They do, IMO. In fact, any Linux distro can potentially be used as a server OS, just some are more geared towards desktop use. But for basic tasks like web, ftp, ssh et all, normally any decent Linux distro will do.
Funtoo server side is based on LXD, a container hypervisor. Not as visually slick as some enterprise GUI solutions like ProxMox and unRAID, but fully functional 
Prior to making any huge changes in my home lab setup, I started running OEL 8 with Oracle’s cloud platform. It feels just like CentOS 8, for good reason, and it’s just as snappy. I’m still going to look into Debian myself just to see as it’s been a few years since I’ve ran it. I’m also looking at still running Stream, depending upon what ends up happening in the long run. All-in-all I’m quite excited to see what new players come out now that this change has occurred! Thanks for the great post @PhaseLockedLoop!
IMO, there should be a clear distinction between rolling-release “stable” and rolling-release “bleeding-edge.” In the former I would categorize OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Void Linux, in the later, Arch and Artix Linux.
Speaking of which:
Void Linux:
– +/- Rolling stable
– + Not a fork of anything
– +/- No systemd, uses Runit
– + Has an insane number of packages in its main repo, the ones surprising me being monitoring software like Zabbix, Prometheus, Icinga2, Nagios, Monit and more. Really didn’t expect those.
– + Absolutely rock-solid and fast package manager and great updating experience, proven by trial by fire
– - Lots of drama in the community
– + Always manages to get back together and keeps releasing a fantastic distro
– + Has A LOT supported platforms, including x86, x86_64, ARMv6l/v7l/aarch64 (of which there are a generic image, Odroid-C2, RPi 1-3 with support for 4 incoming, PineBook/Pro, Beaglebone, Cubbieboard2, USB Armory etc.), unofficial POWER support (ppc, ppc64, ppc64 little endian) thanks to q66.
– + Releases in both glibc and musl for all architectures, making for a total of 16 different releases
– + Void-mklive is an image/live/rootfs maker and installer if you want to easily compile Void from source
Alpine Linux:
– + Stable (LTS) for around 2 years with a focus on security
– + Not a fork of anything
– +/- No systemd, uses OpenRC
– + Very, very fast
– + Absolutely tiny, with 130 MB of space for a minimal install
– + Hardened Kernel
– +/- Musl-only version
– + Have I mentioned blazing fast? It’s fast, ok? APK is faster than XBPS and any other package managers
– ? Apparently used in a lot of docker images that don’t require glibc, because of how small it is
Void began as a test project for XBPS, but it was so simple and good that it became a good distro to stand on its own. It began as a desktop distro, but it is really solid as a server OS too and I’m planning to start many VMs at my “home data center” using Void and where I can get away with, Alpine.
More trivia: at work I will move any VMs and servers running CentOS 8 to Oracle Linux 8. First, because I’m lazy and centos2ol.sh makes the migration dumb-easy and it only takes 15 minutes at most, second because we kinda need some RHEL package compatibility (not for production, but for our staging / testing VMs) and third because OL is basically what CentOS used to be, if you install the normal kernel, but why would you do that, when UEK (“Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel”) is newer, arguably just as stable and is what Oracle tests the release with the most.
So I’m only here as a reminder to try to keep this thread on topic. Try to suggest linux distributions that are within the realm of “production use,” so please refrain from suggesting obscure linux distributions that don’t have enough community or professional support. I’m not saying that your favourite linux distribution isn’t good, but it needs to be applicable in the context of this thread.
Basically this.
The idea is what linux distributions are actually used by enterprises and can be easily supported.
If you want a drop-in replacement for CentOS and you’re using RHEL-things like oVirt, FreeIPA, OpenShift, etc, these are the only options that are remotely close IMO.
Distant 2nds if you’re simply using CentOS to do generic server things.
I wouldn’t consider Fedora a suitable alternative as the upgrade cycle is too frequent and stability isn’t there. FreeBSD and other linux distros are fine, but don’t really resemble CentOS in any meaningful way, so I wouldn’t consider them alternatives specifically to CentOS.
Right, I kinda forgot about this. I would personally arrange them in the following order:
Rocky sounds cool, but it is an uncertain project at this point in time.
*I put OpenSUSE in the second place because I know of its stability and praise in the enterprise, but as always, if I haven’t used it, I cannot vouch for it.
Has anyone tried Amazon Linux 2? How about Clear Linux as a replacement for CentOS in some cases?
I can. its praise is well earned and often highly understated. They have a strong leadership in the community and a couple really really really good devs in charge of most of their distro packaging and testing teams
How would you feel about collaborating on a project?
Depends on the project. Sounds interesting. You know how to reach me
Personally, replacing CentOS with Oracle Linux had been my approach at work for quite a while before even any idea of a rolling CentOS release. For the simple reason, that I can suggest clients to use Oracle Linux in production if they don’t feel like buying a RHEL license outright. With OEL, they have the ready option to upgrade to paid support.
I’m not a fan of Oracle the corporation but from a purely business perspective, it is the next best alternative. Feel like RHEL/CentOS is shooting themselves in the foot with this move.
We’re (well my dad; I’m tagging along 
) shifting from CentOS to openSUSE Leap for servers. Since the software my dad works on is made to run on lots of different *nix platforms, it’s easy to switch over and if SUSE does some shenanigans, then switching again will be no big deal either.
Tumbleweed is okay if you arent focused on 100 percent up time btw.
Yeah LEAP is pretty sweet. YaST makes you lazy lol
Yeah, Dad wants the bare-metal servers to be rock-solid so he can work. 
Dad is making me learn on the command line though. 
Plus teaching me Ansible now (have to even make my own playbook on a set of VMs, not just run his).
type in yast2 in the CLI
Baremetal… mmmm nah containerize your stuff. Makes it easier. Keep baremetal clean
havent gotten around to that. Just mucking around with KVM and dockers
Well the base OS has to run on the bare metal though? Most of his stuff he puts VMs for dev/testing, but it’s not the kind of stuff you put in containers; it’s made to run on big single-purpse computers. I don’t think I can say more though, partly because its way over my head.
UPDATE ALL:
RHEL 8 Free
Pros
Well tested software
Generally bug free
Continous security updates
Stability is king
Slow tested release cycle (con for me. con for some.. pro for others)
Cons
Backports
Incompatibilities between patches and software
Slow tested release cycle (con for me. con for some.. pro for others)
You have to mess about with registrations and keys though so that can be a paintrue theres a use case for everything. I wanted to run a VM for a torrent box but now that I found this. I have no need to
Do you have to mess about with registrations and keys though? Cuz what a pain.