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CentOS vs Flatcar Container Linux comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 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

CentOS
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Flatcar Container Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of CentOS is 4.7%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Flatcar Container Linux is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CentOS4.7%
Flatcar Container Linux0.9%
Other94.4%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

AnilKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Devops Engineer at EDAG
Cost-effective platform has enabled extensive test environments with rapid server expansion
The best features CentOS offers in my experience are that it is reliable, cost-effective, and easy to scale. When I mention reliability and cost-effectiveness, I explain that our product-based company uses a performance testing tool, so to generate load using the tool, we use CentOS generators, which are also known as VMs. We spin up a number of VMs in different locations such as Central, East, and West. If we purchase a subscription, it requires a good amount of money, but if we use CentOS, it is free of cost, and we can scale from more than 20 to 100 servers. The biggest benefit of CentOS for my organization is cost saving. CentOS has made a positive difference for my team and company by making scalability easier. For testing, sometimes we require 50 to 200 servers in different locations, and I can easily spin up and scale in and scale down.
YD
Senior Consultant at Capgemini
The solution is stable and allows us to make needed changes
The development teams could sharpen their skills.  They should offer applications on the net I have eight years of experience with Flatcar Container Linux. The version of Flatcar Container Linux that I am using is stable. The scalability of this product is fine. It allows us to make the needed…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's free — it's an open-source solution; it has all the features of Red Hat, but you don't have to pay for the subscription, and otherwise, it's pretty much the same as Red Hat Linux."
"The most valuable features of CentOS are it is built from Linux, has good performance, and can we can create scripts. The scripts are you to do minor work automatically."
"CentOS' best feature is that it's the standard product for Linux, so it's well-supported."
"The vendor updates the tool regularly to solve vulnerabilities."
"The solution is productive."
"The price is very good; once you buy the license, Linux will provide you with yearly or monthly patches, so your systems will be scalable for a long time."
"If I need to install a feature or fix a server issue, I can easily find answers online. The CentOS community is also vast and helpful."
"CentOS has positively impacted my organization in several ways: stability, reliability, and performance have improved our company cost-wise, especially moving out of paid operating systems for running distributed software."
"Flatcar's support is good, and the version I am using is stable and allows us to make needed changes."
 

Cons

"Initially, I found it a bit difficult to work with as it was a totally new platform as compared to CentOS 6."
"I think CentOS should introduce more security patches to fix different vulnerabilities."
"However, the problem with CentOS is there is no Microsoft Office."
"The solution could be a bit more user-friendly. In terms of commands, it's all CLI and there isn't any GUI which can make it challenging to use for some people."
"Often, the solution doesn't scale as you expect."
"More security features could be included in the next release."
"The server system is a little bit tough to manage."
"The stability could always be improved."
"The development teams could sharpen their skills. They should offer applications on the net."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I'm not required to pay a licensing fee."
"This is a free solution."
"CentOS is an expensive solution. There are other solutions that are rated at the top that are not expensive, such as Red Hat."
"There are no licensing fees for CentOS."
"There is no price or licensing required — it's open-source."
"It is open-source, which means it is a free product. It has a one-time deployment cost."
"The solution is open source so is free."
"There are no licensing costs for CentOS."
Information not available
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Comparison Review

it_user281973 - PeerSpot reviewer
Storage and VMware Expert at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Aug 24, 2017
It's improved our company's system environments that run Oracle databases.
Red Hat is mission critical to our environment Red Hat has improved the mission critical environments running Oracle databases, while CentOS has improved our web environment and MySQL. Oracle and SAP Environment and all HPC environments. 10 years No issues Very stable i don´t find any problem…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Comms Service Provider
26%
University
12%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise31
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which would you choose - RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or CentOS?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is fantastic. It is an inexpensive solution that has excellent security, performance, and stability, and also lots of features. I specifically like that the solution has fe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CentOS?
Regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing for CentOS, there is no cost for licensing or setup pricing, so it is easy to set up and scale up the server.
What needs improvement with CentOS?
CentOS can be improved, but I have not yet faced any kind of issue or hectic problem.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

CentOS 7 (x86_64) - with Updates HVM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
CISCO, mettle, Microsoft, Upguard, GMX
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Canonical, Rocky Linux and others in Operating Systems (OS) for Business. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.