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FreeBSD vs. FreeNAS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
FreeBSD
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms. A large community has continually developed it for more than thirty years. Its advanced networking, security, and storage features have made FreeBSD the platform of choice for many of the busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.N/A
FreeNAS
Score 5.4 out of 10
N/A
FreeNAS is an open source operating system that allows nearly any hardware serve as a network-attached storage device. It was developed by iXsystems.N/A
Pricing
FreeBSDFreeNAS
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreeBSDFreeNAS
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreeBSDFreeNAS
Considered Both Products
FreeBSD
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose FreeBSD
FreeBSD is the closest to the original BSD unix. This OS is currently used by vendors in the field of routing, switching, security as well as base OS for MAC devies.
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose FreeBSD
FreeBSD was the only operating system out of many I tried to install easily on older hardware and to run in a very performant way. For example, I had a lot of trouble trying to get Ubuntu to install on older hardware and when it did, it was too slow to use. FreeBSD installed …
FreeNAS
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose FreeNAS
Before swapping to FreeNAS, we'd been using plan old Linux servers running Samba and NFS with ZFS storage underneath. This worked really well for our requirements at the time but required a lot of administration when new versions came along, or new users had to be added or …
eldhose k shibu | TrustRadius Reviewer
eldhose k shibu
Chief Technology Officer (Consulting)
Chose FreeNAS
FreeNAS effectively uses all resources really well and it is highly recommended for in premises NAS. It has unlimited ROI as it is really free and open-source. The only payment we need to pay is when we need any support from those guys. FreeNAS helps us to effectively do our …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose FreeNAS
We were recommended to use FreeNAS by our peers because of its cost effectiveness and better GUI. We later moved on from it as the scope of the server changed from being a simple file server to a Configuration Management repository. As far as issues, there were issues with …
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose FreeNAS
One alternative to FreeNAS is NAS4Free. FreeNAS tends to be a bit more cutting-edge, which is good for us technical enthusiasts. By contrast, NAS4Free sticks with the core NAS functionality and doesn't provide a fancy interface. NAS4Free is opensource, but enterprise support …
Tommy Boucher | TrustRadius Reviewer
Tommy Boucher
IT Director
Chose FreeNAS
If you are ready to build it yourself, FreeNAS is the best. I tried so many alternatives, including paid versions, and nothing compares to the power of FreeNAS. If you need an enterprise-grade NAS, you would go with an HPE or Dell because of the support, not the features. If …
Best Alternatives
FreeBSDFreeNAS
Small Businesses
Ubuntu
Ubuntu
Score 8.7 out of 10
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.3 out of 10
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Score 9.3 out of 10
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreeBSDFreeNAS
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreeBSDFreeNAS
Likelihood to Recommend
FreeBSD is the closest to a UNIX style operating system. This has been extensively used by vendors in the field of routing, switch and security as their base operating system. This speaks for itself being a reliable, scalable and secure operating system.
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
FreeNAS suited really well in managing our legacy systems and it handled all our network flows really well, less maintenance is required on our part. FreeNAS also gave the option to switch to TrueNAS for free as now its support is limited. The major issue that we faced was with the installation as it is really complex and required lots of time. Rest all is good and FreeNAS still works well on our systems.
Eldhose K Shibu | TrustRadius Reviewer
Eldhose K Shibu
Chief Technology Officer (Consulting)
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Pros
  • stability
  • security
  • scalability
Verified User
Anonymous
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  • The FreeNAS web interface is modern looking. It makes tasks like provisioning drives into raid volumes easy.
  • The ZFS raid option allows you to add in an SSD as a cache drive to increase performance.
CT
Chris Thibeau
Technical Support Analyst
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Cons
  • Installation can be tricky for first timers
  • You need to be comfortable using a command line terminal most of the time
Verified User
Anonymous
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  • Not good for beginners as it requires deep understanding of networking and storage.
  • Most of the good and required features are not available in free version.
PJ
Pranay J
Senior Consultant
Read full review
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
There were some things that can be found by other users on forums and Google and some things that were not.
Verified User
Anonymous
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Alternatives Considered
FreeBSD was the only operating system out of many I tried to install easily on older hardware and to run in a very performant way. For example, I had a lot of trouble trying to get Ubuntu to install on older hardware and when it did, it was too slow to use. FreeBSD installed quite easily and even after installing a desktop such as XFCE - it still run surprisingly fast. I was very impressed with it's performance, which it seems is a goal of the FreeBSD project.
Verified User
Anonymous
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Before swapping to FreeNAS, we'd been using plan old Linux servers running Samba and NFS with ZFS storage underneath. This worked really well for our requirements at the time but required a lot of administration when new versions came along, or new users had to be added or drives needed replacing, and so on. FreeNAS did away with 95% of that work and does a much better job too.
Verified User
Anonymous
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Return on Investment
  • As FreeBSD is free - the ROI is at least the cost of some commercial Linux or Windows based OS (which can be very expensive)
  • Allowed the re-use of older hardware that would have otherwise been disposed
  • No cost development environment
  • Opportunity for a no cost server setup also
Verified User
Anonymous
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  • Low-Cost Network Attached Storage
  • Provides additional network storage to support client & business operations
  • FreeNAS secures our data using custom encryption keys
Verified User
Anonymous
Read full review
ScreenShots