ubuntu must be installed separately as it does not comes as pre-installed in the newer PCs. |
| It has broad community support and also extends tutorials from the user’s point of view. | Due to frequent updates, sometimes the Ubuntu system becomes more vulnerable to web threats. | |
| Ubuntu can provide a lot of user-specific storage management and driver allocation features to the end-users. | Its hardware support is limited, which raise many questions in the mind of end-users. | |
| It is also compatible with the external drive, external storage, and USB ports. | The hardware faults make it unstable sometimes. | |
| For a better customer experience, it provides a lot of pre-installed software to the end-users. | ||
| CentOS | A free form of the well-known RHEL. Each version lasts up to ten years and also provides security updates for seven to ten years. | CentOS is less compatible if we talk about its support for entertainment and gaming. |
| CentOS is based on the Linux framework. | It is not very much user friendly as other Linux distros are. | |
| For enterprise workloads, it is dependable. | It provides less technical support compared to Ubuntu. | |
| Less exposed to cyber threats. | It usually doesn’t offer a lot of help when it comes to storage management and drives creation. | |
| It also gives administrative.
Support to the system. |
There is a possibility that someone considers a specific Linux distro as a “Perfect distribution” for them, but based on your requirements, that distro might not suit you. It makes sense, right? That’s why we are here to help you choose the distribution that is most appropriate for you. So let’s look deep down into the core of Ubuntu and CentOS.
First of all, we will check out the most significant difference between both Linux distros:
CentOS: an RHEL- based Linux distro
CentOS is a replacement for all of the Red Hat Branding. Anything executable on RHEL is also compatible with CentOS. In 1995, the first Red Hat distribution was released in the software market, followed by RHEL in 2000. After some years, the team decides to merged RHEL with the Fedora project; that’s how the Fedora distro was created in 2003. In the following year, CentOS was developed based on RHEL. However, CentOS appeared to be more focused on the server sector.
Ubuntu: a Debian-based Linux distro
In 1996, the first stable version of Debian was released, and then in 2004, Ubuntu was introduced. As compared to CentOS, Ubuntu is more desktop-oriented. However, the packages in this distribution are based on the unstable Debian branch packages, which might not be binary compatible. In that case, those packages are required to be rebuilt to use on Ubuntu.
Now, we will compare both Linux distributions based on various factors:
System:
CentOS and Ubuntu are both Linux distributions, which means they share many of the same essential components. However, there are distinctions between their management tools.
For instance, manipulating network interfaces is done with the same tools, such as ifconfig, ip, etc. In addition, to maintaining those interfaces as more accessible, both distributions provided assistance programs. However, the distributions differ in terms of available tools. As a result, some distribution-specific knowledge is difficult to transfer between these two distros.
Repositories:
Ubuntu has enormous software repositories. It handles a wide range of use cases and audiences which is also a reason for its popularity. In addition, it provides excellent support for third parties and the community. For Ubuntu, there exist a countless number of additional repositories.
In this case, CentOS has fewer targeted repositories. Thus, you will have difficulty setting up a general-purpose desktop with CentOS, but you will not have any trouble setting up a CentOS server.
Packaging:
CentOS uses the RPM package format. To manage packages, a tool called rpm is utilized in Centos distro. Also, for managing dependencies, network repositories, and other combinations of activities, a front-end program named yum was built, updated to dnf in CentOS 8.
Ubuntu utilizes the DEB package manager. It manages DEB packages with apt, similar to where the top of the rpm is layered with dnf/yum.
Both tools handle package interactions, which permits you to conduct most of your work with just one tool. In addition, you will only need to employ the underlying programs for managing packages.
Community:
The Ubuntu community is quite active, and it offers support, assistance, and tutorials on forums, within smaller groups, and at community forums. This contributes to Ubuntu’s suitability for newcomers, as this makes it much easier to solve difficulties when there is a large and eager community to help.
CentOS has a smaller user base of 17.5% market share as compared to Ubuntu. This Linux distro is developed aimed at enterprise use, making it difficult for beginners to understand it. There are active community forums, but they are not owned and managed by the government and exist independently. As a result, finding online support and tutorials is much challenging.
Release Cycle:
Although both Ubuntu and CentOS have server releases, their processes and release cycles are substantially different. After every six months or so, Ubuntu releases a new version in the market. These versions target desktop users, and they are not built to be supported for a long time. At the same time, a long-term support release occurs every fifth release. Also, Canonical offers support contracts for these every five years.
Every three to four years, a new version of CentOS is released. Because these versions are considered as a clone, it follows RHEL release schedule. In addition, CentOS is released immediately whenever RHEL released its version. Each of these releases offers long-term support for about ten years.
Performance:
Both CentOS and Ubuntu can be used for web hosting, corporate servers, and business websites. However, CentOS offers excellent benefits due to its outstanding performance.
As you may be aware of the fact that CentOS does not provide frequent updates. The rationale for this feature is that it takes a long time for the CentOS developers to update or test each new version. Therefore, when they release a new version following their methodology, it is more safe and stable. Furthermore, the majority of control panels only support CentOS. CentOS is superior to Ubuntu at handling many clients and control panels in web hosting.
Corporate Backing:
Major corporations support both Ubuntu and CentOS, although the support nature varies significantly. Ubuntu is the main product of Canonical. Canonical’s team is working hard to provide a Ubuntu software ecosystem and an entire community. They also set up their release schedule to facilitate this. At this moment, Official support is available for Ubuntu LTS releases.
The CentOS Project is owned by Redhat, which provides its knowledge and many other resources. Anyhow, that’s where the story ends. CentOS is obliged to adapt to the work that has already been done on RHEL. CentOS engineers strive to make it as near to an exact clone of RHEL as possible, which also guarantees that all RHEL knowledge can be transferred.
Ease of use:
CentOS has a limited number of guidelines and tutorials available online. Despite this, most experienced Linux users prefer CentOS over other distros, mainly if they are familiar with the architecture of Red Hat Linux. In addition, CentOS is used by the majority of web servers nowadays.
Whereas Ubuntu is one of the most user-friendly and most straightforward Linux distributions. This is because the Canonical team that works on it is more concerned about its usability. With Ubuntu Server, you get a Graphical User Interface that you may install later and control your server more efficiently. You can also utilize the Terminal for executing other programs. However, CentOS also includes control panel utilities such as cPanel, which is considered essential for web hosting services.
Cloud Deployment:
Ubuntu is well-known in the Linux industry for its outstanding container virtualization capabilities. Moreover, the Ubuntu development team has declared full enterprise support for Charmed Kubernetes, kubeadm deployments, MicroK8s, Kubernetes 1.15, and the widespread single-node Kubernetes deployment in June 2019. As a result, Ubuntu Server has become a more dependable operating system for cloud installations, and its market share has grown a lot till now.
CentOS isn’t far behind in this regard. It keeps up with Ubuntu by offering three private cloud options and a public cloud platform through Amazon Web Services. It also provides a mature platform and comprehensive documentation using which users may expand their features.
Want to know more about how Ubuntu and CentOS vary as Linux distros? Then, check out the below-given table:
Comparison of CentOS and Ubuntu based on features:
Features |
CentOS |
Ubuntu |
| System core | CentOS is based on RedHat | Ubuntu is based on Debian |
| Package management | YUM | apt, apt-get |
| Update Cycle | Less frequent | Often |
| Hosting Market Share | 17.5% of Linux users | 38.2% of Linux users |
| Virtualization | OpenNebula
OpenStack, CloudStack, |
OpenStack |
| Security | Strong | Good but also needs some additional configuration |
| Stability | Strong | Good |
| Default applications | Applications are updated when required | Applications are regularly updated |
| Maintenance | Challenging | Moderate |
| Support | Solid documentation with a small but active community | Excellent documentation and a big, reliable support community |
| Ease of Use | Challenging | Moderate |
| Speed | Excellent but hardware-dependent | Excellent but Hardware dependent |
| File Structure | same basic file/folder structure, but the format differ in system services location | same basic file/folder structure, but the format differ in system services location |
Recommendations:
Both of these Linux distributions are open source and completely free to use. You can operate your system with one of the two distributions, depending on your requirements and preferences.
- Ubuntu is a better choice if you are a newbie because it offers a large community, a great library of free tutorials, and more frequent updates to keep you informed. Furthermore, if you’ve used Ubuntu desktop before, there would not be much of a learning hurdle when starting with an Ubuntu VPS server. Although CentOS is also a feasible option, if you are a beginner, then it may provide some learning challenges to you at first.
- CentOS is the better option if you run a business because it is more safe and stable than Ubuntu due to its updates of lower frequency. Of course, Ubuntu has its advantages, but there may exist cases where you need to restore to an earlier version because of a new buggy update. In addition, CentOS includes cPanel support, while Ubuntu does not.
It’s all about your decision, primarily based on personal preference. Before making a decision, you can employ virtualization technology to evaluate both of them.
Conclusion:
It’s never easy to decide which Linux distribution is best between CentOS and Ubuntu. Both of these distros are open-source, free, and supported by the community. Their performance, dependability, and stability are essentially identical, almost creating a CentOS vs. Ubuntu war. This article compared CentOS and Ubuntu Linux distribution based on their development platform, features, pros and cons, and the idea behind their creation. Now the decision of choosing between these distros is totally on your shoulders.
