CentOS is an abbreviation for Community Enterprise Operating System. This is one of the leading Linux releases for servers and it is recognized as one of the most dependable and protected Operating Systems out there. CentOS is open-source software, which means that you will be able to customize it in whatever way you see fit, adding and removing packages or changing the code of any of them. It's also free to distribute and use, so you won't need to pay any kind of license fees, which means that the total price that you'll have to pay for a server making use of CentOS will be more affordable as compared to the price for a server working with some other OS. What makes CentOS stand out among other Linux releases is its huge developer society, which will help you get the reply to any question or problem you may have. Furthermore, each version that's released officially is supported for ten years, that is is a lot longer than with any alternative operating system. This means regular safety and stability updates that will provide a reliable software environment for your web applications in the long run.