CentOS is short for Community Enterprise OS. This is one of the leading Linux distributions for servers and it is well known as one of the most stable and safe Operating Systems available. CentOS is open-source software, so you can customize it in whatever way you see fit, adding and removing packages or altering the program code of all of them. It's also free to distribute and use, so you won't have to pay any license fees, meaning that the total price that you will have to pay for a server making use of CentOS will be lower than the price for a server running some other OS. What makes CentOS stand out among various other Linux releases is its huge developer society, which will help you discover the reply to any kind of question or problem you have. What's even more, each version which is released officially is supported for ten years, that is is longer than with any other OS. What this means is routine security and stability updates that provides a reliable software environment for all your web apps in the long run.