Rocky Linux vs AlmaLinux in 2026

TL;DR

Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux are both still free forever, both still real RHEL 10 rebuilds, and for most VPS, homelab, and CI workloads they behave identically: same kernel, same dnf repos, same SELinux policy, package versions within days of each other. The actual split happened in 2023, when Red Hat restricted public access to RHEL's source repository and the two projects answered it differently. Rocky held the line on strict bug-for-bug compatibility and built its own pipeline to keep sourcing RHEL legitimately. AlmaLinux dropped that goal on purpose and moved to ABI compatibility instead, which lets its team patch bugs on its own schedule rather than waiting on Red Hat's. If you already have one installed, this tells you which:

$ cat /etc/os-release | grep -E '^(NAME|VERSION_ID)='
NAME="Rocky Linux"
VERSION_ID="10.2"
$ rpm -q rocky-release 2>/dev/null || rpm -q almalinux-release 2>/dev/null
rocky-release-10.2-<release>.el10.noarch

The <release> number moves with every point release and mirror sync, it was not captured from a live box and is not a target to match. Only the package name (rocky-release vs almalinux-release) tells you which distro you are actually on.

Tested onRocky Linux 10.2 and AlmaLinux 10.2 (RHEL 10 family) Kernel6.12.x on both Test dateAugust 17, 2026 EnvironmentNone: no live VM, bare metal, or cloud instance of either distro was stood up in this session. This is a researched comparison, not a hands-on package-by-package diff, checked against each project's own documentation and release notes on the test date above.

The governance, source-access, and lifecycle claims below are checked against the primary announcements and documentation linked as they come up, not against a live box, since none of that is something a VM can confirm anyway.

What actually happened in 2023, the divergence in the title

Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux both started in 2021 as strict 1:1 rebuilds of RHEL, filling the gap Red Hat opened when it killed CentOS Linux and turned the CentOS Project into CentOS Stream, a rolling preview of the next RHEL minor rather than a downstream rebuild of a shipped one. For close to two years both projects rebuilt RHEL package for package from source that Red Hat published openly on git.centos.org, and the two distros were close enough to interchangeable that the comparison barely needed writing.

That changed on June 21, 2023, when Red Hat announced it would stop publishing RHEL source packages publicly on git.centos.org. CentOS Stream became the only public downstream point, and full RHEL source access moved behind a paid Red Hat subscription. Since a subscriber agreement restricts what you can do with those sources, this threatened the exact mechanism both projects depended on to keep calling themselves 1:1 rebuilds.

The two projects answered it in opposite directions. Rocky Linux, backed by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation (RESF), said it would keep the bug-for-bug promise: continue sourcing RHEL through channels that do not require agreeing to Red Hat's subscriber terms, and build tooling to automate the process so releases still land within about a week of RHEL's own. That tooling became Peridot, RESF's cloud-native, open source build system, which the project publishes along with its full pipeline so the rebuild itself is independently auditable rather than something you have to take on trust. AlmaLinux went the other way. In July 2023 the AlmaLinux OS Foundation announced it would drop the goal of exact bug-for-bug compatibility and target ABI (application binary interface) compatibility instead: anything compiled against RHEL keeps running unmodified on AlmaLinux, but AlmaLinux's own engineering team gets to ship a bug fix ahead of Red Hat when a fix is straightforward and Red Hat has not shipped one yet, instead of waiting for the identical upstream patch.

What the divergence actually changes on the system in front of you

For years the pitch from both projects was that they were the same system, down to file checksums and edge-case bug behavior. After 2023 that stopped being quite true, and the difference is worth understanding even though it rarely matters day to day:

Rocky Linux still targets true 1:1 binary compatibility. Per RESF's own documentation, packages are rebuilt from the same upstream sources RHEL itself builds from, through Peridot, with the pipeline published so anyone can reproduce the build independently rather than trust CIQ or RESF's word for it.
AlmaLinux targets ABI compatibility, not exact source parity. Package version and release strings can legitimately differ from RHEL's own, even when the compiled behavior is identical, because AlmaLinux's team may have rebuilt or patched a package on their own timeline.

The practical effect: if your workflow depends on verifying an exact package NVR (name-version-release string) against a known-good RHEL reference, for example in a regulated environment that requires provable parity, that is a supported and expected use case on Rocky. On AlmaLinux, the NVR might differ even when nothing is actually broken, because AlmaLinux shipped its own fix ahead of Red Hat's:

$ rpm -q --qf '%{NAME}-%{VERSION}-%{RELEASE}\n' openssl
openssl-3.5.<x>-<release>.el10

The exact release tag in place of <release> was not captured from a live side-by-side box in this session, and it is not the point: what matters is that the same query can legitimately return a different release number on Rocky than on AlmaLinux for the identical package, and that difference is not, by itself, a sign anything is wrong. It is the divergence doing exactly what each project designed it to do.

Governance: who is actually in charge of each project

Both distros survived 2023 as legitimately community-governed nonprofits with a commercial sponsor nearby, not as a company's clone wearing a community label, which is roughly the fear both foundations were structured to answer.

Rocky Linux is governed by RESF under a Technical Steering Committee and a board of directors, with a bylaw rule that no single company, including CIQ (the commercial support company Greg Kurtzer founded), can hold enough board seats alone to reach quorum. CIQ sells paid support and long-term support contracts on top of Rocky, similar in shape to how Red Hat itself monetizes RHEL, but the governance structure is explicitly built so the project outlives any one sponsor.

AlmaLinux is owned and run by the AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a 501(c)(6) nonprofit. Foundation membership is free, the governing board is community-elected, there is no controlling shareholder, and board meeting minutes and financials are published. CloudLinux funded the project's early years but does not control the foundation's governance.

Support lifecycle: this part is basically identical

Whatever you decide on compatibility philosophy, the support runway is close enough not to be a deciding factor by itself. Both distros inherit RHEL 10's own two-phase support model, and both land on the same two milestones: Rocky Linux 10 carries general support until May 31, 2030 and security support through May 31, 2035. AlmaLinux 10 carries active, full support until May 31, 2030 and extended security support until May 31, 2035. Same finish line, same halfway point, on both. Check each project's current lifecycle page before you commit a production system to either, since phase boundaries are the kind of detail that can shift with a point release.

So which one do you actually pick

If you need to say, for a compliance or contractual reason, "this system's behavior is provably identical to RHEL, verified through an independent and publicly auditable rebuild pipeline," Rocky's bug-for-bug promise is the one built to answer that question. If you would rather have the option of an urgent CVE fix landing a few days before Red Hat ships the identical patch, that is exactly what AlmaLinux's ABI model exists to allow.

For nearly everyone else, running a personal VPS, a homelab, a CI runner, or a lab box for RHCSA study (we covered what changed on the exam itself in the EX200 2026 changes guide), the two are functionally interchangeable day to day. dnf, systemd, and SELinux behave the same on both, and the decision is safe to make on community fit or documentation style rather than the ABI-versus-1:1 distinction.

Disclosure: the Vultr link below is a referral. You get 300 dollars of trial credit, usable for 30 days. This site gets a commission only if you stay active past 30 days and spend 100 dollars or more. That is the whole arrangement, both sides.

If you want to compare the two yourself instead of taking my word for any of this, that is the only version of this comparison I would actually trust: put the same workload on both and watch what happens. I keep a pair of throwaway lab boxes on Vultr's 300 dollar trial credit for exactly this, smallest instance of each distro, side by side, destroyed when I am done with them. If you have not gone through initial setup on either yet, the initial server setup guide covers users, SSH, and firewalld the same way on both. For a concrete look at how close the two actually are in daily use, our Docker install guide hit the exact same kernel-module gotcha on both distros, same fix, same commands.

If this fails

Both rpm -q rocky-release and rpm -q almalinux-release come back empty: you are not actually on either distro, whatever a VPS provider's template label claims. Check the provider's own marketplace listing for the exact image name, and re-deploy from the official Rocky or AlmaLinux listing rather than trusting a generic "RHEL-compatible" tag on a snapshot.
Migrating an existing CentOS Linux 8 or CentOS Stream box and the official conversion script (migrate2rocky or almalinux-deploy) fails partway: this is almost always a third-party repo the tool does not know how to reconcile. Disable non-default repos with dnf config-manager --disable before running the migration script, let it complete against a clean base, then re-enable and audit third-party repos afterward.
Two boxes on the "same version" report different package NVRs for the same package: expected between Rocky and AlmaLinux for the reasons above, not itself evidence of a broken system. Only worth chasing if actual behavior differs, not the version string.

Wrap up

Both are free forever, both are real RHEL 10 rebuilds run by community-governed nonprofits, and either one runs anything built for RHEL 10 without modification. The thing that actually changed in 2023 is a philosophy question, provable bug-for-bug parity versus faster independent patching, not a compatibility question. Pick based on which answer your workload actually needs, and if neither reason applies to you, pick whichever project's docs and community you get along with better, because for most of us that is genuinely the deciding factor left.