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Centos vs Fedora vs openSUSE: What are the differences?
Introduction
In the realm of Linux operating systems, CentOS, Fedora, and openSUSE are popular choices. Despite all being derived from Red Hat Linux, they serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics. Below are key differences between CentOS, Fedora, and openSUSE.
Release Cycle: CentOS has a longer release cycle than Fedora and openSUSE, with major updates every few years. Fedora follows a rapid release cycle, providing bleeding-edge features and updates every six months. OpenSUSE offers a regular release cycle with a new version approximately every eight months, focusing on stability and user-friendliness.
Target Audience: CentOS is geared towards enterprise users and servers, providing a stable and reliable platform for critical applications. Fedora is designed for developers and enthusiasts who crave the latest features and technologies, making it a great testing ground for future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. OpenSUSE targets both desktop and server users, offering a balance between cutting-edge software and a stable environment.
Package Management: CentOS and Fedora use the YUM (Yellowdog Updater Modified) package manager, while openSUSE utilizes Zypper. Both YUM and Zypper are robust package management tools, but they have different commands and package repositories. CentOS and Fedora also support the DNF (Dandified YUM) package manager as an alternative to YUM.
Default Desktop Environment: CentOS and Fedora default to GNOME, which is a popular, intuitive, and user-friendly desktop environment. On the other hand, openSUSE offers users a choice between GNOME, KDE Plasma, and several other desktop environments during the installation process, catering to diverse user preferences.
Support Lifecycle: CentOS is known for its long-term support (LTS) releases, guaranteeing stability and security updates for up to ten years. Fedora, being more of a bleeding-edge distribution, only provides updates for a limited period after each release, typically around one year. openSUSE offers a dual approach with regular releases receiving updates for 18 months and long-term support versions getting support for up to 36 months.
Community and Documentation: CentOS has a strong community of enterprise-focused professionals and extensive documentation tailored to server administration. Fedora has a vibrant community of developers and enthusiasts who actively contribute to the project and provide excellent documentation for experimental features. openSUSE boasts a friendly community that is welcoming to both beginners and experienced users, offering comprehensive documentation and guides for desktop and server configurations.
In Summary, the key differences between CentOS, Fedora, and openSUSE lie in their release cycles, target audiences, package management systems, default desktop environments, support lifecycles, and community focus.
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Using Arch Linux for our systems and servers means getting the latest technology and fixes early, as well as early warnings for potential future breakage in other (slower) distributions. It's been easy to maintain, easy to automate, and most importantly: easy to debug.
While our software target is every recent Linux distribution, using Arch internally ensured that everyone understands the full system without any knowledge gaps.
Global familiarity, free, widely used, and as a debian distro feels more comfortable when rapidly switching between local macOS and remote command lines.
CentOS does boast quite a few security/stability improvements, however as a RHEL-based distro, differs quite significantly in the command line and suffers from slightly less frequent package updates. (Could be a good or bad thing depending on your use-case and if it is public facing)
Pros of CentOS
- Stable16
- Free to use9
- Reliable9
- Has epel packages6
- Good support6
- Great Community5
- I've moved from gentoo to centos2
Pros of Fedora
- Great for developers22
- Great integration with system tools10
- Represents the future of rhel/centos10
- Good release schedule9
- Reliable7
- Fast6
- Docker integration5
- Has SeLinux4
- Latest packages3
- Updated with Bleeding-edge software3
- Great for ops teams3
- Awesome community3
- Python distribution2
- Complies with International Standard2
Pros of openSUSE
- Stable4
- Lightweight for server3
- Snapshot2
- Rolling release2
- Reliable2
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Cons of CentOS
- Yum is a horrible package manager1
Cons of Fedora
- Bugs get fixed slowly from kernel side3
- Much less support from Wiki2
- Systemd2
- Boring2
- Less packages in official repository1
- A bit complicated1
- Learning curve for new users1
- Slightly difficult to install for beginners0
