Rocky Linux
By Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation
Rocky Linux is a free, community-maintained Linux distribution built to be bit-for-bit compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, created specifically to continue the role original CentOS played before Red Hat discontinued it in favor of…
Definition
Rocky Linux is a free, community-maintained Linux distribution built to be bit-for-bit compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, created specifically to continue the role original CentOS played before Red Hat discontinued it in favor of the rolling-release CentOS Stream. It aims to give organizations a no-cost, enterprise-stable alternative to RHEL that tracks RHEL's point releases closely enough to be a drop-in replacement for workloads certified against RHEL.
Overview
Rocky Linux was founded in 2020 by Gregory Kurtzer, one of the original creators of CentOS, in direct response to Red Hat's announcement that it would end the original CentOS project and redirect its focus to CentOS Stream, a rolling-release distribution positioned upstream of RHEL rather than as a stable downstream clone. That change left a gap for organizations that had relied on CentOS specifically for its free, exact compatibility with a fixed RHEL release, and Rocky Linux was created to fill that gap using the same general approach original CentOS used: rebuilding RHEL's publicly released source code into a freely distributable, trademark-stripped equivalent. Mechanically, Rocky Linux tracks each RHEL point release, rebuilding the source RPMs Red Hat is required to publish under its open-source licensing obligations into packages that install and behave identically to their RHEL counterparts. This means software certified to run on a specific RHEL version can generally run unmodified on the corresponding Rocky Linux release, and system administrators familiar with RHEL's tools, package format, and configuration conventions can operate Rocky Linux with essentially no relearning. The project is governed by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation, a nonprofit structure intended to prevent the kind of single-vendor policy change that ended original CentOS from happening again. Rocky Linux's closest comparison is AlmaLinux, another RHEL rebuild that emerged around the same time for the same reason, and the two are frequently evaluated together by organizations choosing a free RHEL-compatible distribution; they differ mainly in governance structure and specific sponsor relationships rather than in core technical approach. Both differ from CentOS Stream, which, despite carrying a similar name, no longer serves as a stable downstream RHEL equivalent, and from Red Hat Enterprise Linux itself, which requires a paid subscription for support and certain repositories. In practice, organizations that previously ran production workloads on original CentOS have largely migrated to Rocky Linux to preserve free, RHEL-compatible infrastructure without a support contract, particularly in cases where the software running on the system requires RHEL certification or the organization values RHEL-identical behavior without licensing costs. It is common in web hosting, on-premises enterprise infrastructure, and any environment previously standardized on CentOS. The trade-off relative to a paid RHEL subscription is the absence of official vendor support and access to Red Hat's certified hardware and software partner ecosystem, meaning organizations that need contractual support guarantees or vendor certification still need RHEL itself; Rocky Linux's value is specifically for those willing to trade that support relationship for zero licensing cost while keeping RHEL-level technical compatibility.
Key Features
- Bit-for-bit compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases
- Rebuilt from RHEL's publicly released source RPMs
- Governed by the nonprofit Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation
- Free to use with no subscription or licensing fee
- Drop-in replacement for software certified against RHEL
- Familiar tooling and configuration for existing RHEL administrators
- Community-driven successor to the original CentOS project
- Regular point-release tracking aligned with RHEL's own release cadence
Use Cases
Alternatives
Frequently Asked Questions
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