AlmaLinux vs Rocky Linux: Which One to Choose?

Hello everyone,
I want to share with you this extraordinary article that I found online where the author concretely analyzes all the aspects necessary to adequately evaluate which of the two RHEL-based distributions to choose. I personally decided to focus on Alma Linux even before reading this article and I am happy to have made this choice.
Below is the link to the article in question:
AlmaLinux vs Rocky Linux: Which One to Choose? (linuxiac.com)

It isnt so much about ‘which to choose’ but use what you are comfortable with. If opportunity is there and available - try both and review your needs. People will answer based on personal preference.

I chose Alma because Rocky at the time didnt work for me. Others are happy with Rocky. There are endless pros and cons online but I personally think its a lot of waffling. I dont want to use Ubuntu so Alma it is before at some point RHEL again.

Obviously both distributions are noteworthy. Unfortunately none of us own the crystal ball and therefore we cannot know which of these will become more established in the next few years.
We can only make predictions based on market feelings and our impressions while using them.

Alma on my end, however rocky is being delivered from centos officials plus community…on server I would say it’s okay to use both of them but on desktop that’s different tune… for desktop I would choose Alma hence for server too as I found easier to just get started eg less work involved… but both are great. It’s your personal choice.

If A is 1, then according to Benford’s law Alma undoubtedly wins. :slight_smile:

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@Ilia we value your opinion. I’m going with you’re good with Alma.

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I read this article but many important issues not covered.

My most important point is security.AlmaLinux OS comes with the CIS (Center for Internet Security) Benchmark. With CIS Benchmark, all users can configure their systems securely. There is even a tool called CIS-CAT that gives you a full report on all potential security issues. CIS Benchmark is available for AlmaLinux 8.4 and 8.5 beta.

The Rocky Linux 8.5 comes with the Network Time Security protocol for use with NTP and Secure Boot support. In addition to security measures, here are some other brilliant features of Rocky Linux 8.5:

Functionally, I don’t think it makes much difference. My concerns are more about sustainability.

I initially leaned heavily in favor of AlmaLinux because it had backing from Igor Seletskiy and CloudLinux. Igor is a smart guy and, from what I can tell, an extraordinarily ethical one who openly acknowledged that having a FOSS replacement for CentOS was in his own company’s business interests. His backing was a big reason for my initial support of AlmaLinux.

Greg Kurtzer, on the other hand, had brains, good intentions, and little else. That naturally led me to wonder whether the notorious tightwads in our industry would continue to support the project (in terms of $$$, not platitudes) after the initial lovefest.

I still have that concern, even though Rocky does have good corporate backing now. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to CentOS in 2014.

< rant >
It makes me furious when people use FOSS products to make money, and don’t pay something back to the organizations that make them available. I’ve watched too many good projects die slow, agonizing deaths.

If everyone who used CentOS commercially, for example, had contributed even USD $1.00 / month (or the equivalent in their local gelt) to the project, we would still have CentOS.

I was talking to one of my clients about the eventual need to upgrade his server (which is running CentOS 7 and cPanel). While I was talking about the tests I’ve been doing with Rocky Linux and Virtualmin, he asked what the costs were.

When I told him that Rocky Linux was free and community-supported, and Virtualmin was inexpensive, he told me to make sure we also contribute something to Rocky Linux if we go that route.

He gets it. Nothing is free.

And yet we have an entire industry that was heavily dependent on CentOS since 2004, but collectively couldn’t cough up enough money to keep the project on firm financial footing. People making tens of thousands of dollars a month from a free product couldn’t spare USD $5.00 of that to keep it afloat.

It pisses me off.

Whatever OS people choose, if they’re using it to make money and they don’t kick something upstairs to the organization that provided it, whether their talents or a tiny percentage of their gelt, then I call them bums: and our industry, unfortunately, is full of them.
< /rant >

In any case, I don’t think either OS is inherently better than the other. Rocky Linux had a lot fewer problems with Virtualmin than AlmaLinux did in my most recent tests, but the staff are working on those issues.

I guess what it comes down to is that if someone needed a Virtualmin server spun up today on a RH-compatible OS, I would say use Rocky Linux. A few weeks from now when the VM staff stomp some more bugs, I’ll probably say flip a coin between Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux.

But whatever choice they made, when they were done flipping that coin, I’d ask them to toss it upstairs to the project they chose.

Richard

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