Updated May 11, 2023
Difference Between CentOS vs Ubuntu
CentOS vs Ubuntu are two of the famous operating systems for web servers in the Software Operation Market. CentOS is based on the Linux framework and a Linux distribution to implement a free, community-supported computing platform compatible with the corresponding upstream source, Red Hat Linux. Ubuntu is an open-sourced Linux distribution that is based on Debian. It is one of the popular operating systems for the cloud. It generally runs from the desktop to the cloud to almost all useful internet-connected things.
What is CentOS?
Centos is based on Linux distribution, which provides the computing platform and is functionally compatible with its upstream source. The Red Hat Enterprise Linux developed it as part of the Centos project. It was initially released in the year 2004. Centos became the most popular Linux distribution in 2010 for web servers, but later in 2012, it again reduced its popularity as Debian retook it by adding new features. Centos allows development in a dominant and one of the best Linux distributions. Centos is highly customizable, secure, and stable as well. It has several security corporate-level updates, making it the best choice for each user. Centos uses the Red Hat Yum, the update package manager, with the help of which it handles the update automatically whenever the new software has been installed.
Pros:
- It is based on a Linux framework.
- It is very secure and less prone to cyber threats.
- It also provides administrative from the system admin support perspective.
Cons:
- It is not user-friendly.
- From the gaming and entertainment support perspective, it’s less compatible.
- It usually doesn’t have that much support from the driver creation and storage management perspective.
- From the technical support perspective, it is also a little bit on the lesser side than that Ubuntu’s support.
What is Ubuntu?
Ubuntu was developed by Canonical Ltd, which is the Ubuntu community. It is free. It is available in more than 55 languages. It was initially released in the year 2004. Ubuntu has a rich set of package groups and features that can meet any requirement for the project. Ubuntu is mainly famous for running web servers and is used as another Linux distribution. It is the most popular among the top 1000 sites. It is being used in large-scale deployments as well. It is highly secured and supports full-disk encryption and other encryption like the directories of home and private. Ubuntu has released many different variants in the market to use for the desktop, server, and cloud.
Pros:
- It is open-sourced and free of charge.
- It provides lots of pre-installed software to the end-users for a better customer experience.
- It includes driver allocation and user-specific storage management features for the end users.
- It also provides external storage, USB ports, and external drive support.
- It has extensive community support and extends tutorials from the user’s learning perspective.
Cons:
- It is a bit wise to the hardware faults, sometimes making it unstable.
- Hardware support is also not very large, and that sometimes creates doubts in end users’ minds.
- In the case of Ubuntu, the security patches also perform well, but sometimes due to frequent updates, it is more prone to web threats.
- New-age PCs usually do not come pre-installed with Ubuntu and must be installed separately.
Head To Head Comparison Between CentOS vs Ubuntu (Infographics)
Below are the top 5 differences between CentOS vs Ubuntu:
Key Differences Between CentOS vs Ubuntu
Both are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major differences:
- CentOS is based on a Linux framework and distribution to implement a free, community-supported computing platform compatible with the corresponding upstream source, Red Hat Linux. In contrast, Ubuntu is an open-sourced Linux distribution based on Debian.
- CentOS is a more stable distribution than Ubuntu from the system stability perspective.
- Ubuntu provides more extensive community support than CentOS.
- From the learning perspective, Ubuntu has many tutorials and extensive documentation for primary knowledge purposes. In contrast, in the case of CentOS, it becomes difficult to progress the learning curve due to a comparatively more minor community and lesser documentation support.
- In the case of CentOS, the yum command can be used to download RPM packages from the library, whereas, in the case of Ubuntu DEB, packages can be downloaded using an apt-get package manager.
- Ubuntu is less secure out of the box, whereas Centos is more secure out of the box.
- Ubuntu is easier for beginners as it has less learning curve. Centos has a great learning curve and isn’t easy to learn.
- Those who require tremendous and latest features available frequently mainly use Ubuntu. Centos is a good choice for those who do not want to have frequent updates in the system.
- Ubuntu has larger and massive repositories because of its popularity and online community. Centos has limited and targeted repositories. Setting up the desktop with Centos will take a lot of time.
- Ubuntu always has newer packages, whereas Centos does not have new packages. It will maintain the old packages for the years.
CentOS vs Ubuntu Comparison Table
The primary comparison is discussed below:
| The Basis of Comparison |
CentOS |
Ubuntu |
| Definition | CentOS is based on a Linux framework and distribution to implement a free, community-supported computing platform compatible with the corresponding upstream source, Red Hat Linux. | Ubuntu is an open-sourced Linux distribution that is based on Debian. It is one of the popular operating systems for the cloud. |
| Architecture | CentOS architecture is mainly based on Red Hat’s source code to implement the core design similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and it is available free of charge. | Ubuntu packages are mainly created in the Debian format, and this package draws the basic architectural framework of Ubuntu through continuous improvement. |
| Support | There is a good amount of Community Support for CentOS and its end users. However, it is a bit lower than that of Ubuntu support. | Ubuntu server has extensive community support for cloud deployments and also toward its end users, and thus it is superior to CentOS from the support perspective. |
| Learning | CentOS is mainly based on Red Hat Linux. Due to a smaller community and lesser available documentation, it is a little harder to learn than Ubuntu. | In the case of Ubuntu, due to more considerable community support, it has many tutorials and books available in the market. Thus it has the upper hand of CentOS from the learning perspective. |
| Security | In the case of CentOS, it is based on the Linux framework and thus is much more secure and goes through 3 layers of security patches. It is also less prone to web security threats. | In the case of Ubuntu, the security patches also perform well, but sometimes due to frequent updates, it is more prone to web threats. Also, sometimes it needs to be downgraded to lower versions due to recent buggy updates. |
Conclusion
After comparing CentOS vs Ubuntu over a range of factors, it can be concluded that the two major operating systems simultaneously have their pros and cons while setting up the webservers for application development. Thus, based on the type of project need, time of work, and other discussed aspects, any of these two should be selected to reach the desired goal.
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