RHEL-sourced · community-built · free forever
CENTOS
The operating system that rebuilt Red Hat’s enterprise Linux — for free, for twenty years. Stable like a bank vault, quiet like a humming datacenter, and today rolling like the stream it became.
What CentOS actually is
A free rebuild of the world’s most trusted enterprise Linux.
CentOS — Community Enterprise Operating System — takes the complete source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux and rebuilds it into binary packages, republished under the GPLv2. No subscription. No watermark. Just RHEL, rebuilt by the community.
For two decades that meant a binary-identical clone of each RHEL release: the distribution behind the first public clouds, countless datacenters, and a generation of sysadmins. When Red Hat pivoted in 2020, the name moved upstream — CentOS is now CentOS Stream, a rolling release that tracks RHEL’s development and ships months ahead of it.
Everything else stayed: dnf, systemd, firewalld, SELinux enforcing by default, and a 12-year support horizon. It is the safest free operating system in existence — and the most forgiving.
- Base
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux source (ASL)
- Repos
- mirrors.centos.org · 100+ mirrors worldwide
- Manager
- dnf — yum-compatible CLI & transaction history
- Init
- systemd, since the CentOS 6 days
- Kernel
- 6.12 (el10) on Stream 10 “Kandara”
- Desktops
- GNOME · KDE Plasma (default on Stream 10)
- Security
- SELinux enforcing · firewalld (nftables)
- Licensing
- GPLv2 · $0 per seat, forever
The three flavours
One name, three contracts. Know which one you are signing.
| Flavour | Model | Horizon | For | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CentOS Stream | Rolling — tracks RHEL, months ahead of it | Lives as long as its RHEL base (12 yrs) | Developers, cloud, k8s workers, testing the next RHEL | Current |
| CentOS Plus | Enterprise LTS — a “stable” CentOS | Version 12 → supported to 2030 | Regulated & long-lived estates, subscribers | Paid |
| CentOS Base (7/8) | Binary rebuild of RHEL — the classic | Ended. No further releases | Legacy estates — migration planning only | EOL |
# when people say “CentOS” today, they mean Stream — 10 “Kandara” is the current release.
The end of the classic
Two dates every CentOS sysadmin should tattoo somewhere.
The classic CentOS is over. The name is not.
Red Hat retired the binary-rebuild project: CentOS 8 stopped receiving updates on 31 May 2021, and the beloved ten-year LTS, CentOS 7, on 30 June 2024. Paid ESM keeps 7 alive until 2028. Forks — Rocky, Alma — carry the clone tradition; Stream carries the name. If you run a classic, plan the migration — don’t wait for the kernel.
7.x → Rocky 8 / Alma 8 → Stream 9 → Stream 10 · 8.x → Stream 9 → Stream 10
2024-06-30
2021-05-31
Where it runs
Five homes for a distribution that refuses to be a workstation.
Cloud instances
Shipped as a first-class image on every major cloud — boot to a hardened, RHEL-identical root in about forty seconds.
Kubernetes workers
Stream nodes run CNI and CRI stacks cleanly, and rolling upgrades keep them honest. The quiet workhorse of every cluster.
CI/CD runners
Cheap, repeatable build environments with the full RHEL toolchain — the same toolchain your production boxes use.
Edge & gateways
Lean profile, no GUI, one ISO to many gateways. When the box is in a rack in a warehouse, predictability is everything.
Home labs
Free RHEL for learning. Every forum answer, blog post and certification question written for RHEL applies here — at zero cost.
Held up by everyone
Governance moved to a community board; Red Hat funds a share of it.
The Stream project is governed by a community board and funded in part by Red Hat. Mirrors are run by universities, ISPs and volunteers on five continents — mirrors.centos.org will always redirect you to the healthiest one.