What is the best operating system for a developer?

Question

22

Options
Considered

1.3K

User
Recs.

May 28, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 15 OptionsWhy?

Best operating system for a developer	Price	OS Family	License
96 GNU/Linux	-	GNU/LInux	GNU GPL
63 OpenBSD	-	-	BSD, ISC and other permissive licenses
60 macOS	-	UNIX (BSD/Darwin)	EULA
-- Slackware	-	GNU+Linux	-
54 FreeBSD	0	-	BSD

See Full List

14 Other Options Considered

macOS

Top Pro

Polished UI

The UI of Mac OS is rather unrivaled. The smooth, responsive, and cohesive UI makes the system quite joyous to use. See More

Top Con

Expensive

OSX is tied Apple hardware and Apple hardware tends to be expensive for what it gives. See More

Adam Fields's Experience

While in my heart I want to recommend a desktop Linux distribution like Ubuntu, Neon, or Mint, I have to go with macOS (FKA OSX). I alternate between Windows 10 Pro, macOS, and KDE Neon (Ubuntu with the KDE Plasma desktop). While I do spend a lot of time in the terminal for things like SSH/SCP, VPN, Git, package management, running build jobs, and Docker/Kubernetes administration; I still write all of my application code/scripts and interact with databases using GUI tools. I've just found that VS Code/Atom, JetBrains IDEs, Mongo Compass/MySQL Workbench, and other GUI tools run better on macOS (and Windows). Now that Docker usage has become mainstream, you can write your application targeting a Linux host and create a Docker image using the Linux distribution of your choice to see how your app runs on Debian/CentOS/Alpine/etc. Docker for Mac and Kitematic run great on macOS, and can optionally create a single-node Kubernetes for you with the click of a mouse. Package Management on macOS is outstanding and incredibly simple thanks to Homebrew. Homebrew can even manage daemon services (like your database server), much like systemctl on Linux. Linux is a great Operating System, but as with everything open source, you do have to factor in some time for fixing bugs and general system administration tasks. For example, upgrading my Dell Ubuntu laptop from 14.04 to 16.04 caused my audio and WiFi to stop working (had to do a clean install to get it working). At the end of the day, I don't think anyone should go out and buy another computer just for writing code. Programming is creative problem solving, and if you run into a problem, try to find a simple solution before spending thousands of dollars on a new computer. See More

Specs

OS Family:UNIX (BSD/Darwin)

License:EULA

Based On:Research UNIX>BSD>NeXTSTEP

Top Pro

Based on Unix

macOS being a UNIX certified system means that you can install a lot more stuff with a lot fewer headaches than if you were on Windows. See More

Top Con

Limited hardware

Usually, the hardware that can run this can't be upgraded. See More

Brian Bezanson's Experience

I've been developing on the Macintosh since it first came out in 1984. I have developed applications for commercial, educational, entertainment segments. I have shifted to web development in the last 22 years and have developed on Macintosh, Windows, and SGI Unix. See More

Top Pro

Easy access to lots of great dev tools

There's a large selection of great development tools available for OSX. The operating system itself comes bundled with a powerful terminal emulator, called Terminal. Additionally, Apple provides tools, like Xcode, an IDE that contains a comprehensive collection of tools for developing OSX and iOS software, for free. See More

Top Con

Most software is closed source

For people who like to use open source tools for their development work, this may be a problem. There's plenty of advantages to open source software, one of which is the ability to tinker with and customize the tools themselves that you are using. Although there's plenty of FOSS tools available for Mac, especially through Homebrew, the number of packages available is much lower than the number of packages available for any Linux distribution. See More

DashingTelete's Experience

It gonna spy you See More

Top Pro

Powerful terminal

It's very similar to a Linux terminal. See More

Top Con

Closed source

Mac OS is closed source itself, which means that it is developed more slowly and has more problems. See More

Shane Knysh's Experience

Great OS, not the best in all cases See More

Top Pro

Best support for Objective-C

Top Con

No native package management

A comparison of package managers available for OSX can be found here. See More

Top Pro

More commercial software and gaming support compared to other Unix systems

Adobe CC, MS Office, Steam games. See More

Top Con

Poor application support

Fewer apps run on Mac OS than on Windows or Linux. See More

Top Pro

Has many special tools for developers

Has support for multiple IDEs. See More

Top Con

Bash version is obsolete

macOS comes with an obsolete version of Bash, due to licensing issues. See More

Top Pro

Lots of open-source software available

Because it's Unix under the fancy GUI, most open source ports easily to it. See More

Top Con

Vendor-Lock-in

You are now forced to use the Apple services. See More

Top Pro

Ideal setup, out of the box

Next to no custom configuration is necessary. See More

Top Con

Silly modifier keys layout

The Command key is strange, Alt is where Super should be. See More

Top Pro

Great Git GUI tools

Tower, Kaleidoscope, SourceTree. See More

Top Con

Poor X11 integration

The most open source software does work but is very poorly integrated due apples ancient version of the X-server. See More

Top Pro

Has software that only runs on Mac

For example, Sketch. See More

Top Con

Very few options for running hosted, on the cloud

Top Pro

Streamlined workflow between devices

Because this is an Apple product, there is a streamlined workflow between your computer and all mobile devices. For example, if you type an a Pages document, once you save, you can open the updated document just moments later on your iPad, and vice versa. The same goes for iMessage, (yes, you can text people with your phone number from your computer. Actually, you can text other people with apple devices with just your Apple ID, with or without a phone number, for free!) Numbers, Notes, Reminders, Contacts, and just about any other Apple workflow application. See More

Top Con

Too little customization options

Top Pro

Great modifier key layout

Top Con

Touchbar on Macbook Pro's

Top Pro

Using VMware you can also run Windows 10 on the Mac

This is useful for testing and some development tools that are Windows-only (XML Spy, MapForce). See More

Top Con

Not very user-friendly

Top Pro

You need it to compile macOS or iOS apps

See All

FreeBSD

Top Con

Pathetic third-party application support

Need to run Photoshop? No luck. Even most software that's portable to Linux will have a hard time running on FreeBSD. You're stuck with ONLY running the free software. See More

Top Pro

Powerful ports collection

Ports provide a wide collection of software which are easy to build, install and modify. They contain recipes and patches to build various software, so you can simply run "make && make install" to build and install the software. You may also keep local patches and it would be picked up automatically. It also allows you to use the latest software even if you are not using the latest version of the operating system. See More

TrustingOsiris's Experience

Native zfs on root filesystem See More

Specs

License:BSD

Price:Free

Language:C

Top Con

Inferior driver support for workstations

Lack of drivers for some modern personal devices. See More

Top Pro

Batteries included

Base system contains basic developer tools, including compiler, debugger and system utilities. See More

SomeCallMeTim's Experience

Terrible driver support for laptops. System isn't focused on desktop usage. See More

Top Con

Not for beginners

If a user needs an easy way to navigate around the filesystem, a text only Unix-derivative is not his best choice. See More

Top Pro

Jails mechanism

Jails allow for partitioning a system into several independent "mini-systems", a feature not found in many of the popular OS choices. See More

PowerfulShara's Experience

Great, rock solid OS for anyone. See More

Top Con

Very shallow desktop support

Top Pro

Stable updates

Shane Knysh's Experience

Great OS, not the best in all cases See More

Top Pro

Great philosophy

FreeBSD won't change everything from a version to another, it tries to keep and maintain old tools as long as possible, and won't replace half the system every two versions like GNU/Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Arch or Fedora does. everything is stable and also pretty minimal. FreeBSD is designed for performance. See More

See All

Kali Linux

Top Con

Not intended to be a daily driver

This distro was written for pen testing and security work. It is not meant to be a day-to-day OS (unless that's your job). See More

Windows 10

Top Con

Collects a lot of user data and sends it to Microsoft by default

By default Windows 10 gathers information related to contacts, location, calendar and input (text and touch). The process for opting out of all data collection efforts is both time consuming and requires a reasonable amount of technical know-how. See More

Top Pro

Windows Subsystem Linux

Makes it very seamless for web development. In fact, it's nicer than MacOS because you get to choose the distro all without virtualization. Super convenient even if there are some minor issues like I/O performance. See More

MightyPolyphemus's Experience

Windows 10 should be better. Contains more browsers than plan 9 from bell labs. See More

Specs

OS Family:Windows NT

License:Proprietary

Based On:Windows 8.1

Package Manager:winget, MS Store, Windows Installer

See All Specs

Top Con

Installs bloatware

It installs many Windows Store apps by default. Moreover, it updates them automatically even after you uninstalled them, then they come back when you install a bigger update or service pack, eg: the creator's update. See More

Top Pro

Good compatibility with Windows 7 software

Both applications and drivers created for Windows 7 work well on Windows 10. See More

SuccessfulHuitztlampaehecatl's Experience

Honestly, Microsoft is making a huge come back here. In many ways they were more on top the ball thajln Apple in 2018. They are now embracing open source and have added windows subsystem Linux which is amazing. While not without issues, particularly I/O (which only highlights how annoying it is to be a JavaScript developer these days), it's still a good feature and step in the right direction. New features ahead for 2019 only look brighter and include more sandbox/isolation features for security. I've switched from MacOS and a MacBook Pro to a Surface Pro for web development and I don't miss a thing to be frank. This is a monumental change here that's taking place. See More

Top Con

Horrible stock performance on old hardware

Would recommend windows 7 (or even 8.1) on older (older than 5-6 years) hardware. See More

Top Pro

DirectX 12

The newest version of Microsoft’s DirectX application programming interface, which handles visual and other multimedia tasks on Windows-based systems. See More

PoliteMagec's Experience

The MSVC C compiler is decades behind GCC and Clang. It is also not fully compliant with any of the ISO C standards- not even C89. As such, working with C code on Windows is extremely frustrating, unless you're using non-native tools that work more reliably in their native environment. See More

Top Con

Lacks polish

Many interface and functionality changes have not been finalized yet, creating an inconsistent user experience. For example, there are both simplified Windows 10 style settings menus as well as Windows 7 style settings menus that can easily create confusion. Similarly, many of the bundled applications (People, Photos, Groove, Mail, Calendar, etc) lack functionality compared to their counterparts in previous Windows versions. See More

Top Pro

Returns to a more familiar style start bar unlike Windows 8

Shane Knysh's Experience

Great OS, not the best in all cases See More

Top Con

Virus magnet

Top Pro

Built-in support for VPNs

A VPN connection can be established from the "Change Virtual Private Network" panel. Quickest way to access the panel is by searching for "VPN" in the start menu. See More

Top Con

Includes ads by default

Even in the Pro version. See More

Top Pro

Latest version of Windows

Top Con

Forced updates to Home and Pro versions

Since Microsoft has a checkered past in regard to Windows updates, many people worry that a bad patch might break applications, drivers, peripherals or even brick their computers. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Top Con

Anitvirus software runs above administrator level

You are not allowed to turn off CPU intensive security scans or remove the software and replace it with something else, as of Windows 10. See More

Top Pro

Availability of tools and software

Top Con

Start menu lacks expected customization options

It's not possible to cascade menus, pin files, locations or apps to the list (it's possible to pin apps to the live tile section) or add custom menus. See More

Top Pro

Built-in way to play DVDs

No third-party software is required to play DVDs. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

You're not allowed to modify or share a copy of Windows, you also can't read the source code to know what it's doing. See More

Top Pro

Good user experience: superb driver support

Top Con

No built-in way to play DVDs

Third-party software is required to play DVDs. See More

Top Pro

Very user friendly UI

Top Con

Guest account setup is painstaking (need to do via PC management panel)

Windows 10 lacks the ability to set up guest accounts via user account setup wizard. See More

Top Pro

Secure for Layman use

Top Con

Kind of a mystery what the OS is actually doing

There have been Microsoft operating system code leaks. But for the most part there could be millions of security back doors and no one but hackers and Microsoft would know about them. See More

Top Pro

More browsers

More browsers, a bit more security. See More

Top Con

Security features are stapled-on third party software

Top Pro

Tablet mode is a pain to use

The tablet mode of Windows 10 has many issues compared to other major tablet operating systems like Android, for example: 1.) In the tablet mode the desktop is replaced by the Windows 10 start menu 1.1.) As there is no Desktop there is no proper launcher to start your apps so you always have to open that windows 10 start menu... 2.) Virtual keyboard often don't come up automatically(you need to click on the keybord icon near the systray to bring it up) 2.1.) If the keyboard is docked and comes up it will lay over the window and if(like here on slant) the entry box is on the bottom of the page it will lay over that box so you have to manually undock the keyboard and move it to any other border which of course breaks other options like scrolling a page etc. 2.2.) Virtual keyboard and virtual touchpad have no customization options so you can't make them bigger or smaller etc. See More

Top Con

Hard to use

Windows had tons of buttons doing the same things, and tons of buttons named the same way that does different things. And you can't change that ! See More

Top Pro

Best operating system

Windows is the best. See More

Top Con

Horrendous programming experience

See All

NetBSD

Top Pro

Adhere to the standard

It adheres to traditional Unix and new defined standards. See More

Top Con

Lack of drivers

It lacks drivers for some new devices. See More

Shane Knysh's Experience

Great OS, not the best in all cases See More

Specs

Based On:Research Unix>Berkeley Software Distribution>

Official Supported Architectures:https://www.netbsd.org/ports/

Top Pro

It's Open Source

It's open source with a BSD License, which is much more business friendly than GPL. It's the real ancestor of Mac, that is being used nowadays. See More

Top Pro

It's real

Under NetBSD csh is csh not tcsh; also vi is real vi not elvis, nvi or vim. It's ideal for purists. See More

Top Pro

Architecture portability

It's the most portable OS in the world when considering what architectures it can run on. It runs on very wide range of hardware, from toaster to satellites. This of course does not mean it supports drivers for many consumer facing products making it a difficult solution to just boot up and use when compared to other OSs. See More

Top Pro

Clean source code

It prioritizes source code cleanliness over anything. See More

See All

Plan 9

Top Con

Difficult to use software made for other systems

Plan 9 is very different from most other operating systems, and as such it's extremely difficult to bring in software designed for other operating systems ('porting'). See More

Top Pro

Well designed

Plan 9's design is very orthogonal and well done. See More

Specs

OS Family:Plan 9

License:MIT

Top Con

No fully featured web browser

As indicated on the official Bell Labs webpage, there is no full featured web browser currently working on Plan 9, except abaco. See More

Top Pro

Designed to allow for multiple computers to work as if they were one

With Plan 9, computers are turned into terminals where you can access files and processing units which can be located elsewhere. Data storage is handled by another external server. This means that instead of each person having their own individual computer with all the required parts, all of the computing and storage is done in a central area and everything is networked in together. See More

Top Con

Not supported by most tools

Not supported by most dev tools beyond text editors. See More

See All

Haiku

Top Con

No one uses it

It's a very niche OS that no one uses. See More

Top Pro

Very fast

VigilantHnoss's Experience

Designed for multicore/multiprocessor usage from day one. See More

Specs

OS Family:BeOS-like

License:MIT

Widget Toolkit:Interface Kit

Programming Language:C++, C

Top Con

Unfinished

It's still in beta and quite unstable. Making it unsuitable for developing applications of any kind. See More

Top Pro

Beta has been released

After about 6 years since the alpha version, beta has been released on Fri, 2018-09-28. Check here for release notes. See More

ConfidentEnyalius's Experience

It's just plain fun to work through a 25 year old GUI , Graphical User Interface, that is up-to-date with functioning applications and internet. Good move. See More

Top Con

Language support is terrible

Top Pro

Only need 512mb ram

DeliberateAhti's Experience

Best OS I’ve used outside of the Mac. Fast, easy to use, and runs LibreOffice, Krita, and other apps. See More

Top Con

Small community

It is important when developing to be familiar with tools that other developers use. You can make any utility in any language you feel like, but if it's in an esoteric language that no one can read targeting a small platform that no one uses, then it was just something you did as a hobbyist, not as a developer. This is not to say that Haiku isn't a great operating system to hack around on. Just don't delude yourself into thinking you're doing it to get familiar with tools that you need to know to be a better developer. See More

Top Pro

Stability

OpinionatedAglibol's Experience

Haiku is slick and fast. Quite close to hardware. See More

Top Con

UI quite different to other OSes

Top Pro

Runs perfectly on old Hardware

DashingTelete's Experience

The new Beta are very Cool, have a lot of software and is fast and stable. See More

See All

Arch Linux Testing

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MS-DOS

Top Con

Not a modern OS

If you need to know how to run legacy software that will run on DOS (crazier things have happened, there's probably still some ancient, leviathan, software out there that requires it), go for it. Otherwise you're practicing skills that are out of date and are using an operating system that is woefully insecure. See More

Top Pro

Use old editor Edit

The grandfather of Notepad, very easy to use, hassle-free text editor. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

This is technically, Legacy software, this is deprecated long ago in favor of Windows NT. See More

Top Con

Literally horrible

MS-DOS is terrible -- just read about real mode. It was an almost decent solution for its time, but not anymore. See More

Top Pro

Brings back memories to older developers

Top Con

Way too simple

A stripped down version of Unix, some commands just got renamed and advanced options removed. See More

Top Pro

Best OS to run QBASIC on

While QBASIC works on newer operating systems, such as Windows 95 and Windows 98, it was designed for and runs best on MS-DOS. See More

Top Con

Dead

Ended in the 21st century. See More

Top Con

No internet support

Using Internet with MS-DOS is not trivial. See More

See All

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score 488 · Accepted Answer

GNU/Linux

Top Pro

Lots of development tools available

Top Con

Issues with drivers if your hardware is not officially supported

With some proprietary hardware (eg:NVIDIA) you may have a hard time setting up your drivers. But most of the time, some distributions handle hardware better than other operating systems, especially when it comes to older hardware. See More

Capuccino 's Experience

Linux, will always be the first and foremost, the best OS for development. Whether you're doing cross-platform targeting, or making a cool app, if you build it on Linux, you build it on one of the industry's best, and free, OS that the world can offer. See More

Specs

OS Family:GNU/LInux

License:GNU GPL

Widget Toolkit:GTK, Qt, wxWidgets

Top Pro

Most likely also your deployment target

Makes testing while developing easier. According to a September 2014 study by W3 Techs, *nix based servers are used on over 2/3 of websites. See More

Top Con

Maintenance can be time-consuming

You are gonna have to go through a lot of documentation to fix if something breaks. But that time is totally worth it if you are willing to pay it. Because it is likely that you'll find a fix 95% of the time. See More

emopausal's Experience

Been a developer for almost 40 years. If you develop for Windows (god help you), then use windows. If you develop for Mac, use Mac. If you develop for the Web, I'd say Linux. Especially if you're doing cloud, SaaS or DaaS programming. I've been using laptops with Linux for over 5 years with various IDE's by JetBrains. Before that, I used a Mac. Will not go back to Mac. Have never had a single problem with a driver issue for any of my laptops and some of these suckers are real dinos. For internet development, esp back-end, Linux is as close as you can get to native. See More

Top Pro

Access to really powerful terminals

Top Con

Too much customization

To get features on par with OS X, you need to research packages, install them and configure them. Even then, it may not be as good as OS X. See More

Elias Van Ootegem's Experience

GNU/Linux has been my system of choice for years. It has all the tools you could ever need (and more). It's built by devs, for devs. This can show in a sub-optimal UX, but in the long run, who cares? My main tools are: a proper terminal (Gnome terminal emulator), a powerful editor (Vim), A good debugger (delve/gdb), and compilers. Bring it all together with a proper package manager, and I´m a happy camper. Linux is unrivalled for development IMO. See More

Top Pro

Large percentage of Linux users are developers

Top Con

Steep learning curve

RespectfulJuksakka's Experience

The best tools and integration among them, with no license restrictions See More

Top Pro

Package managers

You can install any library or package that you need (gcc, php, node) with just a couple of commands in the terminal. See More

Top Con

HiDPI support sucks

Many developers work on apps that should work on HiDPI monitors. In most distros, HiDPI simply suck on Linux, and making that work is a nightmare. See More

Kalpak Take's Experience

Access to all aspects, open source powerful tools available, good performance!! See More

Top Pro

Most software is open source

Top Con

Hard to get used to working in the terminal

It might be a challenge when trying to get used to using the terminal a lot to get around certain things See More

FantasticChimalma's Experience

Why use half assed BASH on windows or pay Apple when Linux on an aging system has full powered BASH. And debian is more stable if you don't load it up with a bunch of bulldick See More

Top Pro

Most Linux distributions are free

Top Con

Less and worse professional software is developed, due to the low user base

Depending on what type of work you are doing, you may find Linux software lacking compared to their Win/Mac counterparts. For example in game development, tools, like Unreal Engine or Unity, usually lack in quality or novelty compared with Windows. Having crashes or bugs that aren't fixed for a while. See More

SomeCallMeTim's Experience

I still have nightmares from trying to get my touchpad to work correctly.... See More

Top Pro

Flexibility

GNU/Linux handles desktop sessions differently than Windows. Users may customize their own sessions; in fact, a single user may use different desktop environments for different login sessions. See More

Top Con

Low user base to develop to

Linux can develop to any system with the right tools. Mono allows development to Windows. Python and Ruby too. C and C++ can be developed to Windows. See More

AssertiveNgariman's Experience

For a developer, nothing is more than source, Linux is open source and free platform where almost all the tools for development are available. Terminals make everything easy and comfortable. I've used both Windows and Linux but I found Linux better then Windows at every step. See More

Top Pro

Familiarity with Linux is often required from a developer

Many university computer science programs are based on Linux and in any case, you will inevitably be dealing with a Linux box of one flavor or another someday, be it a server (most likely) or a workstation. The languages and methods used in the Linux/Unix environment (e.g., bash, C, C++, Make, etc.) are very commonplace among developers and are to the computer side of the discipline what the English language is to the human side of it: the common language. See More

Top Con

A wide variety of distributions available

With a lot of variety, one cannot deploy to a single system and has to prepare for a bundle of distributions, instead of just one. See More

Charlie Calvert's Experience

I teach computer programming at Bellevue College See More

Top Pro

A wide variety of distributions available

With a lot of variety, one can use the distribution that fits the type of work best because of the many choices that are given, instead of just one. See More

NiceKaskuh's Experience

Near zero administration, at least with Ubuntu. See More

Top Pro

Works great on older hardware

7-10-year-old Dell laptops can run Unix or Unix-like OSes very well, where Windows would grind/drag/vomit. See More

MerryKagutsuchi's Experience

i've used Linux for over 3 years and i have nothing else to say other than it's the best. When it comes to file extension management, it's great, Developing of sites and application programming, it's the best. It gives you an open door to the world of technology and development See More

Top Pro

Follows the UNIX philosophy

The UNIX philosophy: 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well'. Since Linux itself follows this philosophy then it's very easy to start creating scripts and programs. See More

René Villegas's Experience

The only OS I use since 10 years ago. See More

Top Pro

UNIX-like

Nice, developer-friendly environment. See More

ExceptionalAglaea's Experience

the best See More

Top Pro

Choose any type of desktop environment (or none)

Most Linux distributions support a range of desktop environments, be it plain old X, a tiling window manager or a fully fledged mammoth desktop like GNOME or KDE. See More

CourageousElpis's Experience

Amazing! See More

Top Pro

Extremely fast

Can be made even faster by going GUI-free or using a lightweight window manager. See More

ShrewdGleti's Experience

i used 3 yeas GNU/Linux such as ubuntu. This OS is very useful for developer, especially cross platform ... See More

Top Pro

No telemetry, unlike Windows

Ryan O’Hara's Experience

The only platform that supports all the tools I need. Can be made more simple and straightforward to use than other OSes. See More

Top Pro

Lower chance of data loss

Linux has very few viruses. So there's almost no chance of getting infected by a virus and thus losing your data including your important programming files. See More

CooperativeIshtarDeela's Experience

Is is free and opensource. You do not need to pay for it. . Its 3 times faster than widows 10. And 1.5 times faster than mac. But its disadvantage is there would come bugs and it is hard to solve it. See More

Top Pro

Hardly ever crashes

And if it does you can often drop into console and fix the error before returning to desktop. See More

CourteousPriapus's Experience

That it is FOSS already makes it the best choice. Apart from it's stability, flexibility, perfomance and ease of use (for especially for CLI pros like me). See More

Top Pro

Sometimes it "just works"

Sometimes Linux tends to just work with little to no effort or troubleshooting required. Most of the times it doesn't, though. See More

Winnie Brockett's Experience

Linux is a family of open-source operating systems. They are based on the Linux kernel and are free to download. They can be installed on either a Mac or Windows computer. See More

Top Pro

Isn't "locked down"

Windows and MacOS tend to restrict what the user/developer can do with their PC while Linux empowers the user/developer so they can do whatever they need/want with their PC without unnecessary restrictions. See More

MemorableKunapipi's Experience

It was very good See More

Top Pro

Get works done

Get near each and every work done within the command line or terminal, it makes everything so simple as compared to any other os See More

KnowledgeableMneme's Experience

Can be changed into whatever way you like, if you have the patience to learn See More

Top Pro

Easy to setup development environment

It's very easy to setup the development environment. In fact most of the time you don't even need to do much. For an example you don't even have to install GCC if you are coding in C/C++. Some distribution comes with JDK or JRE pre installed. Even if it doesn't, it's very easy to install a JDK than on Windows. There are plenty of free and open source / proprietary IDE's available. See More

ExuberantMethe's Experience

Best See More

Top Pro

Easy and quick installation

Just grab a ISO file, a 20GB partition on your HDD and boom. You are ready to go. See More

StudiousGration's Experience

its free and works best on low-end computers See More

FearlessAchilles's Experience

Linux performs better/faster than the competition, doesn't force updates that may interrupt your work, has a plethora of useful tools available for programmers, uses an all around better file system than Windows, performance doesn't degrade over time as it does when running Windows (can leave the system running for years at a time and it'll still run just as fast as the day you booted it up), easy to keep Linux clean and bloat free due to great application/package management. See More

CourageousCandaules's Experience

free, infinite options, many distributions ... :) See More

DashingTelete's Experience

X11 sucks See More

Gheorghe Ungureanu's Experience

Using GNU/Linux will make you work a lot faster. Also, the experience you gain with Linux will make you earn more money, because you learn to use top notch technologies. See More

Shane Knysh's Experience

Great OS, not the best in all cases See More

DiligentIdyia's Experience

sexy See More

RespectfulNinsusinak's Experience

very good See More

See All

The Best 1 of 15 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for GNU/Linux

My Recommendation for GNU/Linux

Lots of development tools available

Issues with drivers if your hardware is not officially supported

Most likely also your deployment target

Maintenance can be time-consuming

Access to really powerful terminals

Too much customization

Large percentage of Linux users are developers

Steep learning curve

Package managers

HiDPI support sucks

Most software is open source

Hard to get used to working in the terminal

Most Linux distributions are free

Less and worse professional software is developed, due to the low user base

Flexibility

Low user base to develop to

Familiarity with Linux is often required from a developer

A wide variety of distributions available

A wide variety of distributions available

Works great on older hardware

Follows the UNIX philosophy

UNIX-like

Choose any type of desktop environment (or none)

Extremely fast

No telemetry, unlike Windows

Lower chance of data loss

Hardly ever crashes

Sometimes it "just works"

Isn't "locked down"

Get works done

Easy to setup development environment

Easy and quick installation

14 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for OpenBSD

My Recommendation for OpenBSD

Most secure operative system

Driver support is limited

Simple, minimal, just works

My Recommendation for macOS

My Recommendation for macOS

Polished UI

Expensive

Based on Unix

Limited hardware

Easy access to lots of great dev tools

Most software is closed source

Powerful terminal

Closed source

Best support for Objective-C

No native package management

More commercial software and gaming support compared to other Unix systems

Poor application support

Has many special tools for developers

Bash version is obsolete

Lots of open-source software available

Vendor-Lock-in

Ideal setup, out of the box

Silly modifier keys layout

Great Git GUI tools

Poor X11 integration

Has software that only runs on Mac

Very few options for running hosted, on the cloud

Streamlined workflow between devices

Too little customization options

Great modifier key layout

Touchbar on Macbook Pro's

Using VMware you can also run Windows 10 on the Mac

Not very user-friendly

You need it to compile macOS or iOS apps

My Recommendation for Slackware

My Recommendation for Slackware

Don't go in your way

Takes a patient person

Oldest surviving Linux distro

My Recommendation for FreeBSD

My Recommendation for FreeBSD

Pathetic third-party application support