Free Linux OS for the community, by the community
An Open Source, community owned and governed, forever-free enterprise Linux distribution, focused on long-term stability, providing a robust production-grade platform. AlmaLinux OS is binary compatible with RHEL®.
MigrateGitHub
Our GitHub organization contains source code and tools used to build AlmaLinux OS and related infrastructure.
Join our vibrant Reddit community, interact with other AlmaLinux OS users, receive updates, find and provide help.
Community chat
Join a real time discussion with other AlmaLinux OS community members, governance team and AlmaLinux OS developers.
Community forums
Ask questions, get answers and contribute community support to others in AlmaLinux OS community and developers alike.
About AlmaLinux OS
AlmaLinux OS is an open-source, community-driven Linux operating system that fills the gap left by the discontinuation of the CentOS Linux stable release. AlmaLinux OS is an Enterprise Linux distro, binary compatible with RHEL®, and guided and built by the community.
As a standalone, completely free OS, AlmaLinux OS enjoys $1M in annual sponsorship from CloudLinux Inc. and support from more than 25 other sponsors. Ongoing development efforts are governed by the members of the community.
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is a 501(c)(6) non-profit created for the benefit of the AlmaLinux OS community.
Get AlmaLinux OS
Cloud Images
AlmaLinux provides official images for cloud providers:
Amazon AWS
Generic Cloud
Google Cloud
Microsoft Azure
OpenNebula
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
Container Images
AlmaLinux provides official OCI, Docker and UBI compatible images.
Get Docker Image
Get OCI Image from Quay.io
Get OCI Image from GitHub
Live Media
AlmaLinux builds Live Media images for GNOME, GNOME Mini, KDE, XFCE and MATE options.
Get Live Media Image
Vagrant Boxes
AlmaLinux provides official images for Vagrant:
- Libvirt
- VirtualBox
- Hyper-V
- VMWare
- Parallels
LXC/LXD
AlmaLinux images are available for LXC/LXD.
Get LXC/LXD Images
Raspberry Pi
AlmaLinux builds Raspberry Pi images, and also with GNOME desktop environment.
Get Raspberry Pi Image
WSL
Run the AlmaLinux terminal environment on Windows.
Get AlmaLinux for WSL
Security
Errata
AlmaLinux OS Foundation publishes Errata to help users to determine what updates such as security issues and fixed bugs are available and their importance based on analysis.
OpenSCAP and OVAL
AlmaLinux OS provides SCAP and SCAP Workbench packages to audit your AlmaLinux system for security compliance alongside OVAL streams.
Software Bill of Materials
AlmaLinux OS has implemented SBOM into AlmaLinux Build System to make the build process more secure and possible to trace.
AlmaLinux OS provides a set of security features: Errata, GPG keys, Mailing Lists, OpenSCAP, OVAL, SBOM, and Secure Boot- read more.
Backed by
Production-ready
AlmaLinux OS is an enterprise-grade server OS and a stable Linux distribution with regular releases that come with a long support windows. You can rely on AlmaLinux OS to run any and every critical workloads.
Fully supported, always free
AlmaLinux OS Foundation members, sponsors and partners back the AlmaLinux OS with investments and long support commitments to ensure the distribution is free of limitations, fees and charges.
Effortless to switch to
Switching distributions is usually costly and time-consuming, but that's not the case when switching from CentOS and other RHEL® derivatives to AlmaLinux OS. Switching is easy - read how.
Commercial Support
Minimize your risk while getting the most out of your AlmaLinux systems
Platinum Sponsor
Cybertrust Japan is a provider of a comprehensive security certification services to various public and private entities globally, and offers comprehensive support for AlmaLinux users. Have also produced MIRACLE LINUX for nearly 20 years.
Platinum Sponsor, Founder
TuxCare, a division of CloudLinux Inc., the founding sponsor of the AlmaLinux OS Project, provides tailored support for projects of any complexity. Enhance the performance, security, and reliability of your workloads with extended updates, seamless FIPS compliance, and flexible pay-as-you-go technical support bundles.
Silver Sponsor
Confidently deploy AlmaLinux and all your open source packages with enterprise-grade, 24/7/365 support backed by guaranteed SLAs. Keep your mission-critical apps running smoothly with unlimited tickets and direct access to experienced enterprise architects who put your business first.
Answers to Key Questions
Anyone that requires an enterprise-grade linux distribution, without the need for a commercial license agreement. AlmaLinux OS is also a perfect replacement for anyone who has historically relied on the CentOS Linux releases to achieve computing objectives, and for whom CentOS Stream is not the right solution.
In July of 2023, we shifted our goal from being a downstream rebuild of RHEL to maintaining compatibility with RHEL. That means everything from software applications to kernel modules that work on RHEL will work on AlmaLinux. If not, we consider that a bug.
AlmaLinux OS 9.2 is in the processes of becoming FIPS-140 compliant. Read more in this blog post: FIPS Validation for AlmaLinux OS.
Alma means soul in Spanish and other Latin languages. Looking back, it is easy to see that Linux is as popular and pervasive as it is thanks to the efforts of a passionate, diverse developer community. That community is the soul of Linux, and everyone that relies on a Linux distribution is indebted to the efforts of the Linux community. That is why we called our distribution AlmaLinux OS.
The initial backers and supporters for AlmaLinux OS were already extremely active in the enterprise Linux ecosystem, and had significant experience with RHEL forks. They knew the impact that the loss of CentOS Linux would have across all industries, and had the means and knowledge and need to help the community move forward.
The AlmaLinux OS Foundation is a 501(c)(6) that was founded in March of 2021 to own and manage the AlmaLinux OS project. We have been involving the community since the beginning, and the governing board is chosen by members of the foundation. For as long as our community needs a free operating system in the RHEL ecosystem, AlmaLinux OS will be free and open.
Switching Linux distros can be a headache, but that is not the case when switching from CentOS 8 to AlmaLinux OS. Using AlmaLinux-deploy you can migrate to AlmaLinux in-place. If you are coming from CentOS 7, or need to upgrade between major versions, ELevate (developed and maintained by the AlmaLinux Community) allows you to migrate to, and upgrade AlmaLinux in-place.
Since AlmaLinux is binary compatible with RHEL®, your applications and services should be completely interoperable. You can rapidly migrate any number of servers using AlmaLinux-deploy.
If you are using CentOS 7 or 8 and need help upgrading and migrating, check out ELevate.
Each minor version of AlmaLinux reaches end of life when the following minor version is released, but stable and thoroughly tested updates and security patches will be shipped for AlmaLinux OS 8.x until 2029, and AlmaLinux 9.x until 2032.
It is the direct upstream for AlmaLinux OS 10 and is the primary point for the AlmaLinux community to engage and influence the future of AlmaLinux OS. Fixes and features land here first and trickle down into AlmaLinux OS as appropriate. It is the integration and collaboration point for AlmaLinux to its upstreams as well, such as CentOS Stream and Fedora. You can read more about it: AlmaLinux Kitten OS.
AlmaLinux OS in the Press
One of the most significant features of AlmaLinux is its binary compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). This compatibility ensures that software developed and tested on RHEL can be easily deployed on AlmaLinux without modifications, making it an attractive choice for businesses seeking a seamless migration path.
Despite Red Hat’s actions, it appears at least one of the RHEL clones is thriving and showing how open source can deal with similar threats.
Joe Brockmeier, an open-source community expert, and former Red Hatter, appreciates what AlmaLinux is doing. 'The AlmaLinux community has chosen to be the friendly fork.'
AlmaLinux announced that the distro’s latest and greatest, AlmaLinux 9.2, now has FIPS 140-3 certification, which means it has passed the Federal Information Processing Standard’s latest benchmark for validating the effectiveness of cryptographic hardware.
AlmaLinux was one of the first such alternatives, and it has quickly risen to the top of the heap.
AlmaLinux very quickly became the CentOS replacement to beat. 48 hours after Red Hat released version 8.5 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the developers released version 8.5 of AlmaLinux.
