Frequently Asked Question

What is the Red Hat family and how does CentOS Stream fit in?

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the flagship commercial Linux distribution, sold as a paid subscription that bundles binaries, certifications, and long-term support. Below it sits Fedora, the fast-moving community distribution where new features (systemd, Wayland, PipeWire) are tried out before they migrate into future RHEL releases. The family uses .rpm packages and the dnf package manager.

For years CentOS was a free, bug-for-bug rebuild of RHEL, popular with organisations that wanted RHEL without the support contract. In 2020 Red Hat repositioned CentOS as CentOS Stream: a rolling preview of the next RHEL minor release rather than a downstream clone. The change upset many users, and the gap was quickly filled by Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux, two community-led, bug-for-bug RHEL rebuilds. If you need RHEL-compatible binaries without paying, Rocky and Alma are the modern answers.