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Amazon Linux pros and cons

Vendor: Amazon Web Services (AWS)

4.2 out of 5

25 reviews
100% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Amazon Linux boosts productivity with fast automation, enhancing efficiency and offering high performance within the AWS ecosystem. It reduces OS costs and operational efforts while ensuring stability and security. However, limitations include lack of support outside EC2, outdated documentation, missing dependencies, and certain vulnerabilities. Package management issues persist, with absent application packages like newer PostgreSQL versions, necessitating manual compilation for some software.

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Amazon Linux enhances productivity by providing automation that is easy and fast, which increases efficiency.

Critical security patches can be applied without rebooting, reducing downtime and enhancing reliability.

Amazon Linux simplifies workflows and improves service reliability for various applications.

It provides a cost-effective solution by eliminating OS licensing costs and reducing operational efforts with AWS-native defaults.

The environment offers high performance, stability, and optimum security, aligning well with the AWS ecosystem.

CONS

Amazon Linux is not supported outside of EC2 and cannot be installed on a local system.

Documentation for Amazon Linux lacks examples of use cases and needs more frequent updates.

Some dependencies are missing, requiring users to compile software manually as Amazon Linux does not always provide necessary library packages.

The repository might contain vulnerability packages, creating security concerns comparable to other systems.

Challenges exist in package management, such as the absence of certain application packages like the latest PostgreSQL versions.

Amazon Linux Pros review quotes

MM

Linux Support at HOSSTED

Jun 5, 2025

Whenever I deploy solutions on Amazon Linux, I almost never have to worry about the operating system.

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reviewer2738745

Cloud Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 5, 2025

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

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SAURAB K GANGURDE

Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators

Nov 26, 2025

One great feature is the ability to apply critical security patches without rebooting the server, which avoids downtime and is why we prefer to use Amazon Linux for production servers and low-latency applications.

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Independent Contractor at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 8, 2025

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.

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KJ

Karthikeyan Janakiraman

Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jan 13, 2026

The product itself is very good; even if I switch organizations and they are not using Amazon Linux, I will share my experience that Amazon Linux has worked great for us in these use cases.

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reviewer2795433

Enterprise Cloud Operations Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Jan 15, 2026

It has been positive because Amazon Linux increases the speed of delivery due to the fast boot up times and the integrated tooling.

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TR

full stack developer at 71Lbs

Jan 15, 2026

It is working very well and operates very fast with queries and everything on that server, so there are no current problems.

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reviewer2797587

Cloud Solution Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 16, 2026

Amazon Linux offers many excellent features, is quicker and faster than CentOS, Ubuntu, or similar alternatives, natively supports many AWS features with long-term support and regular security updates, and its clear, superior documentation along with broad support for dependency and open-source software makes it an excellent operating system for efficiently setting up and upgrading complex, self-hosted environments.

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Consultant at Infosys

Jan 16, 2026

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.

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reviewer2797701

Principal DevOps Engineer at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees

Jan 17, 2026

Amazon Linux has impacted my organization positively by simplifying the workflow where we manage our EKS nodes.

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Show 9 more reviews (out of 19)

Amazon Linux Cons review quotes

MM

Linux Support at HOSSTED

Jun 5, 2025

I have honestly never had any problems with Amazon Linux, aside from disk space issues.

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reviewer2738745

Cloud Architect at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Nov 5, 2025

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

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SAURAB K GANGURDE

Senior AWS Consultant at Quantum Integrators

Nov 26, 2025

Amazon Linux is not supported outside of EC2. You cannot install it on a local system, whereas you can install Ubuntu and Red Hat on your local system.

Read full review

Free Report: Amazon Linux Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Amazon Linux. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2026.

881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Independent Contractor at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 8, 2025

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

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KJ

Karthikeyan Janakiraman

Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jan 13, 2026

I choose nine out of ten because it could use a bit more options.

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reviewer2795433

Enterprise Cloud Operations Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Jan 15, 2026

In terms of improvements, the one thing I would say which I wish Amazon Linux was better at is that sometimes I find that I need to compile my own software because some dependencies are not within Amazon Linux.

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TR

full stack developer at 71Lbs

Jan 15, 2026

Amazon Linux could be improved by including libraries for supervisor.

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reviewer2797587

Cloud Solution Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees

Jan 16, 2026

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.

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Consultant at Infosys

Jan 16, 2026

With the support system for Amazon Linux, I feel there is a lack compared to Red Hat, which provides a stronger support system.

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reviewer2797701

Principal DevOps Engineer at a outsourcing company with 201-500 employees

Jan 17, 2026

Sometimes we cannot find some modern application packages; I tried to install a PostgreSQL server and I was unable to find the latest version available from the package registry, so I had to compile it myself.

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Show 9 more reviews (out of 19)

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