The end of CentOS 8 and the distributions that replaced it

In December 2020 it was announced that CentOS 8 would end at the close of 2021 and that only CentOS Stream would continue – the branch ahead of RHEL, not behind it. For servers built on the assumption that CentOS is a binary rebuild of RHEL with the same support window, that meant a shorter system lifetime than the one they were installed with.

Two independent projects answered during 2021: AlmaLinux (stable release in March) and Rocky Linux (in June). Both rebuild the same RHEL sources and offer in-place migration from CentOS. The practical lesson for planning: picking a distribution is not only a technical choice but also a bet on who will still be releasing it in five years.