Choosing a Linux distribution for a hosting server is mostly a choice about how long you can leave it alone. The differences that matter are support lifetime, how current the packages are, and what your control panel supports, not preference.
Start with what your control panel supports
If you are running a control panel, this decides the question before anything else.
Panels support a specific list of distributions and versions, and running outside it means no support and an upgrade path that may not exist. Check the current list rather than an older one, because supported versions are added and dropped over time.
That constraint is not a limitation to work around. A panel on an unsupported base is a machine you cannot get help with, on the day you need help. Installing and Managing Operating Systems on Dedicated Servers walks through the install.
Support lifetime is the number that matters
Every release has a date after which it stops receiving security updates. That date is your migration deadline, and migrating an operating system is a project rather than an afternoon.
Choose a version with several years remaining, not one nearing the end of its term because it is familiar. A machine provisioned on a version with a year left has a rebuild scheduled into your next year whether you planned it or not.
Note the difference between full support and extended maintenance. The latter often means security fixes only, which is adequate for a server and worth knowing you are in.
Two families, one practical difference
Debian and Ubuntu use one package manager and one set of conventions. Ubuntu's long-term releases are the common choice for general server work, with a well-understood upgrade path.
RHEL-family systems: AlmaLinux, Rocky and similar, use another, and are the traditional base for cPanel servers.
The technical differences are smaller than the arguments about them. What matters in practice is that your documentation, your scripts and your habits assume one of them, and mixing families across a fleet doubles the number of procedures you maintain. How to Manage Multiple Servers Consistently walks through why that consistency is worth protecting.
Stable packages or current ones
Distributions that prioritise stability ship older versions of software and backport security fixes into them. That means a PHP or database version that looks out of date and is patched.
The practical consequence: you will often install the language runtime from a separate repository rather than the distribution's, which is normal and worth planning for: noting that automatic security updates cover distribution packages and not those. How to Set Up Automatic Security Updates goes into that gap.
Rolling or fast-moving distributions are the wrong choice for a server you want to leave alone. They are excellent and they require attention.
Minimal install, always
Whatever you choose, install the smallest image that works.
Every package present is something to patch and something that could be exploited. A desktop environment on a server is a large surface for no benefit.
Add what you need afterwards, and write down what you added. That list is what makes the machine reproducible. Installing and Managing Applications on Dedicated Servers explains keeping it.
Upgrading in place, or rebuilding
Both are legitimate and they fail differently.
In-place upgrades preserve configuration and can leave the machine in a state nobody designed, half-migrated config files, packages from the old release, behaviour nobody can explain.
Rebuilding on a new machine and migrating gives you a clean system and requires the migration to be done properly.
For a control panel server, follow the panel vendor's guidance specifically. They support particular upgrade paths and not others, and going outside that is how a working server becomes unsupported.
Either way, take the backup first and know how long a rebuild would take. There is more in Backups and Disaster Recovery for Dedicated Servers.
What not to choose on
Benchmarks between mainstream distributions running the same software are close enough that the difference is noise next to your configuration.
Familiarity matters more than any of it, with one condition: familiar and supported. A distribution you know well but which your panel does not support is the worse choice, because the day you need vendor help is the day it matters.
Write down the choice and its expiry
The distribution, the version, and the date its support ends, in your server notes.
That date is the one piece of information nobody remembers and everybody needs, and putting it in the same place as your other expiry dates is what turns an eventual surprise into a planned piece of work. A Yearly Website Maintenance Checklist sets out reviewing them annually.
Check what the applications you run actually support
The distribution decides which versions of everything else are available, and a choice made on preference can leave you unable to run what you need.
cat /etc/os-release | head -3 apt-cache policy php 2>/dev/null | head -5 dnf module list php 2>/dev/null | head -10
Read which versions the repositories offer before committing. A distribution shipping an interpreter two versions behind means either an outdated stack or a third party repository, and the second brings its own maintenance.
Where a control panel is involved, its supported list is the constraint rather than yours. Installing on something it does not support produces an environment that works and cannot be updated.
Record the support end date somewhere you will see it
Every choice here carries an expiry, and it arrives without warning because nothing on the machine announces it.
cat /etc/os-release | grep -i version date
Write the end date with the server's other details, and treat it as a migration deadline rather than a suggestion. A system past that date receives no fixes at all, and the machine looks perfectly healthy throughout.
Plan the rebuild for several months before the date rather than after it. Migrations run under time pressure are the ones that lose things.