Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Debian

15.9K
11K
+ 1
164
Ubuntu

78.4K
57.7K
+ 1
468
Add tool

Debian vs Ubuntu: What are the differences?

Debian: The Universal Operating System. Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software; Ubuntu: The leading OS for PC, tablet, phone and cloud. Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

Debian and Ubuntu can be primarily classified as "Operating Systems" tools.

"Massively supported " is the primary reason why developers consider Debian over the competitors, whereas "Free to use" was stated as the key factor in picking Ubuntu.

reddit, Instacart, and Asana are some of the popular companies that use Ubuntu, whereas Debian is used by esa, Webedia, and Code School. Ubuntu has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1870 company stacks & 1753 developers stacks; compared to Debian, which is listed in 387 company stacks and 390 developer stacks.

Decisions about Debian and Ubuntu
Michaël SCHERER
Fullstack Dev at Synovo Group · | 10 upvotes · 43.1K views
Chose
UbuntuUbuntu
over
WindowsWindows

Ubuntu always let people do what they want to do, it pushes its users to know what they are doing, what they want and helps them learn what they ignore.

Ubuntu is simple, works out-of-the-box after installation and has a incredibly huge community behind.

Ubuntu is lightweight and open, in the way, that the user has access to free AND efficient applications (most of the time, without ads) and, even if learning its folder structure is challenging, once done, you are really able to call yourself "someone who knows what is in your computer".

Windows, in comparison, is heavy, tends to make decision for you and always enable tracking application by default. grr

It has a simple user interface, of course, but on the stability point of view, it is hard to compete with something simpler (even with less features).

Personal preference : I prefer something simple that works 99% of the time, than a full-featured auto-magical system that works 50% of the time (and ask if the good version of the driver is really installed...)

See more
Dimelo Waterson

Coming from a Debian-based Linux background, using the Ubuntu base image for my Docker containers was a natural choice. However, the overhead, even on the impressively-slimmed Hub images, was hard to justify. Seeking to create images that were "just right" in size, without unused packages or dependencies, I made the switch to Alpine.

Alpine's modified BusyBox has a surprising amount of functionality, and the package repository contains plenty of muslc-safe versions of commonly-used packages. It's been a valuable exercise in doing more with less, and, as Alpine is keen to point out, an image with fewer packages makes for a more sustainable environment with a smaller attack surface.

My only regret is that Alpine's documentation leaves a lot to be desired.

See more

Ubuntu is much more faster over Windows and helps to get software and other utilities easier and within a short span of time compared to Windows.

Ubuntu helps to get robustness and resiliency over Windows. Ubuntu runs faster than Windows on every computer that I have ever tested. LibreOffice (Ubuntu's default office suite) runs much faster than Microsoft Office on every computer that I have ever tested.

See more
Jerome/Zen Quah
Chose
UbuntuUbuntu
over
CentOSCentOS

Global familiarity, free, widely used, and as a debian distro feels more comfortable when rapidly switching between local macOS and remote command lines.

CentOS does boast quite a few security/stability improvements, however as a RHEL-based distro, differs quite significantly in the command line and suffers from slightly less frequent package updates. (Could be a good or bad thing depending on your use-case and if it is public facing)

See more
Simon Aronsson
Developer Advocate at k6 / Load Impact · | 7 upvotes · 280.2K views

At the moment of the decision, my desktop was the primary place I did work. Due to this, I can't have it blow up on me while I work. While Arch is interesting and powerful, Ubuntu offers (at least for me) a lot more stability and lets me focus on other things than maintaining my own OS installation.

See more
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More
Pros of Debian
Pros of Ubuntu
  • 54
    Massively supported
  • 50
    Stable
  • 21
    Reliable
  • 9
    Aptitude
  • 8
    Customizable
  • 8
    It is free
  • 8
    Turnkey linux use it
  • 6
    Works on all architectures
  • 230
    Free to use
  • 96
    Easy setup for testing discord bot
  • 57
    Gateway Linux Distro
  • 54
    Simple interface
  • 9
    Don't need driver installation in most cases
  • 6
    Open Source
  • 6
    Many active communities
  • 3
    Software Availability
  • 3
    Easy to custom
  • 2
    Many flavors/distros based on ubuntu
  • 1
    Lightweight container base OS
  • 1
    Great OotB Linux Shell Experience

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Debian
Cons of Ubuntu
  • 10
    Old versions of software
  • 2
    Can be difficult to set up on vanilla Debian
  • 5
    Demanding system requirements
  • 4
    Adds overhead and unnecessary complexity over Debian
  • 2
    Snapd installed by default
  • 1
    Systemd

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Debian?

Debian systems currently use the Linux kernel or the FreeBSD kernel. Linux is a piece of software started by Linus Torvalds and supported by thousands of programmers worldwide. FreeBSD is an operating system including a kernel and other software.

What is Ubuntu?

Ubuntu is an ancient African word meaning ‘humanity to others’. It also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are’. The Ubuntu operating system brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the world of computers.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Debian?
What companies use Ubuntu?
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn More

Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

What tools integrate with Debian?
What tools integrate with Ubuntu?

Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

Blog Posts

What are some alternatives to Debian and Ubuntu?
Fedora
Fedora is a Linux-based operating system that provides users with access to the latest free and open source software, in a stable, secure and easy to manage form. Fedora is the largest of many free software creations of the Fedora Project. Because of its predominance, the word "Fedora" is often used interchangeably to mean both the Fedora Project and the Fedora operating system.
CentOS
The CentOS Project is a community-driven free software effort focused on delivering a robust open source ecosystem. For users, we offer a consistent manageable platform that suits a wide variety of deployments. For open source communities, we offer a solid, predictable base to build upon, along with extensive resources to build, test, release, and maintain their code.
Linux Mint
The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.
Arch Linux
A lightweight and flexible Linux distribution that tries to Keep It Simple.
openSUSE
The openSUSE project is a worldwide effort that promotes the use of Linux everywhere. openSUSE creates one of the world's best Linux distributions, working together in an open, transparent and friendly manner as part of the worldwide Free and Open Source Software community.
See all alternatives