Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Kali Linux vs Ubuntu: What are the differences?
Developers describe Kali Linux as "Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking Linux Distribution". 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. On the other hand, Ubuntu is detailed as "The leading OS for PC, tablet, phone and cloud". 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.
Kali Linux and Ubuntu can be primarily classified as "Operating Systems" tools.
Ubuntu is much more faster over Windows and helps to get software and other utilities easier and within a short span of time compared to Windows.
Ubuntu helps to get robustness and resiliency over Windows. Ubuntu runs faster than Windows on every computer that I have ever tested. LibreOffice (Ubuntu's default office suite) runs much faster than Microsoft Office on every computer that I have ever tested.
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)
At the moment of the decision, my desktop was the primary place I did work. Due to this, I can't have it blow up on me while I work. While Arch is interesting and powerful, Ubuntu offers (at least for me) a lot more stability and lets me focus on other things than maintaining my own OS installation.
Pros of Kali Linux
- Penetration testing tools are pre-installed7
- Has many penetration testing tools7
- Runs on both x86 and ARM platforms4
- Its just debian so it has better support2
Pros of Ubuntu
- Free to use226
- Easy setup for testing discord bot96
- Gateway Linux Distro56
- Simple interface53
- Don't need driver installation in most cases7
- Many active communities4
- Open Source4
- Easy to custom2
- Many flavors/distros based on ubuntu1
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of Kali Linux
- Outdated versions of common packages2
- Root GUI setup is a potential security hole2
- Packages are too large in size as compare to alpine2
- Wireless driver issues on some systems1
Cons of Ubuntu
- Demanding system requirements4
- Adds overhead and unnecessary complexity over Debian3
- Systemd1
- Snapd installed by default1
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
What is Kali Linux?
What is Ubuntu?
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
What companies use Kali Linux?
Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
What tools integrate with Kali Linux?
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+33