Rocky Linux Surpasses RHEL and CentOS Stream in EPEL Usage – What the Numbers Reveal

Fedora recently released statistics on EPEL usage, revealing that Rocky Linux’s user base has surged dramatically in recent months, surpassing AlmaLinux, CentOS Stream, and even RHEL.

EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) is a volunteer‑driven community project that provides a high‑quality supplemental package repository for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and its compatible derivatives.

Rocky Linux is a distribution developed by the Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation; it was launched after Red Hat announced the end of CentOS development, and its name honors early co‑founder Rocky McGaugh.

Rocky Linux’s first stable release was in June 2021, just one year ago.

Examining EPEL access logs shows Rocky Linux appeared on the chart only in mid‑last year (purple). In just three months it overtook Oracle Linux; in five months it passed AlmaLinux; and recently it has surpassed both CentOS Stream and RHEL.

It is important to note that these statistics only count enterprise Linux systems that have enabled EPEL, which represents only a portion of all enterprise Linux users, so the data does not fully reflect Rocky Linux’s overall market share.

EPEL’s data also includes a “system age” metric, a number from 1 to 4 indicating how long the system has been installed:

1: a week or less

2: less than a month

3: up to six months

4: more than six months

Using the most recent two months as an example, the majority of Rocky Linux users accessing EPEL are new users, showing strong interest and a continuous influx of newcomers trying Rocky Linux.

As mentioned, the data’s scope is limited, but it still provides useful reference value.

Seeing these statistics, would you consider switching to this newly born Linux distribution?

Related link: https://pagure.io/mirrors-countme