When Red Hat, CentOS‘s Linux parent company, announced it was “shifting focus from CentOS Linux, the rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), to CentOS Stream,” which is essentially a beta RHEL rolling release Linux distribution, CentOS users were upset. When CentOS 8 users discovered they’d only get support until the end of 2021, instead of 2029, they were ticked off. Now, CloudLinux has come to CentOS 8 users’ rescue.
CloudLinux has announced it will provide updates and support for CentOS 8 through December 31, 2025. This gives CentOS 8 users a lifeline.
For organizations running CentOS 8 systems, this provides more time to work out the right Linux distribution. Otherwise, they’d be forced into a hasty decision for systems migration.
Of course, CloudLinux would prefer CentOS 8 users to migrate to its CloudLinux OS. This is a customized, business Linux based on CentOS and RHEL. It’s designed as a high-performance, lightweight server for multitenancy web and server hosting companies. Or, if not that, then CloudLinux’s own CentOS 8.4 fork, AlmaLinux.
But, CloudLinux representatives tell me they had many CentOS 8 users ask for support so they could have time to decide whether their next move will be to RHEL, CloudLinux OS, a CentOS 8.x fork such as AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, or even another branch of the Linux family entirely such as Ubuntu. So CloudLinux opted to keep supporting CentOS 8.
This new CloudLinux TuxCare Extended Lifecycle Service offering includes 24/7 support and updates for system components on Linux operating systems that are no longer supported by their original vendor — that is, reached their end-of-life date. CentOS 8 is an addition to TuxCare’s Extended Lifecycle Support that covers otherwise out-of-date Linux distributions such as Ubuntu 16.04, CentOS 6, and Oracle 6.
This service already has a long track record of developing, testing, and deploying security patches and package updates for Linux distributions. For security holes with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score of 7.5 or higher, the average patch delivery time is two days, which is better than the original vendor’s delivery time. CloudLinux is already supporting more than 100,000 CentOS servers.
The company hasn’t announced pricing yet, but they’ll be happy to talk to you about CentOS 8 support beyond its fast-approaching end of life. But, it appears that it will be affordable. For CentOS 6, TuxCare support starts at $4.25 per instance per month.
