The CentOS Project produces two variants: CentOS Linux and CentOS Stream. CentOS was regarded as an enterprise-stable, production-ready operating system that had been cloned from Red Hat Enterprise Linux and that was the old CentOS. The new CentOS is called CentOS Stream, will take a similar approach to Fedora, which acts as an upstream source for Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
CentOS Linux
The CentOS Linux distribution is a stable, predictable, manageable and reproducible platform derived from the sources of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). CentOS Linux has been a community-supported distribution derived from sources freely provided to the public by Red Hat. It aims to be functionally compatible with RHEL and it has no-cost and free to redistribute.
CentOS Stream
CentOS Stream is a Linux development platform where open source community members can contribute to Red Hat Enterprise Linux in tandem with Red Hat developers. As part of Red Hat’s open source development model, Red Hat develops the Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code in CentOS Stream before releasing new Red Hat Enterprise Linux version making CentOS Stream a preview of future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases. CentOS Stream is an important part of the larger Red Hat Enterprise Linux source code development process:
- Fedora
- CentOS Stream
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux