CentOS is short for Community Enterprise Operating System. This is one of the top Linux distributions for servers and it is recognized as one of the most stable and risk-free Operating Systems out there. CentOS is open-source software, so you're able to customize it in whatever way you see fit, adding and removing packages or altering the program code of any of them. It is also free to distribute and use, so you will not have to pay any license fees, which means that the overall price that you will need to pay for a server running CentOS will be more affordable as compared to the price for a server running some other OS. What makes CentOS stand out among various other Linux releases is its huge developer community, that will help you find the reply to any kind of question or problem you may have. In addition, each version that's released officially is supported for ten years, that is is longer than with any other operating system. This means regular security and stability updates which will provide a stable software environment for all your web apps in the long run.