AlmaLinux OS vs Alpine Linux
| AlmaLinux OS | Alpine Linux | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Free trial | No | No |
| Paid from | Free | — |
| Open source | No | No |
| Platforms | Linux, self-hosted, Windows | Linux |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Device types | Servers, workstations, virtual machines, cloud instances, containers, Raspberry Pi devices, WSL environments | Physical computers, Raspberry Pi, routers, servers, virtual machines, cloud images, containers and chroots |
| CPU architectures | x86_64, aarch64, ppc64le, s390x; some releases also list x86_64_v2 and i686 userspace | aarch64, armhf, armv7, loongarch64, ppc64le, riscv64, s390x, x86, x86_64 |
| Support lifecycle | About 10 years per major version; minor versions reach end of life when the next minor version is released | Main repository typically supported for 2 years; community repository until the next stable release |
| Built-in management | DNF package updates and updateinfo errata; cloud images support cloud-init initialization | — |
| App compatibility | RPM/DNF package repositories; Docker and OCI container images; UBI-compatible image variants; WSL supports Linux command-line and GUI apps | — |
| Deployment models | Bare metal installation, virtual machines, cloud images, containers, live media, Vagrant boxes, Incus/LXC, WSL, Raspberry Pi | Physical installation images, cloud images, virtual-system images, container and chroot root filesystems, netboot, Raspberry Pi and Xen Dom0 |
Both are listed in Best Operating Systems. On Inferse, AlmaLinux OS scores higher on our published basis.