Linux userland binary compatibility in general is surprisingly fragmented, thanks to the introduction of so symbol versions about a decade ago. http://harmful.

Linux userland binary compatibility in general is surprisingly fragmented, thanks to the introduction of so symbol versions about a decade ago. http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/dynamic-linking/versioned-symbols http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/dynamic-linking/versioned-... https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/symversion.html https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-gene... I don't believe Amazon Linux is any worse than other Linux distributions in this regard. If you build a binary on an older Linux distribution (like CentOS 5), then there's a good chance it will run on most new distributions. The opposite is unfortunately not true. Also, some libraries, like libcurl, don't seem to have consistent symbol versions across distributions. If your application links against libcurl, chances are you won't be able to create a single binary that runs on very many distributions.