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AlmaLinux vs openSUSE Leap comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 5, 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
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
openSUSE Leap
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
25th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of AlmaLinux is 4.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of openSUSE Leap is 4.6%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
AlmaLinux4.2%
openSUSE Leap4.6%
Other91.2%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Naim Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at SMC Labs, LLC
Private cloud practice has become seamless and deployments run smoothly for my projects
I follow the documentation for AlmaLinux, which I believe could be more extensive for enterprise setups. My primary use case remains deploying private cloud infrastructure using OpenStack Yoga, thus suggesting improvements to cater to specific cloud instances like AWS Graviton or Azure NVMe. Driver or kernel updates for new hardware or cloud instances like AWS Graviton or Azure NVMe tend to arrive a little later in AlmaLinux than they do in the Red Hat distribution. Therefore, I suggest that faster releases of cloud-optimized images and updated hardware drivers could enhance AlmaLinux's competitiveness. Additionally, I find it sometimes difficult to find answers on forums due to the community not being as large as that of Red Hat or CentOS. My suggestion is to create an active forum or Q&A session where developers can directly address user problems, growing the community and providing optional enterprise support tiers for large organizations. Additionally, I have continued to consider improvements. For server administration and language runtime management, I encountered conflicts on production servers with older and newer versions of tools such as Python and Node.js. Simplifying the application space management would reduce the friction in multi-language development environments. Moreover, including more pre-configured or auto-remediation scripts like CIS Benchmark or STIG compliance would be immensely helpful for enterprise security hardening.
NK
Senior Manager at Cognizant
Provides BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots
I only use the tool for testing purposes on my team, but multiple people use it. We don't make a team effort to install the solution. When it comes to maintenance, we ask our company to buy SUSE Linux Enterprise. My team consists of 13 people. We are currently integrating the solution with Ansible to do some coding. Although not a full-fledged automation, we are integrating the solution with Ansible and executing a couple of playbooks connected to openSUSE Leap. I would recommend the solution to other users looking for an open-source solution. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best features AlmaLinux offers include its support, which is outstanding from TuxCare, as we are getting the fixes and patch sets for the OS very fast."
"I have seen a return on investment through significant time and money savings."
"AlmaLinux is a pretty fast software for handling those simulations and managing multiple jobs, and I can process my code and my simulation much faster than with Windows."
"Using AlmaLinux was a condition to do my job, and right afterwards, I have been enjoying it."
"AlmaLinux has had a positive impact on my organization because the fact that we can customize and offer clients system kernels that correspond perfectly to them, without them needing to go back over them afterward, has greatly satisfied them, and they were very happy."
"Overall, AlmaLinux is really good, easier as well, and I do not see much difference between CentOS and AlmaLinux."
"AlmaLinux offers the best features in that it is freeware for RHEL, and it is really reliable."
"AlmaLinux has delivered a significant positive impact on my organization through cost savings while maintaining enterprise-level reliability."
"This solution has helped my organization's security from the use of its firewall, and the features for blocking or allowing traffic are very effective and have worked well for us."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
"openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman."
"The solution is very stable after it is configured. It is hard to have a panel slow, a problem, misconfiguration, or any kind of loss function."
"The solution is easy for me to use because the backend is derived from FreeBSD and this is something I have been using for over 20 years."
"Leap has provided me with the ability to offer what I consider Enterprise class server O/S platforms to my smaller customers who are looking to improve their competitive stances without breaking the bank."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots."
 

Cons

"AlmaLinux could be improved by enhancing security and increasing speed."
"While AlmaLinux does not provide the same vendor-backed support experience as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the available resources are more than sufficient for many organizations and administrators."
"AlmaLinux could have more software options. For example, if I need some software from Windows or something similar, it is missing some tools."
"Regarding my experience today, I installed AlmaLinux 8, and everything is okay, but the significant problem is that AlmaLinux does not ship with Wi-Fi drivers."
"Despite being subscription-free and reliable, I find some complexities in the documentation and troubleshooting guides which are not as comprehensive as Red Hat's."
"I wish host access control in AlmaLinux could be made easier the way it was in CentOS because host access control was not working as expected in AlmaLinux during the initial stages."
"It is not supporting the latest hardware, so that is not good."
"AlmaLinux could be improved by addressing the slow adoption of new software and the dependency on Red Hat Enterprise Linux."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."
"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is open-source."
"openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost."
"The cost of this solution was reasonable and it was within our budget."
"This is an open-source operating system that can be used free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
22%
Educational Organization
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AlmaLinux?
In AlmaLinux, I do not have experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing.
What needs improvement with AlmaLinux?
In my opinion, AlmaLinux is already very good, so I do not know if it is really necessary to improve something that already runs very well, because better is the enemy of good.
What is your primary use case for AlmaLinux?
I have been using AlmaLinux in my organization for about two years. My main use case for AlmaLinux in my company is hardening and customizing Kickstart files to have a fully customized OS for the c...
Ask a question
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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. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.