When comparing CentOS vs MX Linux, the Slant community recommends MX Linux for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux distributions for desktops?” MX Linux is ranked 13th while CentOS is ranked 48th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Greatly favours stability over anything else
CentOS favours stability over being up-to date. For this reason it ships with packages that may be up to two years behind in order to ensure stability over everything else.
Using older versions for packages means that they have been thoroughly tested and used in production for quite some time, and are ensured to play well with each-other.
This strategy has paid off quite a lot in the past. One example is the Heartbleed bug which left CentOS unaffected since it was using a two-year old OpenSSL library which did not have the bug.
Pro Applications don't have to take into account potentially breaking changes in libraries
Since CentOS backports all updates and bug fixes to older versions in order to maintain package compatibility across releases, applications hosted on Red Hat Linux don't have to worry about potential breaking changes in libraries they use, especially language libraries.
Pro Good long term support
Pro Built-in disaster recovery solutions through clusters
CentOS has several built-in solutions for disaster recovery. For example, it comes with pacemaker which can be configured to manage multi-site and and stretch clusters across multiple geographical locations for disaster recovery and scalability. It can also be configured to trigger notifications when the status of a managed cluster changes by using enhanced pacemaker alerts.
Pro Supports multiple PHP versions
You can install multiple PHP versions and have them available for different users.
Pro Built-in support for containers
Comes with built-in management tools for containers (Atomic CLI, Cockpit) and a container runtime in the form of Docker engine.
Pro Easy to use
Pro Supports non-free drivers
Pro MX Snapshot: lets you make your own distro
Can create your own ISO (snapshot) and use it either as live-session and install back when needed.
With the (pre-installed) Snapshot tool you can easily create an ISO of your running system and then save it to a USB (or other media) and use "your own" distro as a live session or install back whenever you like (even on a different PC with different specs with no issues). You can even give that customized ISO to friends (selecting "non-personal" ISO when creating the snapshot; thus resetting the accounts & passwords and Home folder etc.).
Also you can save that ISO directly encrypted via MX Live USB Maker tool. Again, you can install MX encrypted during installation with just ticking a box, no matter if it's the official ISO or your snapshot.
Pro Good MX Tools and Package Installer
MX Linux comes with its own set of tools called MX Tools, designed to make life easier for users.
Pro Easy install
Pro Based on Debian
It is based on Debian and not based on Ubuntu.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Very stable
Pro No systemd
Pro Can also be used as an emergency tool
It has almost all tools to repair non booting systems or recover files & folders and save them on a safe place. And when thought together with it starts quick on live-session. In addition, you can do these with "your own", customized distro (snapshot).
Pro Live-Session boots fastest after Puppy
After Puppy Linux (which's aimed to run from RAM and which is smaller in size) the second fastest (head & shoulders) booting one (together with the sister project antiX) and also has the option "toram" to run from RAM. Yes, not only when compared to full distros, even far faster than small sized or tiny distros, especially when booted to "live-session", about 2 - 2.5 times faster on an old single core laptop.
Cons
Con Only one Desktop Environment
Con Its XFCE version is too laggy
XFCE is meant to be lightweight, and it's almost true for other XFCE distros but not for MX Linux.
Con Old software
Many software applications are older.
Con Remixed Debian testing
It's mainly a Debian stable with some recompiled/backported Debian testing packages.
Con Includes non-free drivers
Con More than 50 tweaking softwares pre-installed
Con Longer boot time
Con 10s of media players preinstalled
Con Too much preinstalled applications
Con Causes overheating on some hardwares
Other debian based XFCE distros- Xubuntu, Debian XFCE, Devuan leave small footprint on system whereas MXLinux uses too much CPU resources on same system.
Con Installer and configuration tools are different
Installer and configuration tools are different and can take some time getting used to.