I Migrated 12 CentOS 7 Servers to AlmaLinux 9 in a Weekend. Here Are the 5 VPS Providers That Made It Easy.

Why AlmaLinux Won the CentOS Succession — And Why It Matters for Your VPS

December 2020. Red Hat announces CentOS Linux is dead, replaced by CentOS Stream — a rolling-release distro that tracks ahead of RHEL instead of behind it. Every sysadmin running CentOS production servers (which was roughly 20% of all Linux servers at the time) suddenly needed a plan.

Two projects launched within weeks: AlmaLinux (backed by CloudLinux Inc., a company that was already making money selling CentOS-based hosting tools) and Rocky Linux (backed by Gregory Kurtzer, who literally created CentOS). Both promised 1:1 RHEL binary compatibility. Both delivered. But AlmaLinux won the adoption race for VPS hosting, and here is why that matters to you:

• Provider support is not optional, it is the whole game. If your VPS provider does not offer a native AlmaLinux image, you are uploading ISOs and doing manual installations. In 2026, Linode, Hostinger, RackNerd, and Kamatera all have one-click AlmaLinux 9 deployment. Rocky Linux? Availability varies. Check your provider before you commit.
• The migration tooling is production-tested. The almalinux-deploy script (for CentOS 8) and ELevate (for CentOS 7) have been used on over 1.5 million servers. I used ELevate on all 12 of my CentOS 7 machines. It is not a beta tool — it is the most battle-tested distro migration utility in the Linux ecosystem.
• AlmaLinux 9 support runs through 2032. That is a 10-year lifecycle. Deploy today, receive security patches for six more years without a major version upgrade. Ubuntu LTS gives you 5 years free (10 with paid ESM). Debian gives you roughly 5 years. AlmaLinux's support window is the longest free option available.
• RHEL binary compatibility means enterprise software just works. cPanel/WHM, Plesk, CloudLinux OS, Oracle Database, SAP, and every piece of software certified for RHEL runs on AlmaLinux without modification. No recompilation, no alternative packages, no "it should work but we do not officially support it" disclaimers.
• SELinux ships enforcing by default. Unlike Debian and Ubuntu, AlmaLinux has mandatory access control turned on from the first boot. For PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2 compliance, this is not a nice-to-have — it is a checkbox that AlmaLinux ticks out of the box.

The Migration Weekend: What Actually Happened to 12 CentOS 7 Servers

I am writing this section because every AlmaLinux article I have read talks about migration in theory. "It is easy, just run the tool." Here is what actually happened when I migrated 12 CentOS 7 servers to AlmaLinux 9 over a single weekend.

The Setup

Twelve servers. Three hosting cPanel/WHM with 40+ websites each. Four running LAMP stacks (Nginx, PHP 8.1, MariaDB 10.6). Two API servers with custom RPM packages. Three running miscellaneous workloads (monitoring, DNS, mail relay). All on CentOS 7, all past end-of-life, all accumulating unpatched CVEs every Tuesday.

The Process: CentOS 7 → AlmaLinux 8 → AlmaLinux 9

You cannot jump directly from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 9. ELevate takes you to AlmaLinux 8 first, then you run it again to reach 9. Each hop involves:

1. Snapshot the server (every provider on this list supports this, Hetzner charges extra)
2. Run sudo yum install -y elevate-release leapp-upgrade
3. Run sudo leapp preupgrade to generate a report of potential issues
4. Fix whatever the preupgrade report flags (third-party repos, deprecated packages, kernel modules)
5. Run sudo leapp upgrade and reboot
6. Verify everything works, then repeat for the 8 → 9 hop

What Broke

• Two servers had third-party RPM repos with hardcoded CentOS version strings in their repo URLs. ELevate flagged these in the preupgrade report. Fix: update the .repo files manually before running the upgrade. Five-minute fix if you know what to look for.
• One custom systemd unit file referenced /usr/lib/systemd/system/ with a CentOS-specific path that moved in AlmaLinux 9. The service failed to start after the 8 → 9 hop. Fix: update the path in the unit file. Took 15 minutes to diagnose because journalctl pointed right at it.
• Three servers needed SELinux relabeling after the major version jump. The fixfiles relabel command followed by a reboot resolved it. This added 10-15 minutes per server but was expected — the ELevate documentation warns about this.
• Zero application-level breakage. PHP 8.1, MariaDB 10.6, Nginx, cPanel, all custom Python scripts, all cron jobs — everything survived. RHEL binary compatibility is real.

What I Would Do Differently

For 8 of the 12 servers, the in-place upgrade was the right call — complex configurations that would have taken hours to recreate. For the 4 simpler LAMP servers, I should have just deployed fresh AlmaLinux 9 VPS instances and migrated the data. Would have been faster, cleaner, and given me newer underlying hardware. If your server config is straightforward, skip ELevate and go fresh. Use Linode's $100 credit to run both servers in parallel during cutover.

#1. Linode (Akamai) — Best for CentOS-to-AlmaLinux Migrations

Seven of my 12 servers were on Linode. The migration experience was the smoothest of any provider I used, and it was not close.

Here is what made the difference: Linode lets you resize a running instance's disk before migration. Two of my CentOS 7 servers were on 25GB plans that were 90% full. ELevate needs temporary space for the upgrade packages. On other providers, I would have needed to deploy a larger instance, copy everything over, migrate, then downsize. On Linode, I temporarily resized the disk allocation, ran ELevate, then shrunk it back. Saved me hours.

Both AlmaLinux 8 and 9 are available as native one-click images. StackScripts let me template my entire post-deployment configuration — I built one that installs Docker, configures firewalld, sets up fail2ban, hardens SSH, and enables automatic security updates via dnf-automatic. Took 20 minutes to write, saves me 45 minutes on every new AlmaLinux deployment.

The documentation library is what puts Linode at #1 for AlmaLinux specifically. They have dedicated guides for: CentOS-to-AlmaLinux migration, SELinux hardening on AlmaLinux 9, LAMP stack on AlmaLinux, cPanel/WHM deployment on AlmaLinux, and security hardening that covers AlmaLinux-specific firewalld rules. Other providers added the image to their dropdown and moved on. Linode built an ecosystem around it.

Key Specs

What Works for AlmaLinux Users

• Native AlmaLinux 8 and 9 images — deploys in under 60 seconds
• StackScripts for repeatable AlmaLinux server provisioning
• IP swap feature for zero-downtime migration cutover
• $100 free credit — run migration testing without financial pressure
• Best AlmaLinux documentation library of any VPS provider
• 9 US datacenter locations with Akamai CDN backbone
• Private network (VLAN) for free inter-server data transfer during migration

What Does Not

• $5/mo base plan (1GB) is too tight for cPanel — need $12/mo 2GB minimum, $24/mo 4GB for comfort
• Backups cost $2-5/mo extra depending on plan size
• No managed hosting option — you handle all AlmaLinux administration
• Shared CPU on base plans — noisy neighbor risk during ELevate upgrades (CPU-intensive)

#2. Kamatera — Best Enterprise AlmaLinux Infrastructure

Kamatera is the provider I moved my two most demanding AlmaLinux servers to — the ones running custom enterprise software that needed specific CPU and RAM configurations that no fixed-plan provider could match.

The pitch is simple: build your own server spec. Need 8 vCPUs but only 4GB RAM for a CPU-bound batch processing job? Configure exactly that. Need 32GB RAM with 2 vCPUs for a massive MariaDB instance? Done. Every other provider on this list forces you into predetermined plans where you pay for resources you do not use. Kamatera lets you allocate CPU, RAM, storage, and bandwidth independently. For enterprise AlmaLinux workloads where resource requirements are uneven, this granularity saves serious money.

AlmaLinux 8 and 9 deploy as native images. The 30-day free trial gives you a real server to test your migration on — not a credit that expires, an actual full-featured instance. I used it to validate that my custom RPM packages installed cleanly on AlmaLinux 9 before committing to the migration. When everything checked out, I migrated live data from my CentOS 7 server using rsync.

The management console is more complex than Linode's. You are configuring individual server components rather than selecting a plan from a dropdown. For a sysadmin who knows exactly what they need, this is power. For someone who just wants "a server with AlmaLinux," it is unnecessary complexity. Know which one you are before signing up.

Pricing Breakdown: What Enterprise AlmaLinux Actually Costs

Config	CPU	RAM	SSD	Price/mo	Use Case
Starter	1 vCPU	1 GB	20 GB	$4.00	Dev/staging
Web Server	2 vCPU	4 GB	40 GB	$18.00	LAMP + cPanel
Database	4 vCPU	16 GB	100 GB	$62.00	MariaDB/PostgreSQL
Enterprise	8 vCPU	32 GB	200 GB	$138.00	Heavy workloads

What Works for AlmaLinux Users

• Per-component pricing — only pay for the CPU, RAM, and storage you actually need
• Native AlmaLinux 8 and 9 images with one-click deployment
• 30-day free trial with full server access (not just credits)
• 13 global datacenter locations including 4 in the US (New York, Dallas, Santa Clara)
• Server cloning for rapid AlmaLinux environment replication
• Cloud firewall with per-server rules — complements AlmaLinux firewalld

What Does Not

• More expensive than fixed-plan providers for simple workloads
• Console UI has a learning curve compared to Linode or Hostinger
• No StackScripts equivalent — use cloud-init or Ansible for automation
• Bandwidth overage charges if you exceed your allocation

#3. Hostinger VPS — Cheapest cPanel-Ready AlmaLinux VPS

I need to be specific about what Hostinger is good at, because "AlmaLinux VPS" is a broad category and Hostinger fills exactly one niche perfectly: the cheapest way to run cPanel/WHM on AlmaLinux.

The math is simple. cPanel on AlmaLinux needs 4GB RAM minimum. Hostinger's base VPS plan: $6.49/mo, 4GB RAM, AlmaLinux native image. Linode's 4GB plan: $24/mo. Kamatera with 4GB: ~$18/mo. Hetzner with 4GB: $4.59/mo but no native AlmaLinux image. If your use case is "run cPanel on AlmaLinux as cheaply as possible with native OS support," Hostinger wins on price by a wide margin.

Three of my 12 migrated servers were cPanel hosts that I moved to Hostinger. The migration path was not ELevate — I deployed fresh AlmaLinux 9 instances, installed cPanel, then used cPanel's built-in transfer tool to move accounts from the old CentOS 7 servers. The entire process took about 2 hours per server, most of which was waiting for account transfers to complete over the network.

The caveat that every Hostinger review should mention but most do not: the $6.49/mo price is the introductory rate that requires a 48-month commitment. The renewal rate is roughly double. Calculate your total 4-year cost before committing. At $6.49/mo for 48 months, you are paying $312 total. That is still cheaper than Linode's 4GB plan for a single year ($288). But the renewal jump will sting if you are not prepared for it.

cPanel + AlmaLinux Cost Comparison

Key Specs

What Works for AlmaLinux Users

• 4GB RAM on base plan — meets cPanel minimum requirements immediately
• Native AlmaLinux image with cPanel-ready templates
• Visual hPanel for server management (good for cPanel resellers who are not Linux experts)
• Automated weekly backups included at no extra charge
• AI-assisted troubleshooting in the dashboard (surprisingly useful for basic issues)

What Does Not

• Introductory pricing requires 48-month commitment; renewal rate roughly doubles
• No StackScripts, no cloud-init, limited automation options
• Fewer datacenter locations than Linode or Kamatera
• No free trial — you pay the full commitment upfront
• Not ideal for non-cPanel workloads where you do not need 4GB base RAM

#4. RackNerd — Best Budget AlmaLinux VPS

$1.99/mo. Native AlmaLinux 8 and 9 images. KVM virtualization. That is the entire pitch, and for a lot of AlmaLinux use cases, it is all you need.

I run two RackNerd AlmaLinux instances as staging mirrors for production cPanel servers. The combined annual cost is $48. That is less than one month of a Linode 4GB plan. When I need to test an AlmaLinux package update, a PHP version change, or a cPanel patch before pushing it to production, I push it to the RackNerd staging server first. If it breaks, I reinstall AlmaLinux from the SolusVM panel (takes 3 minutes) and try again. The disposability of a $2/mo server changes how you think about testing.

During my migration weekend, RackNerd was where I tested the ELevate process before running it on production servers. I deployed a CentOS 7 instance, loaded it with a representative set of packages, ran ELevate to AlmaLinux 8, then again to AlmaLinux 9, and documented every issue that came up. Cost me $2 for that test environment. On Linode, the equivalent test would have eaten into my free credits. On Kamatera, I would have burned trial days.

The Black Friday and holiday deals make RackNerd even more compelling. Annual plans from $10-12/year for AlmaLinux VPS show up regularly. I bought three of them last November. One runs a DNS server, one runs monitoring (Uptime Kuma on AlmaLinux), and one is a general-purpose sandbox. Combined annual cost: $34.

Key Specs

What Works for AlmaLinux Users

• $1.99/mo — cheapest AlmaLinux VPS with native image support
• Black Friday deals drop to $10-12/year — multiple servers become throwaway cheap
• KVM virtualization with dedicated kernel (not OpenVZ — SELinux works properly)
• cPanel license add-on available from $15/mo
• Multiple US datacenter locations including Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and New York
• Quick OS reinstall from SolusVM — 3 minutes to a fresh AlmaLinux

What Does Not

• SolusVM panel is functional but dated — no modern API, no Terraform provider
• No cloud-init or StackScript equivalent — manual setup every time
• CPU performance is lower than Linode, Kamatera, or Hetzner on equivalent plans
• Support response times range from 30 minutes to 24 hours depending on load
• No snapshot feature — you need manual backups before ELevate migrations

#5. Hetzner — Best Raw Performance per Dollar (With a Catch)

I am listing Hetzner fifth despite having the best hardware specs per dollar on this page, and the reason is the single biggest frustration of my migration weekend: Hetzner cloud servers do not have a native AlmaLinux image.

Let me walk you through what that means in practice. When I needed to deploy an AlmaLinux 9 server on Hetzner, I had to: create a server with any supported OS, mount the AlmaLinux ISO as a virtual CD-ROM, boot from the ISO, walk through the AlmaLinux installer (text-mode or VNC), configure partitioning, networking, and users manually, then unmount the ISO and reboot. The whole process took about 25 minutes. On Linode, the same AlmaLinux deployment takes 45 seconds.

So why is Hetzner on this list at all? Because $4.59/mo gets you 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB NVMe SSD, and 20TB bandwidth. Once AlmaLinux is installed, you have the most powerful server on this page for nearly the lowest price. For database servers, Docker hosts, and any AlmaLinux workload that is memory-hungry, the hardware value is unmatched.

The Server Auction is where Hetzner becomes genuinely interesting for enterprise AlmaLinux. Dedicated servers from $30-60/mo do support AlmaLinux natively in the rescue system. Real hardware, not virtualized, with AlmaLinux deployed through Hetzner's installimage tool. If your AlmaLinux workload needs dedicated CPU (compliance requirements, consistent performance), the auction is the best value in the industry.

Hetzner also has a proper Terraform provider and cloud-init support, which means once you have figured out the AlmaLinux installation process once, you can automate it. I wrote a Terraform module that creates a Hetzner server, boots the AlmaLinux ISO, runs the kickstart installer via cloud-init, and delivers a configured server in about 15 minutes unattended. Not trivial to set up, but once it works, it works every time.

Key Specs

What Works for AlmaLinux Users

• 4GB RAM at $4.59/mo — best hardware value on this page
• 20TB bandwidth included — more than any other provider here
• NVMe SSD storage with strong I/O performance
• Terraform provider for automated AlmaLinux deployments
• Server Auction dedicated machines with native AlmaLinux support
• US datacenters in Ashburn (East Coast) and Hillsboro (Oregon)

What Does Not

• No native AlmaLinux cloud image — custom ISO installation required (25 min manual process)
• Only 2 US datacenter locations
• No cPanel partnership or hosting-specific tooling
• Email-only support with no live chat or phone
• Snapshots cost extra ($0.012/GB/mo)

SELinux on VPS: Why I Stopped Disabling It (And You Should Too)

I have a confession. For the first three years of my sysadmin career, the first thing I did on any new CentOS/AlmaLinux server was setenforce 0 followed by editing /etc/selinux/config to set SELINUX=disabled. I did this because SELinux broke things and disabling it made the errors go away.

I was wrong. Here is what changed my mind.

A client's server got compromised through a vulnerable WordPress plugin. The attacker got PHP code execution on the web server process. On a server without SELinux, that PHP process could read /etc/shadow, write to /tmp, initiate outbound connections to download additional malware, and escalate privileges through a local kernel exploit. On this client's server, SELinux was in enforcing mode. The compromised PHP process could not read files outside its web content directory, could not initiate outbound connections, could not execute binaries outside its allowed path. The attacker got code execution and then hit a wall. SELinux turned a full compromise into an isolated incident.

Every provider on this list runs AlmaLinux with SELinux in enforcing mode by default. Do not disable it. When you hit a "Permission denied" error, do this instead:

1. Check /var/log/audit/audit.log for the AVC denial
2. Run audit2why < /var/log/audit/audit.log to get a human-readable explanation
3. If it is a legitimate access, run audit2allow to generate a targeted policy module
4. Apply the policy with semodule -i

For compliance-driven environments — PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2 — SELinux in enforcing mode is effectively required. Running AlmaLinux with SELinux disabled is like buying a car with airbags and then removing them. The security hardening guide has a full SELinux configuration walkthrough.

cPanel/WHM on AlmaLinux: The Full Picture

cPanel officially lists AlmaLinux 8 and 9 as supported operating systems. In fact, after CentOS 8 hit end-of-life and CentOS 7 followed in 2024, AlmaLinux became cPanel's recommended OS. If you run web hosting, reseller hosting, or manage multiple WordPress sites through WHM, AlmaLinux is the expected platform in 2026.

Here is what the cPanel-on-AlmaLinux experience actually looks like across providers:

Provider	4GB Plan	cPanel Install	Transfer Tool	Total Monthly Cost
Hostinger	$6.49	Template available	Works	$22.48
RackNerd	~$5.59	Manual install	Works	~$20.59
Hetzner	$4.59	After ISO install	Works	$20.58
Linode	$24.00	StackScript available	Works	$39.99
Kamatera	~$18.00	Manual install	Works	~$33.99

The cPanel license ($15.99/mo from cPanel.net for up to 5 accounts, more for larger tiers) is the real cost driver. The VPS price almost does not matter compared to the license. That said, Hostinger and RackNerd keep the combined cost under $23/mo, which is competitive with shared hosting plans that offer far less control.

One important note: cPanel on AlmaLinux requires a fresh OS installation. You cannot install cPanel on a server that already has web server packages configured. If you are migrating from CentOS with cPanel already installed, use cPanel's built-in transfer tool to move accounts to a new AlmaLinux 9 server rather than trying to ELevate the existing server. I learned this the hard way — ELevate works fine for the OS, but cPanel's post-upgrade state can be unpredictable after a major version jump.

AlmaLinux VPS Provider Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AlmaLinux really a 1:1 CentOS replacement?

Yes. AlmaLinux is binary-compatible with RHEL, which means every RPM built for RHEL installs and runs without modification. I migrated 12 production CentOS 7 servers to AlmaLinux 9 and every application — cPanel, MariaDB, custom RPM packages, PHP with ionCube — worked without recompilation. The AlmaLinux Foundation, backed by CloudLinux Inc., maintains this compatibility as their core promise. Over 1.5 million servers have migrated since 2021.

Can I migrate CentOS 7 directly to AlmaLinux 9?

Not in one step. The path is CentOS 7 → AlmaLinux 8 (ELevate), then AlmaLinux 8 → AlmaLinux 9 (ELevate again). Each hop takes 30-60 minutes. The alternative I recommend for VPS: deploy a fresh AlmaLinux 9 server and migrate data manually. It is cleaner, faster, and you get newer hardware. Use Linode's $100 credit to run both servers in parallel during cutover.

AlmaLinux vs Rocky Linux — which should I choose for a VPS?

Both are 1:1 RHEL clones and technically interchangeable. The practical difference: AlmaLinux has wider VPS provider support (Linode, Hostinger, RackNerd, Kamatera all offer native images), while Rocky Linux availability is inconsistent. AlmaLinux is backed by CloudLinux Inc. (commercial company with revenue), Rocky Linux by a community foundation. I use AlmaLinux because more providers offer one-click images and faster security patch turnaround.

Does cPanel work on AlmaLinux 9?

Yes. cPanel/WHM officially supports AlmaLinux 8 and 9, and AlmaLinux is now their recommended OS. Minimum: 2GB RAM (4GB recommended), 20GB disk. I run cPanel on AlmaLinux 9 across three production servers with zero compatibility issues. Hostinger at $6.49/mo with 4GB RAM is the cheapest option that meets cPanel requirements with a native AlmaLinux image.

How long is AlmaLinux 9 supported?

Active support (bug fixes + security patches) until May 2027. Security-only maintenance until May 2032. That is a 10-year lifecycle. Compare: Ubuntu LTS gives 5 years free (10 with paid ESM), Debian ~5 years, Fedora 13 months. For servers you deploy and want to leave running for years, AlmaLinux has the longest free support window available.

Is SELinux worth keeping enabled on an AlmaLinux VPS?

Yes. SELinux ships in enforcing mode on AlmaLinux and provides mandatory access control that prevents compromised services from accessing unauthorized files or ports. Most people disable it at the first "permission denied" error. Do not. Use audit2allow to create targeted policies instead. SELinux is required for PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and SOC 2 compliance. I have a full walkthrough in the security hardening guide.

How much RAM does AlmaLinux need?

AlmaLinux 9 minimal install: 350-450MB idle. LAMP/LEMP stack: 1GB workable. cPanel/WHM: 4GB minimum. Docker or Java workloads: 4GB+ recommended. I run a production cPanel server on 4GB and it sits at 70-80% memory under normal load. Hetzner at $4.59/mo gives 4GB for the best value. RackNerd at $1.99/mo with 1GB handles lightweight LEMP deployments fine.

Should I choose AlmaLinux or Ubuntu for my VPS?

Choose AlmaLinux if: you are migrating from CentOS, you need RHEL binary compatibility, you run cPanel/WHM or Plesk, your enterprise software is certified for RHEL, or you need SELinux for compliance. Choose Ubuntu if: you want the largest community and tutorials, you prefer APT over DNF, or you are a beginner. AlmaLinux dominates hosting and enterprise; Ubuntu dominates dev and startup environments.

What actually broke during my CentOS-to-AlmaLinux migration?

Across 12 servers: two had third-party RPM repos with hardcoded CentOS version strings (5-minute fix per server). One custom systemd unit file referenced a path that changed in AlmaLinux 9 (15-minute fix). Three servers needed SELinux context relabeling via fixfiles relabel (10-15 minutes each). Zero application-level breakage. PHP, MariaDB, Nginx, cPanel, all Python scripts, all cron jobs survived without changes. Read the full migration story above.