The new distribution was developed once the end of CentOS was confirmed. CentOS is a free RHEL clone and is highly rated by many developers. The special feature of this system is the binary compatibility with RHEL. At the end of 2020, Red Hat announced that they would discontinue support for CentOS and offer CentOS Stream as a successor. However, this other Linux variant does not have binary compatibility with RHEL. CentOS Stream is a rolling release which tests the potential updates for the commercial RHEL. Understandably, this is not practical for many users. Thus, the desire for an alternative successor to CentOS came about.
There are currently two alternatives: Rocky Linux, named after the late CentOS co-founder Rocky McGaugh, and AlmaLinux. AlmaLinux is based on the same basic idea as CentOS. The goal is still a Linux distribution which is completely free and binary compatible with the current version of RHEL. The beta version of AlmaLinux was published on February 1, 2021. The stable version was released at the end of March of the same year. Support will be available until at least 2029. Numerous companies, such as ARM, AWS, Equinix and Microsoft, also support AlmaLinux.