openSUSE is an open-source community project with Linux-based distributions that is sponsored by SUSE Software Solutions Germany GmbH and other companies. The openSUSE Project has a large global community that develops openSUSE in collaboration with the open-source community and corporate sponsors. The project’s distributions are free to download any time at no cost.
The openSUSE Leap version is compatible with SUSE Linux Enterprise; this gives Leap a level of stability unmatched by other Linux distributions and provides users the ability to migrate to an enterprise offering. This allows for users and large development teams to optimally run and test workloads that can be lifted and shifted to SUSE Linux Enterprise Linux for long-term maintenance. openSUSE Leap is popular with Linux developers, system administrators, software vendors and technology enthusiasts. openSUSE Tumbleweed is a rolling release distribution that focuses on continuously integrating newly tested upstream releases while preserving a high-quality rolling update without major regressions. The distribution is well tested before a snapshot release is made available. Snapshots occur regularly and give users the latest versions of software in frequent releases rather than in periodic release cycles. Tumbleweed is popular with power users, software developers who need to have the latest software stacks and IDEs, and openSUSE contributors.
openSUSE distributions feature many desktop environments for user and developer workloads. Desktop environments include KDE, GNOME, Xfce and more. Package management systems like YaST, zypper, DNF and others support thousands of software packages from a wide range of free and open-source software. Sub-projects within the openSUSE community include Open Build Service, openQA, Snapper, MicroOS, Kubic, Kiwi and more. openSUSE distributions are considered to be among the top-tier Linux distros available today and are consistently ranked high on distrowatch.org.