What is VzLinux, and when would you pick it over AlmaLinux or Rocky?

VzLinux is one of the less commonly discussed members of the “free RHEL-compatible distribution” family. It doesn’t come up in conversation nearly as often as AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, and for most general-purpose VPS users, it shouldn’t be your default choice. But it does have a specific, legitimate niche – this post covers what it is and when it’s actually the right pick.

What VzLinux is

VzLinux is a free, open-source Linux distribution maintained by Virtuozzo, a company best known for its virtualisation and container platforms (Virtuozzo Hybrid Server, and the OpenVZ project it also backs). Like AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux and Oracle Linux, VzLinux is built to be 1:1 binary compatible with RHEL – VzLinux 8 tracks RHEL 8, VzLinux 9 tracks RHEL 9, and it’s free to download, use and distribute without licensing restrictions.

Virtuozzo originally built VzLinux to give its own customers – people running Virtuozzo’s virtualisation and container products – a supported, RHEL-compatible OS to replace CentOS after CentOS Linux’s discontinuation. It’s since been made available to the public as a general-purpose distribution, not just as a Virtuozzo-platform-only OS.

Where it fits

VzLinux ships in variants tuned for different roles – including builds optimised for running as a container or virtual machine guest, and a general bare-metal build. That container/guest-optimised angle is really where VzLinux’s identity comes from: it’s built with Virtuozzo’s own virtualisation and OpenVZ-based hosting stacks specifically in mind.

If you’re running infrastructure built on Virtuozzo’s platform – for example, as a hosting provider offering OpenVZ containers, or managing VMs on Virtuozzo Hybrid Server – VzLinux is a natural fit: it’s built and tested against that specific stack, and you get Virtuozzo’s own tooling and support relationship if you need it.

When AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux make more sense

For a general-purpose unmanaged VPS that isn’t specifically part of a Virtuozzo-based hosting environment, we’d point most people towards AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux instead. The honest reasons why:

• Community size. AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux both have significantly larger user bases, more third-party documentation, and more community troubleshooting content than VzLinux. When something goes wrong at 2am, the odds of finding someone else who’s hit the exact same issue are much better with the bigger distros.
• Broader tooling and vendor support. Third-party software, control panels and management tools are more consistently tested against AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux, simply because they’re more widely deployed.
• No particular advantage outside a Virtuozzo stack. VzLinux’s RHEL compatibility means it will run general-purpose workloads perfectly well, but it doesn’t offer anything AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux don’t, unless you’re specifically using Virtuozzo’s virtualisation products or want Virtuozzo’s own support and tooling.

Our honest take: VzLinux is a legitimate, genuinely free RHEL-compatible distribution, not a gimmick. But it’s built for a specific audience – organisations already using Virtuozzo’s virtualisation stack. If that’s not you, AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux will generally serve you better simply on the strength of their larger communities. See our comparison of AlmaLinux vs Rocky Linux for help choosing between those two, or our dedicated post on what AlmaLinux is and what it’s best for.