The Verdict
Right off the bat we want to point out that the present line-up of distributions in our Roundup is quite unfair to the contenders. This is because in Clearos, Nethserver and Zentyal we have three modern business distributions competing with their more old-school counterparts. It’s not unlike comparing a marathon runner with a sprinter. While both class of athletes can be classified as runners, we all know it’s not the same thing.
Many of our tests, such as the USPS and the add-on services, and the ratings assigned to the different distributions, are also unfair for the same reason. Furthermore, we haven’t spent nearly enough time with each of the distributions in a production setup, and also have to contend with space constraints in these pages while providing a coherent comparison.
Old-school administrators who swear by distributions like Centos and Debian do so because of the level of control they have in shaping the distributions to their liking. They wouldn’t be impressed with the conveniences offered by the likes of Clearos, Nethserver and Zentyal, which can help you roll out complex server solutions in a fraction of the time. On the other hand, Debian and Centos can be used for just about any role on a server, while Zentyal is far more limited in its offerings.
We’re going to award the podium to the business distributions for their ease of deployment and administration, but that in no way takes away the usefulness and utility of the others.
If you want a low-cost server setup that’s supported for a long time, Debian would be your best bet. Each release is supported for three years, with another two years of LTS support.
A common gripe about Debian is that it features dated software, so Centos would have switched places with Debian if this Roundup had featured Centos Stream (the rolling-release iteration announced with Centos 8) instead of Centos 7. Zentyal finishes third because, even though it doesn’t really put a foot wrong, it offers the least number of server options.
With its vast number of commercial and free offerings, as well as the hardware solutions, it’s quite easy to set up and configure Clearos. But if you want all the convenience of Clearos – installation notwithstanding – without the associated cost, you can’t go wrong with Nethserver.