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Kali Linux vs Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Kali Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
27th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2775897 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Admin at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Runs consistently in production and supports reliable backend infrastructure workflows
Compared to any other offering in the Linux world, to me personally, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) is quite similar and doesn't really matter; it usually just works. The differences are usually in support and the Ubuntu Pro plan, which I do not have, but the same applies with Red Hat—you can run it free of charge, but then you lack the support, which is what I do with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) as well, so it runs the same as any other Linux distro. In terms of stability and reliability, I've had none worth mentioning or caused by something that wasn't in my own hands, so that's been fine so far. In my team, I have about seven people managing about 60 to 70 VMs across four different clusters and about 16 nodes. I spread them out very evenly and very thinly. User-wise, I don't really serve a company internally; I sell my service on the open market. I have no idea on the numbers of how many customers I have, but it's in the several thousands that use the machines or the service I host through my infrastructure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Kali Linux has positively impacted my organization significantly as it aids in red team work and penetration testing."
"Kali Linux has helped me significantly in simulating penetration testing and other activities, and since all the tools are open source, I can easily modify and customize them based on my needs."
"Kali Linux has positively impacted my work by facilitating and simplifying the setup for an operating system and installing tools."
"Kali Linux is a very good tool and a good overall operating system to use when it comes to penetration testing, as it has a wonderful set of tools."
"Kali Linux positively impacts my organization by allowing us to monitor changes and security posture for the company."
"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."
"Kali Linux stands out compared to other operating systems I have used for security work because it is a specific distribution of Linux that has all the required tools pre-loaded and configured."
"Kali Linux has the capability of real-time data scanning for vulnerability assessment for backend services, and that is actually very far more valuable."
"Honestly, if I had to say the best thing about Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm), as opposed to other Linux distributions, is that there is a lot of software that explicitly recommends running it on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) rather than other Linux distributions."
"Infrastructure as code, especially with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) or any other Linux distro, is key; if you don't have your IaC, you're going to spend forever maintaining it."
 

Cons

"Any new user or someone without deep expertise won't be able to understand how to scale or manage it"
"The installation process of Kali Linux can be slow, particularly when installing and upgrading packages within virtualized environments."
"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."
"There can be some lagging issues because the product gets stuck at times, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to have automation in Kali Linux instead of manually configuring or setting up something in case of an upgrade."
"I think Kali Linux can be improved because it is not a beginner-friendly operating system."
"The tool is slightly difficult to learn."
"Sometimes you need a graphical interface, it would be easier to start with if the AMI already have it installed and enabled it."
"The only thing I would say maybe could see some improvement is that every once in a while it can be a little bit of a hassle keeping the NVIDIA drivers up to date to prevent any kind of crashes or issues with the NVIDIA drivers."
"I would like to see repository clearance and clarity in the repository, as if you try to get anything from the canonical repo, there tends to be ambiguity in the descriptions and especially the versioning, which makes very little sense."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an open-source tool."
"The licensing fee is expensive compared to other products."
"The tool is open-source."
"Kali Linux is a free product, and you don't have to pay for a license."
"The price is good because Kali Linux already provides a good bundle of tools."
"I have used the free version."
"There is no need to make any payments towards the licensing costs since it is a solution that is available for free."
"Kali Linux offers a perpetual license, meaning you pay for it once and can use it. While free versions of Linux are available, Kali Linux, being an enterprise edition, usually comes with a perpetual license. I rate its pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Educational Organization
8%
Construction Company
38%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise17
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kali Linux?
It is open source. We do not need to pay anything. Most of the tools are open source, so we do not need to pay for licensing. There is minimum cost we have to pay, and based on our expertise, we ca...
What needs improvement with Kali Linux?
Kali Linux is an operating system plus tool, and it is a Linux-based product, so if we need to do anything for Windows, we do not have an option to use the same type of tool. If Kali could provide ...
What is your primary use case for Kali Linux?
I use Kali Linux for vulnerability testing, sandbox analysis, red team penetration testing, and checking vulnerabilities in the network, checking vulnerabilities with users, and red teaming proacti...
What needs improvement with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)?
Regarding room for improvement, I would like to see repository clearance and clarity in the repository, as if you try to get anything from the canonical repo, there tends to be ambiguity in the des...
What is your primary use case for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)?
I'm using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm). I've been working with Ubuntu for about seven to eight months now, and before that, I had a mix of Windows and Linux system administration, mainly with Red...
What advice do you have for others considering Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm)?
My advice or recommendation for organizations considering Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) is to always automate. There is a reason I always push for Ansible, Packer, and similar tools. Many firms st...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Kali Linux vs. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS - Noble (Arm) and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.