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Rocky Linux vs openSUSE Leap 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

openSUSE Leap
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
28th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Rocky Linux
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
19
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 openSUSE Leap is 4.4%, down from 6.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rocky Linux is 5.9%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Rocky Linux5.9%
openSUSE Leap4.4%
Other89.7%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

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.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Has supported critical applications and reduced infrastructure costs through community-driven updates
To improve Rocky Linux, providing releases for each package, firmware, and kernel more quickly would be beneficial. Currently, it takes more than one month to release a new package or kernel, so speeding that up would help reduce reported vulnerability remediations. Documenting the frequently asked questions and related issues in a PDF or Word document would be helpful so that everybody can refer to them, eliminating the need to post a question and wait for a reply, thus reducing time delay. Currently, there aren't many needed improvements, only the support aspect needs a little improvement. Everything else is going well and smoothly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 solution's most valuable feature is the BTRFS file system, which allows you to take snapshots."
"The most valuable feature by far has been the virtualization capabilities of the operating system."
"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."
"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."
"Stable - it just runs without the necessity to reboot."
"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."
"Rocky Linux has impacted my organization very positively because we migrated everything from CentOS and Windows servers to Rocky Linux, everything is clear, with good packaging, and now it's version 9.6, which is very important for us due to security problems since we are in Europe."
"Rocky Linux performs excellently in low-latency live streaming and content packaging workflows, as we use it for optimizing compatibility with the streaming platforms, utilizing an optimized kernel for networking, tuning profiles, IRQ affinity, security, reliability, and hardware and driver support."
"<p>Rocky Linux provides us with extended maintenance, security patches, and support lifecycle aligned with RHEL, making it highly reliable for critical systems.</p>"
"When we moved from Red Hat to Rocky Linux, we saved around 70% of the cost which was used for subscriptions, and that money is now used for other things such as middleware applications and monitoring applications including DataDog and Dynatrace."
"Rocky Linux is suitable for our needs... we have a very good team with high skills in Linux and development, and it works correctly with no enterprise cost or enterprise license."
"The best features Rocky Linux offers, in my experience, are its simplicity, which helps us troubleshoot effectively, along with enhanced security features, security hardening capabilities, and the ability to perform regular patches."
"Rocky Linux has positively impacted my organization by making things simpler, especially with not having to escalate privileges all the time using sudo as compared to Ubuntu flavors."
"In my opinion, the best features Rocky Linux offers are stability, compatibility, and community support, all of which I think are extremely necessary and essential for the distribution, and I find that all three pillars are very supported by Rocky Linux."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if we could easily switch from openSUSE Leap for testing to SUSE Linux Enterprise for production."
"In the future, the Active Directory could improve."
"There is room for improvement in the console."
"Somehow the change from OS12.x via 13.x to Leap was a bit bumpy and some old issues seemed to reappear."
"Like most Linux-based operating systems, the biggest challenge Leap faces is the GUI."
"I would like openSUSE Leap to have better link integration with Windows."
"The solution's audio integration for virtual machines could be improved."
"Perhaps in the future, we might meet some difficulties, which is why I said it might be a good idea to have support for Rocky Linux."
"The package versions can be quite older compared to other distributions such as Ubuntu."
"I chose a rating of eight out of ten because Rocky Linux must grow more; it is not as comparable to Red Hat, which is why I took off those two points."
"In terms of scalability, you need to have automation tools."
"Rocky Linux could be improved with API-based tools that would help our streaming environment be monitored using DataMiner."
"Rocky Linux could improve its documentation and onboarding for newer users, especially around troubleshooting SELinux and system configuration."
"Rocky Linux could be improved by having more integration with Kubernetes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Compared to the market prices of other tools, the solution has a very competitive pricing."
"The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
24%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Comms Service Provider
18%
University
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Rocky Linux?
Rocky Linux could improve its documentation and onboarding for newer users, especially around troubleshooting SELinux and system configuration. The documentation and example configurations regardin...
What is your primary use case for Rocky Linux?
My main use case for Rocky Linux is for QA and development, such as setting up environments, running automated test suites, validating services, and troubleshooting application behavior in a RHEL c...
What advice do you have for others considering Rocky Linux?
I would improve the documentation, troubleshooting tools, and integration guidance for modern DevOps, container, and AI workloads. Better migration guides and more real-world examples would also he...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Rocky Linux vs. openSUSE Leap and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.