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CentOS vs openSUSE Leap comparison

 

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
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
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 CentOS is 5.0%, up from 4.6% 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 (%)
CentOS5.0%
openSUSE Leap4.6%
Other90.4%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Mohammad Wasif - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure Engineer at Trigyn Technology
Has supported reliable deployments and simplified issue resolution in complex environments
The most suitable feature of CentOS is its exceptional stability, security, and long-term support, which make it a popular choice for enterprise and server environments. CentOS is widely recognized for providing a stable and secure platform, especially suited for server and mission-critical workloads. Whenever we face critical work, it is easy for our team to handle. For long-term support, each CentOS release generally guarantees long-term updates, ensuring reliability for extended periods. For package management, we use YUM and DNF in the new version for flexible and efficient software management. It depends on our users' requirements for installing CentOS. Licensing for CentOS is above my management details, so I am not aware of this information. CentOS always provides good feedback, is easy to handle, and easy to troubleshoot. The experience with CentOS OS has been very good over the last two months. I rate CentOS nine out of ten.
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

"Setup is straightforward. You can complete it in about 30 minutes."
"Asus technical support is very efficient."
"CentOS is very efficient and very powerful with many capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the stability and performance of the server."
"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 solution is easy to integrate with other applications and with other services."
"It is a scalable and cost-effective product compared to public cloud solutions."
"The ROI is incalculable. We could not do our business without CentOS/Red Hat."
"openSUSE Leap has helped me with using containers in Podman."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"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."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
 

Cons

"They're changing how they're working, and I really enjoy the easy updates. Now they're going to a streaming version, which I don't like."
"It could be more secure."
"If CentOS could add Office features then that would be beneficial. Additionally, the UI could improve."
"The solution could improve by making the management tools better for the DevOps teams. For example, WebEX and Webstacks."
"Continuous deployment is the only thing that can be improved."
"The price of CentOS could improve."
"CentOS, being Linux-based, is the best in security, but it needs more on the security side for CentOS RADIUS server."
"It is challenging to scale the solution when we have to increase the storage capacity from one end."
"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."
"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use the free, open-source solution because we cannot afford the price for Linux."
"Once you buy the license, Linux will provide you with yearly or monthly patches, so your systems will be scalable for a long time."
"The solution is not subscription-based, unlike Red Hat."
"The solution is open-source and does not have any costs or licensing fees."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs involved."
"There are no licensing costs for CentOS."
"CentOS is an expensive solution. There are other solutions that are rated at the top that are not expensive, such as Red Hat."
"This is a free solution."
"The cost of this solution was reasonable and it was within our budget."
"openSUSE Leap is an open-source solution that is free of cost."
"The solution is open-source."
"This is an open-source operating system that can be used free of charge."
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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
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
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 Business30
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

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

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about CentOS vs. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.