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AlmaLinux vs Kali Linux comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 4, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AlmaLinux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
17th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Kali Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Reliable long-term hosting has reduced server migrations and lets me focus on projects
One area for improvement with AlmaLinux is the use of SELinux to secure and harden my server, which I find to be a complicated beast. Better documentation on that part could be useful, although there is a lot of material out there. I choose a nine because nothing is ever perfect. For example, coming from Ubuntu, I found their firewall software easy to use, while with AlmaLinux's entire ecosystem, I always have to look up how to use firewall-cmd. These are just little preferences. I cannot think of anything else AlmaLinux could improve; it serves me well, and I have not been missing anything.
Ciyagi Ciyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect & Delivery Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Runs efficiently across devices and streamlines penetration testing workflows
Kali Linux could be improved by including more tools. I would personally like to see improvements in Kali Linux, particularly regarding Grub issues that sometimes occur when installing the VM. Additionally, I have experienced problems when updating Kali Linux from a higher version to a lower version, which resulted in crashes. These Grub issues should be resolved. I face significant challenges with Kali Linux regarding a major issue with the Grub loader becoming corrupted, which makes it very difficult to recover data.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"AlmaLinux has impacted our organization positively by providing a stable and reliable enterprise Linux platform without licensing cost."
"The long-term support provided by AlmaLinux helps my business by ensuring that we do not have to renew our servers every four to five years."
"Positively, I can say that AlmaLinux has brought a sense of stability, and besides the security patches, we also noticed better virtualization for our use cases."
"AlmaLinux provides free updates and security, unlike Red Hat, where support must be purchased separately."
"The most valuable feature I find in AlmaLinux is the binary compatibility with RHEL and the long-term stability, which makes it a predictable, rock-solid system behavior, while also having small and safe packaging for subsystems or systems that run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week."
"I use the tool with Nmap to perform network audits. We use it to find vulnerabilities in our network through attacks. It's for those who want to launch or create viruses or perform attacks on systems. With Kali Linux, you can conduct penetration testing for networks, web applications, and Android mobile apps."
"The interface is good and straightforward to use."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is very easy to use."
"The outcomes from using Kali Linux in our organization are significant; we experienced reduced cybersecurity attacks and improved application security, leading to decreased attack surfaces and quicker testing cycles that enabled faster launches and installations."
"The solution's stability is very good."
"Kali Linux offers excellent features including being lightweight with low memory usage, easy installation, portability, and multiple architectures such as ARM architecture and server architecture."
"If you are looking for faster, better performance or scalability, then Kali Linux is the best."
"The most effective features of Kali Linux include its stability as a Linux operating system, its flexibility in configuring resources such as partitions, its powerful and stable file system, and its multi-user capability, which allows for setting user privileges and rights. Additionally, Kali Linux provides access to a wide range of free and open-source applications for testing and development purposes."
 

Cons

"If AlmaLinux could provide ten to twenty years of fixes, that would be an improvement because I do not want to update the system all the time, as it becomes more challenging for me as a system administrator to track all the patches and everything I should patch on the system."
"One area for improvement with AlmaLinux is the use of SELinux to secure and harden my server, which I find to be a complicated beast."
"After six months of migration, we ended up using more resources for the same websites, and that's not acceptable."
"I would like for them to offer more features for the free version in order for users to test them in their internal environment before purchasing."
"Increasing the tutorials and the help inside Kali Linux would make it more useful."
"Some tools in Kali Linux lack documentation and details on how to use them, which is one area where it can be improved."
"From an improvement perspective, Kali Linux could include more ML to help with academic literature, as it is one of the areas where there are shortcomings in the solution."
"I think Kali Linux can be improved because it is not a beginner-friendly operating system."
"I face significant challenges with Kali Linux regarding a major issue with the Grub loader becoming corrupted, which makes it very difficult to recover data."
"I face significant challenges with Kali Linux regarding a major issue with the Grub loader becoming corrupted, which makes it very difficult to recover data."
"There can be some lagging issues because the product gets stuck at times, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing fee is expensive compared to other products."
"The tool is open-source."
"Kali Linux is open source."
"I have used the free version."
"The price is good because Kali Linux already provides a good bundle of tools."
"There is no need to make any payments towards the licensing costs since it is a solution that is available for free."
"Kali Linux is a free product, and you don't have to pay for a license."
"I use it free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
8%
University
14%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Educational Organization
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlmaLinux?
AlmaLinux is free, so there are no costs there. The open source licensing helps a lot, and the setup cost is just my own time invested in learning the platform.
What needs improvement with AlmaLinux?
I would like to see better tools in terms of memory consumption with AlmaLinux. I would like to know what processes exactly are consuming how much memory and have better core dumps or system core d...
What is your primary use case for AlmaLinux?
I provide hosting and email services for customers using AlmaLinux. Most of our customers are using Plesk for managing their domains, and some servers end up having 300 or 400 domains, while others...
What do you like most about Kali Linux?
I use the tool with Nmap to perform network audits. We use it to find vulnerabilities in our network through attacks. It's for those who want to launch or create viruses or perform attacks on syste...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kali Linux?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Kali Linux has been that it was free to use.
What needs improvement with Kali Linux?
I think Kali Linux is good, but there is a widespread misunderstanding related to Kali Linux because many people believe Kali Linux is a tool for hackers and that anything can be hacked using it. T...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AlmaLinux OS 8 (x86_64), AlmaLinux OS 10 (x86_64)
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about AlmaLinux vs. Kali Linux and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,707 professionals have used our research since 2012.