Debian vs. Ubuntu (server)

Hi

Today, I got curious about Ubuntu and Debian, and their performance on server, So I start reading about it to get familiar with experienced people

My background about Linux

Okay, take a look at this post:

link: https://past.pages.dev/posts/arch-ezly/#my-background-about-linux

Ubuntu vs. Debian

I’ve read several post and others’ notes in reddit and so on.

I found a post from techaddressed.com useful

A Summary of Differences

I mention some important parts of this article and some Reddit comments

format: Title (Winner) explain

Predictable Software Lifecycle (Ubuntu)

Ubuntu has had a very predictable software lifecycle. With one exception in 2006 where a release was pushed 2 months, every April and October Canonical puts out a new release of Ubuntu with a 9 month support window and LTS versions every two years with 3 years desktop and 5 years server support. You always know when to expect the release and you know how long you can run it. In the business world, having this predictable schedule is important for long term planning.

Paid Support From Canonical

Another extremely valid reason to choose Ubuntu over Debian is the availability of paid support from Canonical. The corporate IT world lives and breathes on support contracts. Having this level of support available makes the business decision of choosing Ubuntu make perfect sense.

Stability Over Newest Features

words you’ll often see mentioned regarding Debian include: dependable, reliable, stable, secure.

Debian’s philosophy of releasing when the bugs are worked out instead of based on a hard release date has earned it this LONG time reputation (Debian first was released September 1993).

The emphasis on bug free / stable software means that the packages included with Debian are usually not the most current versions available. For example, while PHP is up to version 8.1 at the time of writing, the current Debian release includes the much more mature version 7.4. While it’s not always desirable in the desktop world to be missing out on the latest features, in the server world security and stability are paramount.

Other software developers benefit as well from the stability that Debian provides. For example, the current recommended version of PHP for WordPress is version 7.4.

Distro Upgrades

I’ve personally had far fewer issues moving to new releases of Debian than I’ve ever had with running a dist-upgrade on Ubuntu Server.

I’m not saying Ubuntu is notorious for having these sorts of problems. I’m just saying that I’ve had issues with it in the past that left a sour taste in my mouth.

I can confirm this Upgrade issues 😅

Zero Reliance On Snap Packages

While you can easily add support for Canonical’s snap package format to Debian, it doesn’t include it out of the box – which suits me just fine. There’s a lot of … let’s use the word dislike … in the Linux community for snap packages.

The main issues people tend to have with snaps are that they start slowly and often use more system memory than their non-snap counterparts.

Yes, I’m completely agree with this one. Snap is not reliable in my opinion (there are some reasons and sources of news that leaded me to this conclusion about snap, but I dont have all of them right now)

Debian Uses Less Memory

On fresh installs of Debian vs Ubuntu Server, Debian uses less system memory. On larger systems the difference is small enough to not matter much. However, when it comes to small cloud servers, virtual machines, and containers the difference can be substantial.

On virtualization: Ubuntu 153MB out of 971MB

Debian 67MB of 976MB

Notice also that Debian makes 5MB more of the total VM memory available for use than Ubuntu does.

On Container: Ubuntu 90MB out of 954MB

Debian 18MB out of 954MB

Some Quotes from Reddit

I keep it small, you can easily search on Google and find better answers:

source: Link

Debian servers are awesome to manage - rarely go wrong, very few updates as a general rule (far more with Ubuntu).
Debian is less bulky than Ubuntu, Ubuntu is less stable.
However… Ubuntu has newer components - i.e you’ll have various features in the version of QEMU/Libvirt/KVM in Ubuntu that are missing in the version in Debian (stable), same goes for PHP/Mysql(mariadb)/Apache, etc - Ubuntu’s will be newer and have features missing from Debian (stable).

Note that Ubuntu for desktop is somehow better that Debian-stable.

Debian because Ubuntu is based on Debian testing.
Debian testing doesn’t necessarily receive important and/or security patches from the Debian team. Debian stable does.
So the Ubuntu team actually has to do the same work the Debian team has to regarding security and stability. I just don’t think they are as competent as the Debian team. Sorry.

Conclusion

All information denoted about beside:

• Canonical recent updates and decisions made Ubuntu worse and worse (source)
• Debian more stability

made me to move to debian after several years of using Ubuntu on my servers.

And I suggest, if you have an small server and your activities doesnt heavily based on regular and scheduled updates, use Debian-stable

what is your idea?