Alternatives to Arch Linux logo

Alternatives to Arch Linux

Ubuntu, Debian, Kali Linux, CentOS, and Manjaro are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Arch Linux.
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What is Arch Linux and what are its top alternatives?

A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.
Arch Linux is a tool in the Operating Systems category of a tech stack.

Top Alternatives to Arch Linux

  • Ubuntu
    Ubuntu

    Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers. ...

  • Debian
    Debian

    Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software. ...

  • Kali Linux
    Kali Linux

    It is a Debian-based Linux distribution aimed at advanced Penetration Testing and Security Auditing. It contains several hundred tools which are geared towards various information security tasks, such as Penetration Testing, Security research, Computer Forensics and Reverse Engineering. ...

  • CentOS
    CentOS

    The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code. ...

  • Manjaro
    Manjaro

    It is an accessible, friendly, open-source Linux distribution and community. Based on Arch Linux, it provides all the benefits of cutting-edge software combined with a focus on getting started quickly, automated tools to require less manual intervention, and help readily available when needed. ...

  • Fedora
    Fedora

    Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system. ...

  • Linux
    Linux

    A clone of the operating system Unix, written from scratch by Linus Torvalds with assistance from a loosely-knit team of hackers across the Net. It aims towards POSIX and Single UNIX Specification compliance. ...

  • FreeBSD
    FreeBSD

    An operating system for a variety of platforms which focuses on features, speed, and stability. It is derived from BSD, the version of UNIX® developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It is developed and maintained by a large community. ...

Arch Linux alternatives & related posts

Ubuntu logo

Ubuntu

79K
468
The leading OS for PC, tablet, phone and cloud
79K
468
PROS OF UBUNTU
  • 230
    Free to use
  • 96
    Easy setup for testing discord bot
  • 57
    Gateway Linux Distro
  • 54
    Simple interface
  • 9
    Don't need driver installation in most cases
  • 6
    Open Source
  • 6
    Many active communities
  • 3
    Software Availability
  • 3
    Easy to custom
  • 2
    Many flavors/distros based on ubuntu
  • 1
    Lightweight container base OS
  • 1
    Great OotB Linux Shell Experience
CONS OF UBUNTU
  • 5
    Demanding system requirements
  • 4
    Adds overhead and unnecessary complexity over Debian
  • 2
    Snapd installed by default
  • 1
    Systemd

related Ubuntu posts

CDG

I use Laravel because it's the most advances PHP framework out there, easy to maintain, easy to upgrade and most of all : easy to get a handle on, and to follow every new technology ! PhpStorm is our main software to code, as of simplicity and full range of tools for a modern application.

Google Analytics Analytics of course for a tailored analytics, Bulma as an innovative CSS framework, coupled with our Sass (Scss) pre-processor.

As of more basic stuff, we use HTML5, JavaScript (but with Vue.js too) and Webpack to handle the generation of all this.

To deploy, we set up Buddy to easily send the updates on our nginx / Ubuntu server, where it will connect to our GitHub Git private repository, pull and do all the operations needed with Deployer .

CloudFlare ensure the rapidity of distribution of our content, and Let's Encrypt the https certificate that is more than necessary when we'll want to sell some products with our Stripe api calls.

Asana is here to let us list all the functionalities, possibilities and ideas we want to implement.

See more
Tassanai Singprom

This is my stack in Application & Data

JavaScript PHP HTML5 jQuery Redis Amazon EC2 Ubuntu Sass Vue.js Firebase Laravel Lumen Amazon RDS GraphQL MariaDB

My Utilities Tools

Google Analytics Postman Elasticsearch

My Devops Tools

Git GitHub GitLab npm Visual Studio Code Kibana Sentry BrowserStack

My Business Tools

Slack

See more
Debian logo

Debian

16.1K
164
The Universal Operating System
16.1K
164
PROS OF DEBIAN
  • 54
    Massively supported
  • 50
    Stable
  • 21
    Reliable
  • 9
    Aptitude
  • 8
    Customizable
  • 8
    It is free
  • 8
    Turnkey linux use it
  • 6
    Works on all architectures
CONS OF DEBIAN
  • 10
    Old versions of software
  • 2
    Can be difficult to set up on vanilla Debian

related Debian posts

Labinator Team

At labinator.com, we use HTML5, CSS 3, Sass, Vanilla.JS and PHP when building our premium WordPress themes and plugins. When writing our codes, we use Sublime Text and Visual Studio Code depending on the project. We run Manjaro and Debian operating systems in our office. Manjaro is a great desktop operating system for all range of tasks while Debian is a solid choice for servers.

WordPress became a very popular choice when it comes to content management systems and building websites. It is easy to learn and has a great community behind it. The high number of plugins as well that are available for WordPress allows any user to customize it depending on his/her needs.

For development, HTML5 with Sass is our go-to choice when building our themes.

Main Advantages Of Sass:

  • It's CSS syntax friendly
  • It offers variables
  • It uses a nested syntax
  • It includes mixins
  • Great community and online support.
  • Great documentation that is easy to read and follow.

As for PHP, we always thrive to use PHP 7.3+. After the introduction of PHP 7, the WordPress development process became more stable and reliable than before. If you a developer considering PHP 7.3+ for your project, it would be good to note the following benefits.

The Benefits Of Using PHP:

  • Open Source.
  • Highly Extendible.
  • Easy to learn and read.
  • Platform independent.
  • Compatible with APACHE.
  • Low development and maintenance cost.
  • Great community and support.
  • Detailed documentation that has everything you need!

Why PHP 7.3+?

  • Flexible Heredoc & Nowdoc Syntaxes - Two key methods for defining strings within PHP. They also became easier to read and more reliable.
  • A good boost in performance speed which is extremely important when it comes to WordPress development.
See more
Jason Martin
Senior PHP Developer at Orange · | 14 upvotes · 89.9K views
Shared insights
on
LaravelLaravelMySQLMySQLDebianDebian

For your purposes, I recommend @Laravel, or even @Symfony or @Yii, or whatever. In your use case, a framework is 100% indicated, because it will cut your boilerplate in half or more, and you'll have a pre-fab organization for files, classes and so on. Personally, I am not a fan of Frameworks, because they tend to take over your project like cancer and trap you. But for an internal app to manage stuff, it's probably the best idea to use one (preferably one you like).

When doing internal apps, your best bet is to stick the essentials and basics, try Laravel with MySQL on a nice Debian virtual machine. Can't go wrong.

See more
Kali Linux logo

Kali Linux

254
25
Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking Linux Distribution
254
25
PROS OF KALI LINUX
  • 8
    Penetration testing tools are pre-installed
  • 8
    Has many penetration testing tools
  • 5
    Runs on both x86 and ARM platforms
  • 3
    Its just debian so it has better support
  • 1
    There's no restrictions
CONS OF KALI LINUX
  • 3
    Wireless driver issues on some systems
  • 3
    Packages are too large in size as compare to alpine
  • 3
    Outdated versions of common packages
  • 2
    Root GUI setup is a potential security hole

related Kali Linux posts

Shared insights
on
Kali LinuxKali LinuxArch LinuxArch LinuxLinuxLinux

I do find Linux-based systems to be cool! However, I am confused when it comes to which Linux operating system to use. I cannot make my mind between Arch Linux and Kali Linux. Guys, give me some advice if you would be so kind.

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CentOS logo

CentOS

13.8K
53
The Community ENTerprise Operating System
13.8K
53
PROS OF CENTOS
  • 16
    Stable
  • 9
    Free to use
  • 9
    Reliable
  • 6
    Has epel packages
  • 6
    Good support
  • 5
    Great Community
  • 2
    I've moved from gentoo to centos
CONS OF CENTOS
  • 1
    Yum is a horrible package manager

related CentOS posts

Marcel Kornegoor

Since #ATComputing is a vendor independent Linux and open source specialist, we do not have a favorite Linux distribution. We mainly use Ubuntu , Centos Debian , Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora during our daily work. These are also the distributions we see most often used in our customers environments.

For our #ci/cd training, we use an open source pipeline that is build around Visual Studio Code , Jenkins , VirtualBox , GitHub , Docker Kubernetes and Google Compute Engine.

For #ServerConfigurationAndAutomation, we have embraced and contributed to Ansible mainly because it is not only flexible and powerful, but also straightforward and easier to learn than some other (open source) solutions. On the other hand: we are not affraid of Puppet Labs and Chef either.

Currently, our most popular #programming #Language course is Python . The reason Python is so popular has to do with it's versatility, but also with its low complexity. This helps sysadmins to write scripts or simple programs to make their job less repetitive and automating things more fun. Python is also widely used to communicate with (REST) API's and for data analysis.

See more
Shared insights
on
UbuntuUbuntuOpenStackOpenStackCentOSCentOS
at

Hello guys

I am confused between choosing CentOS7 or centos8 for OpenStack tripleo undercloud deployment. Which one should I use? There is another option to use OpenStack, Ubuntu, or MicroStack.

We wanted to use this deployment to build our home cloud or private cloud infrastructure. I heard that centOS is always the best choice through a little research, but still not sure. As centos8 from Redhat is not supported for OpenStack tripleo deployments anymore, I had to upgrade to CentosStream.

See more
Manjaro logo

Manjaro

155
35
An open-source Linux distribution
155
35
PROS OF MANJARO
  • 9
    Good for beginners
  • 8
    AUR is huge
  • 6
    Very stable
  • 5
    Friendly community
  • 3
    Pacman is very fast
  • 2
    Highly customizable
  • 2
    Nice-looking bootloader
CONS OF MANJARO
  • 6
    Would you give your grandma linux?
  • 3
    Occasional freezes if wrongly configured
  • 2
    Not highly stable
  • 1
    High data requirement frequently

related Manjaro posts

Labinator Team

At labinator.com, we use HTML5, CSS 3, Sass, Vanilla.JS and PHP when building our premium WordPress themes and plugins. When writing our codes, we use Sublime Text and Visual Studio Code depending on the project. We run Manjaro and Debian operating systems in our office. Manjaro is a great desktop operating system for all range of tasks while Debian is a solid choice for servers.

WordPress became a very popular choice when it comes to content management systems and building websites. It is easy to learn and has a great community behind it. The high number of plugins as well that are available for WordPress allows any user to customize it depending on his/her needs.

For development, HTML5 with Sass is our go-to choice when building our themes.

Main Advantages Of Sass:

  • It's CSS syntax friendly
  • It offers variables
  • It uses a nested syntax
  • It includes mixins
  • Great community and online support.
  • Great documentation that is easy to read and follow.

As for PHP, we always thrive to use PHP 7.3+. After the introduction of PHP 7, the WordPress development process became more stable and reliable than before. If you a developer considering PHP 7.3+ for your project, it would be good to note the following benefits.

The Benefits Of Using PHP:

  • Open Source.
  • Highly Extendible.
  • Easy to learn and read.
  • Platform independent.
  • Compatible with APACHE.
  • Low development and maintenance cost.
  • Great community and support.
  • Detailed documentation that has everything you need!

Why PHP 7.3+?

  • Flexible Heredoc & Nowdoc Syntaxes - Two key methods for defining strings within PHP. They also became easier to read and more reliable.
  • A good boost in performance speed which is extremely important when it comes to WordPress development.
See more
Fedora logo

Fedora

608
96
Operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project
608
96
PROS OF FEDORA
  • 23
    Great for developers
  • 10
    Represents the future of rhel/centos
  • 10
    Great integration with system tools
  • 10
    Good release schedule
  • 8
    Reliable
  • 6
    Fast
  • 5
    Has SeLinux
  • 5
    Docker integration
  • 4
    Awesome community
  • 4
    Updated with Bleeding-edge software
  • 4
    Latest packages
  • 3
    Great for ops teams
  • 2
    Python distribution
  • 2
    Complies with International Standard
CONS OF FEDORA
  • 3
    Bugs get fixed slowly from kernel side
  • 2
    Much less support from Wiki
  • 2
    Systemd
  • 2
    Boring
  • 1
    Less packages in official repository
  • 1
    A bit complicated
  • 1
    Learning curve for new users
  • 0
    Slightly difficult to install for beginners

related Fedora posts

Tim Abbott
Shared insights
on
DebianDebianUbuntuUbuntuFedoraFedora
at

We use Debian and its derivative Ubuntu because the apt ecosystem and toolchain for Debian packages is far superior to the yum-based system used by Fedora and RHEL. This is large part due to a huge amount of investment into tools like debhelper/dh over the years by the Debian community. I haven't dealt with RPM in the last couple years, but every experience I've had with RPM is that the RPM tools are slower, have less useful options, and it's more work to package software for them (and one makes more compromises in doing so).

I think everyone has seen the better experience using Ubuntu in the shift of prevalence from RHEL to Ubuntu in what most new companies are deploying on their servers, and I expect that trend to continue as long as Red Hat is using the RPM system (and I don't really see them as having a path to migrate).

The experience with Ubuntu and Debian stable releases is pretty similar: A solid release every 2 years that's supported for a few years. (While Ubuntu in theory releases every 6 months, their non-LTS releases are effectively betas: They're often unstable, only have 9 months of support, etc. I wouldn't recommend them to anyone not actively participating in Ubuntu the development community). Ubuntu has better integration of non-free drivers, which may be important if you have hardware that requires them. But it's also the case that most bugs I experience when using Ubuntu are Ubuntu-specific issues, especially on servers (in part because Ubuntu has a bunch of "cloud management" stuff pre-installed that is definitely a regression if you're not using Canonical's cloud management products).

See more
Marcel Kornegoor

Since #ATComputing is a vendor independent Linux and open source specialist, we do not have a favorite Linux distribution. We mainly use Ubuntu , Centos Debian , Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora during our daily work. These are also the distributions we see most often used in our customers environments.

For our #ci/cd training, we use an open source pipeline that is build around Visual Studio Code , Jenkins , VirtualBox , GitHub , Docker Kubernetes and Google Compute Engine.

For #ServerConfigurationAndAutomation, we have embraced and contributed to Ansible mainly because it is not only flexible and powerful, but also straightforward and easier to learn than some other (open source) solutions. On the other hand: we are not affraid of Puppet Labs and Chef either.

Currently, our most popular #programming #Language course is Python . The reason Python is so popular has to do with it's versatility, but also with its low complexity. This helps sysadmins to write scripts or simple programs to make their job less repetitive and automating things more fun. Python is also widely used to communicate with (REST) API's and for data analysis.

See more
Linux logo

Linux

3K
41
A family of free and open source software operating systems based on the Linux kernel
3K
41
PROS OF LINUX
  • 17
    Open Source
  • 11
    Free
  • 8
    Reliability
  • 5
    Safe
CONS OF LINUX
    Be the first to leave a con

    related Linux posts

    I use Visual Studio Code because at this time is a mature software and I can do practically everything using it.

    • It's free and open source: The project is hosted on GitHub and it’s free to download, fork, modify and contribute to the project.

    • Multi-platform: You can download binaries for different platforms, included Windows (x64), MacOS and Linux (.rpm and .deb packages)

    • LightWeight: It runs smoothly in different devices. It has an average memory and CPU usage. Starts almost immediately and it’s very stable.

    • Extended language support: Supports by default the majority of the most used languages and syntax like JavaScript, HTML, C#, Swift, Java, PHP, Python and others. Also, VS Code supports different file types associated to projects like .ini, .properties, XML and JSON files.

    • Integrated tools: Includes an integrated terminal, debugger, problem list and console output inspector. The project navigator sidebar is simple and powerful: you can manage your files and folders with ease. The command palette helps you find commands by text. The search widget has a powerful auto-complete feature to search and find your files.

    • Extensible and configurable: There are many extensions available for every language supported, including syntax highlighters, IntelliSense and code completion, and debuggers. There are also extension to manage application configuration and architecture like Docker and Jenkins.

    • Integrated with Git: You can visually manage your project repositories, pull, commit and push your changes, and easy conflict resolution.( there is support for SVN (Subversion) users by plugin)

    See more
    Rogério R. Alcântara
    Shared insights
    on
    macOSmacOSLinuxLinuxGitGitDockerDocker

    Personal Dotfiles management

    Given that they are all “configuration management” tools - meaning they are designed to deploy, configure and manage servers - what would be the simplest - and yet robust - solution to manage personal dotfiles - for n00bs.

    Ideally, I reckon, it should:

    • be containerized (Docker?)
    • be versionable (Git)
    • ensure idempotency
    • allow full automation (tests, CI/CD, etc.)
    • be fully recoverable (Linux/ macOS)
    • be easier to setup/manage (as much as possible)

    Does it make sense?

    See more
    FreeBSD logo

    FreeBSD

    249
    28
    An operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms
    249
    28
    PROS OF FREEBSD
    • 8
      Excellent as Server
    • 6
      Very Stable
    • 4
      Helpful community
    • 2
      Free to use
    • 2
      Extremely simple updates and compiles of kernel and use
    • 2
      Good for Cloud - Nextcloud
    • 2
      Ports and packages system is mature and well-supported
    • 1
      Easy to install
    • 1
      Supported by major cloud platforms
    CONS OF FREEBSD
    • 1
      Slower to adopt non-server hardware than Linux
    • 1
      Poor support for laptops, especially wireless cards

    related FreeBSD posts