Alpine Linux vs CentOS Stream
| Alpine Linux | CentOS Stream | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Free trial | No | No |
| Paid from | — | Free |
| Open source | No | No |
| Platforms | Linux | Linux, self-hosted |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Device types | Physical computers, Raspberry Pi, routers, servers, virtual machines, cloud images, containers and chroots | Servers, workstations, cloud instances, and containers |
| CPU architectures | aarch64, armhf, armv7, loongarch64, ppc64le, riscv64, s390x, x86, x86_64 | CentOS Stream 10: AMD/Intel 64-bit (x86_64_v3), ARM 64-bit (ARMv8.0-A), IBM Power (POWER9), IBM Z (z14) |
| Support lifecycle | Main repository typically supported for 2 years; community repository until the next stable release | CentOS Stream 10 maintained until 2030; roughly five-year lifecycle. CentOS Stream 9 end-of-life: 2027-05-31. |
| Deployment models | Physical installation images, cloud images, virtual-system images, container and chroot root filesystems, netboot, Raspberry Pi and Xen Dom0 | Physical-device installation media; cloud images; container images; Vagrant boxes |
| Built-in management | — | DNF repositories and package management |
| App compatibility | — | BaseOS and AppStream repositories; RPM packages; Xwayland compatibility layer for legacy X11 applications |
Both are listed in Best Operating Systems. On Freedom251, CentOS Stream scores higher on our published basis.