Red Hat gutted CentOS in 2020, and after CentOS 7 reached its final EOL in June 2024, countless servers lost their free, stable foundation.Three distributions, depending on who you ask, are filling that gap right now, each with a slightly different philosophy.Here is how CentOS Stream, Rocky Linux, and AlmaLinux compare, and what each means for administrators today.
CentOS Stream The upstream sibling that inherited the CentOS name Of course, we'd be remiss not to mention the official successor, sort of.CentOS Stream still carries the CentOS name officially, and it is also the one that changed the project’s purpose most.On December 8, 2020, the CentOS Project announced that CentOS Linux would be discontinued in favor of Stream.
CentOS Linux 8 reached end of life on December 31, 2021, years ahead of its original 2029 date, and CentOS Linux 7 followed on June 30, 2024.No version of CentOS Linux receives updates today.The difference comes down to where each sits in Red Hat’s pipeline.
CentOS Linux was a rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) that arrived after Red Hat shipped a release.CentOS Stream sits upstream instead, acting as the development branch from which upcoming RHEL minor releases are built.Packages land in Stream before they reach RHEL, which makes it valuable for developers, contributors, and teams that want an early look at what’s coming.
That position is also its main limitation as a straight replacement.Stream is a continuously updated preview rather than a bug-for-bug copy of a finished RHEL release, so it can change in ways a production server may not tolerate.Its lifecycle is also shorter than a full RHEL one.
CentOS Stream 9 is scheduled to reach end of life on May 31, 2027, and Stream 10 on May 31, 2030.Stream remains free, and it suits certain jobs well.Development environments, continuous integration pipelines, and shops that want to validate software against the next RHEL minor release all benefit from it.
Anyone who needs the predictable, downstream behavior CentOS Linux once offered, however, is usually pointed toward Rocky Linux or AlmaLinux.In that sense, Stream is best understood as the successor to the CentOS brand rather than a true replacement for the CentOS experience.Rocky Linux A community rebuild led by a CentOS co-founder Close Rocky Linux was started by Gregory Kurtzer, one of CentOS’s original co-founders, shortly after Red Hat’s 2020 decision.
Its goal is to carry on the original CentOS mission: a free, community-driven, binary-compatible rebuild of RHEL.A beta arrived on April 30, 2021, and the stable Rocky Linux 8.4 followed on June 21, 2021.The project is governed by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, a Delaware public-benefit corporation that Kurtzer created.
Commercial support is available through CIQ, which gives organizations that need service-level agreements a paid option without leaving the free distribution behind.Rocky builds its releases using source code derived from RHEL, allowing it to track Red Hat’s own release cadence closely.Rocky Linux 10.0 landed on June 11, 2025, and version 10.2 followed on May 28, 2026, with the 10 series expected to be supported through 2035.
Red Hat’s later decision to stop publishing RHEL source code openly forced Rocky to find alternative ways of obtaining that code, a challenge that showed how dependent the project was on its upstream.Rocky has continued shipping on time since then.Hardware is one practical consideration.
Rocky Linux 10 follows RHEL 10 in requiring newer processors, so older CPUs that predate the Intel Haswell generation are no longer supported.For migration, the project provides tooling.The migrate2rocky script converts CentOS 8 systems in place, and the broader rocky-tools set handles conversions from AlmaLinux and Oracle Linux.
That makes Rocky a natural choice for teams that want the closest spiritual continuation of the original CentOS.AlmaLinux The first to ship, backed by a nonprofit foundation AlmaLinux was the first of the CentOS alternatives to reach a stable release.CloudLinux, the company behind the CloudLinux OS, released a beta on February 1, 2021, and the first stable version arrived on March 30, 2021.
That head start gave it an early lead with administrators who had to move off CentOS 8 quickly.Today it is maintained by the non-profit AlmaLinux OS Foundation, which gives it a governance structure that is independent of any single company.While AlmaLinux follows a similar release rhythm to Rocky, it targets Application Binary Interface (ABI) compatibility rather than bug-for-bug binary replication of RHEL.
AlmaLinux 10.0 was released on May 27, 2025, a couple of weeks before Rocky’s equivalent, and version 10.2 arrived on May 26, 2026.The 10 series is likewise expected to receive support through 2035.Where AlmaLinux stands out is hardware flexibility.
AlmaLinux 10 ships a default build targeting newer processors but also provides a separate x86-64-v2 build for older CPUs, along with rebuilt EPEL packages for that architecture, because many third-party packages target the newer baseline.For organizations running aging hardware, that matters.Migration is well covered too.
The almalinux-deploy tool converts CentOS, Rocky Linux, Oracle Linux, and even CentOS Stream systems to AlmaLinux without a fresh install, while the ELevate project helps with jumps between major versions.A direct CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux 8 conversion remains the simplest path, and moving to version 9 or 10 requires ELevate or a clean installation.Hosting is another strength.
Several 2026 comparison guides recommend AlmaLinux 9 or 10 for new cPanel servers, where Rocky Linux no longer works.Three paths, one clear dividing line CentOS Stream suits those who want to see RHEL’s future, while Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux suit those who want RHEL’s stability without paying for it.Hardware needs, hosting requirements, and governance preferences will decide between the last two.
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