I bought into the ecosystem while taking my networking cert classes back in 2017. They were much cheaper than Cisco gear for business-grade networking, and overall I’ve been happy with them.
Their security offerings are locally managed, and you can make local accounts, but I just bought a NAS from them and I had to sign in with my ubiquiti account first before I could make a local account, and it seems the cloud account has some privileges that you can’t give to local super admins.
So now I’m having second thoughts. I figure since it’s enterprise-grade stuff they can’t really make it cloud-dependent like you see on the consumer side since a lot of companies need air-gapped networks. On the other hand, on those occasions that I didn’t have internet access and hadn’t yet made a local-only account, I was locked out, so…
Regarding the NAS specifically, I use a TruNAS system at work and it works well enough on a rack server, but since it uses ZFS I don’t know it would be good for home use. What alternatives are there?
Are there any truly FOSS networking options? I figure especially on the switching side you need purpose-built hardware, right? There aren’t generic motherboards with 48 network ports you can buy.
I like my Unifi setup, I’m just scared of a rug pull.
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I’ve been using Unifi APs since 2017 and they are fantastic. I control them with the Unifi Network Application via docker compose. Incredibly well priced APs that fit right into the ‘prosumer’ market for sure and still powerful enough to do SMB no problem.
As for FOSS Networking options - OPNsense FTW !!! It’s an open source firewall/router based on FreeBSD and extremely performant, feature rich, stable and secure… Absolutely love it, it’s the core of my network.
In regards to ZFS, I’ve been running a ZFS system of one type or another at home since 2013/2014… Totally valid & usable for home networks, many many do use ZFS storage systems. I’m very preferential to OpenMediaVault which is a NAS OS, but based directly on Debian! Debian is basically the Linux OS you want for reliability but paired with OMV’s gui - makes having a custom NAS easy.
Are there any truly FOSS networking options?
PFSense falls into this category for routers. Netgate makes hardware specifically for it, but you don’t have to buy anything from them to use PFSense. I only mention them because their hardware is good and you can buy anything from a normal home router to enterprise level gear.
I had to sign in with my ubiquiti account first before I could make a local account
I used to be pretty into ubiquiti, but this requirement really put me off. I have no desire to do anything ‘cloud’ with my router. This requirement sent me elsewhere and I sold off all my ubiquiti equipment.
TruNAS … What alternatives are there?
TruNAS has a community edition, so you could start there. Other alternatives are a standard Debian install, use mdadm to setup RAID, then setup a network share in the OS, etc.
Pfsense is shady on the OSS side these days. I think. I haven’t gotten into the drama. Opnsense is a popular fork.
Use opnsense instead.
OpenWRT is basically Linux for routers and can be installed on a variety of devices - https://openwrt.org/
There is also https://www.gargoyle-router.com/
Opinion wise: love unifi for networking equipment. Especially since that equipment doesn’t require the web account. For a Nas, I’m in too deep already, I’ll only use equipment I fully control. I wouldn’t buy a Unifi NAS just like I wouldn’t buy a Synology, but I’ll keep leaning on my Unifi stuff as long as it keeps doing its job well.
As for using TrueNAS w/ZFS at home, go for it if you know and like it! I actually was recently given my boss’s old home NAS that used to run his Plex server. When I got it it was still on FreeNAS (same thing, just a few versions behind) and it’s using ZFS. Worked for him, and now works for me, no problem. Both of us also use Unifi equipment for our networks. The only problems we’ve ever had were our own doings.
For large networks with over 20 devices, I find them acceptable not because they are good but because other options are more expensive.
For small networks? I despise them
- The UI keeps changing and moving around settings for no good reason after each update
- You can’t setup devices directly if you have a device or two, you are required to setup a control center
- The control center is already slow and sluggish, but the real nightmare starts when you start having 100 or more devices
- Last couple of years they have been releasing batches with serious issues, software and hardware. The way they accepted recall for unfixable devices was so limited that many people are left with broken APs that will kill their network occasionally and the poor consumer has no idea why.
- Honestly fuck 'em. there’s more but I don’t wanna give them any more rent space in my head on a Sunday lol
What annoys me most is people mindlessly promoting Unifi. Sure it has its advantages but no one wants to talk about disadvantages
Anecdotal: I like like my OG UDM. Bought it the year it came out. No issues in almost 7 years.
Unifi is one of those brands where this phrase applies: “when it works, it works really good.”
People will see those comments, buy the hardware, and some of them will have bad experiences. You will hear about those bad experiences way more often than someone who hasn’t had any issues with the same hardware in the same timeframe.
That’s how it is with pretty much every consumer-focused network equipment brand.
I am quite satisfied with the unifi ecosystem so far as networking and CCTV systems go. They are cloud enabled without being cloud dependent. Since the early 2025 networking update, their routers are pretty good now. The UDM SE is a pretty compelling router/POEswitch/NVR in the home context.
Their NAS ecosystem is still very new and I would not it a viable option yet. They are also leaning towards the vendor lock-in direction with drives. Its the same reason I would stay away from Synology and QNAP.
Personally, I run a old desktop as a NAS/homelab running Proxmox(FOSS based hypervisor). I run ZFS on it and its “fine”. It performs fine even with a mixed bunch of disks, provided you have them in pairs or groups of 3 that perform close to identically. I just run a Debian container on the Proxmox as my fileserver and a few VMs for homelabbing.
One player that works well in a home environment is UnRAID. It a Linux distor that runs on commodity hardware and handles redundancy with “just a bunch of disks” better than most. The UI is friendly to non technical users. The catch is that UI is commercial software. Many consider it a fair exchange for the convenience it brings.
I have a QNAP NAS in addition to the unas2 mentioned in the OP. Both have WD red drives. I also run Proxmox on an ancient laptop. How does virtualizing a file server work?
In my case, I setup a ZFS pool of my disks in my old desktop PC running Proxmox. Then I allocated some storage to an LXC container running Debian and Samba for file sharing.
In your case, since the QNAP already runs Samba, it would be best to run it directly on the NAS.
But if you want to do it for the learning experience, you can setup an NFS share on the QNAP and link it to the Proxmox. The Proxmox can then use the NAS for storage and you can have VMs or LXC contsiners use for virtual disks.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point DNS Domain Name Service/System LXC Linux Containers NAS Network-Attached Storage NFS Network File System, a Unix-based file-sharing protocol known for performance and efficiency NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers NVR Network Video Recorder (generally for CCTV) PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express Plex Brand of media server package PoE Power over Ethernet RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SMB Server Message Block protocol for file and printer sharing; Windows-native SSD Solid State Drive mass storage Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand VPN Virtual Private Network ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
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Tplink Omada doesn’t need a cloud connection. There’s plenty of other reasons to not like Omada but it’s something to consider. It’s also dirt cheap.
TPlink Kasa smart gear didn’t used to need a TPlink account until they made an app update. I would be very wary of anything from them.
I buy TPLink gear, but only because I check to make sure it can be flashed with OpenWRT beforehand. I may not actually do that (my router is running it, but my PoE access points aren’t yet), but I make damn sure I can.
(Also, I almost bought Kasa smart plugs, then checked to see whether they could run ESPHome or Tasmota and picked a different brand instead. You always have to check, every single time!)
True but it’s designed to be on networks that don’t have internet.
Not a fan. Absolutely not.
They had multiple security incidents which they kept under the rugs for a long time, they have the tendency to EOL devices without warning (which then means you need to replace your sometimes 9month old device or your whole enviroment can’t be updated), their lock-in into their ecosystem is much more complete as they can’t be used properly without their enviroment.(e.g. Omada devices can work without the Omada stuff, with Unifi you will always need a controller for some functions).
So if you realy need SDN features like Unifi look at Omada,otherwise Mikrotik is a solid alternative. (And OPNsense for firewall)
TPLink had security issues all the same
Absolutely, but unlike Ubiquiti they did not keep them under the rug that long. (Nevertheless: Both are shit for firewalling. Put a OPNsense before it?)
Actually unified got a new firewall package that works great
Still mediocre compared to OPN/pfsense, IPfire, VyOs,etc.
I agree, but it’s waaaaaaaay better than it was
My biggest gripe with them is consistency. They release products without all the features they promise. They have been known to just abandon entire lines (I’m still salty about their mFi gear).
I like my UDM pro however the SE came out and for almost a year they basically ignored the Pro.
Good hardware that’s usually made or broken by their software.
The switches did get L3. Eventually.
Their PDU-PRO has three network ports on the front and I believe only one of them works. They even gray the other two out on their site. I don’t know what they thought they would do with it but they sure failed.
This is an opinion on the WiFi access points.
I took the unifi pill in 2018 on the advice of my devops coworkers that ubiquiti is set-and-forget. I also was sold on the unifi network controller I deployed and used until last month being easy to use and local only.
The single pane of glass to control and update the access points is nice. Wifi works OK. There are, however, several downsides:
- channel and power management are not automatic and tweaking WiFi settings with unifi is not intuitive.
- similar to your nas experience unifi advanced metrics are locked behind paying for other unifi equipment or an official controller.
- network appliance is built on mongodb and its performance is pretty abysmal (Up to 2.5GB memory to run it)
the network appliance is now discontinued and self-hosting the network appliance can no longer happen software-only, you have to use their “server os”, which can’t be run in a container.edit: its been pointed out to me that running the network controller in a container is possible.
After the unifi Debian repo stopped updating properly, I decided to install openwrt on my APs.
Not only did it work well, but performance is now much better with openwrt.
I’m personally stepping away from brands that have their own ecosystems from now on, if I can help it. The enshitification is just too tempting for them, it seems, and it it’s always at our expense.
the network appliance is now discontinued and self-hosting the network appliance can no longer happen software-only, you have to use their “server os”, which can’t be run in a container.
Of course it can, they just don’t provide a pre-containerized version but other people do. The server software just a regular program that you can install on any Linux OS. I use the linuxserver Docker version, it’s regularly updated and works without issue. It uses about 1.2 GB of RAM, so a little heavy, but nothing crazy.
https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-unifi-network-application/
Ah, good catch, thanks.
It’s moot point for me because I’m sick of unifi so I’m not going back to worse performance and locked-away features.
I use their WiFi access points. They’re great. That’s about it.
I use their wifi APs because they make them really easy to configure and manage. But the management interface stays locked in a vlan without access to the internets. Because I don’t trust their cloud affinity.
This also disqualifies their routers and firewalls for me. How can I trust a device which tries to phone home? So that area is covered by opnsense on a device with a sufficient amount of Ethernet ports.
Any device with a mass storage can act as a NAS - a single board computer + Linux + samba/ nfs/ scp/ sftp. I heard TrueNAS or OpenMediaVault are recommended as all in one solutions - I don’t know them.
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This sounds like a good thing for consumers.
According to Hunterbrook, Ukrainian military sources and Russian vendors interviewed for the story say Ubiquiti devices are favored because they are inexpensive, easy to deploy, and difficult to disable remotely.
Semi-related: companies advertising “military grade” like it means something other than “made by the lowest bidder”.
How is this a good thing? Getting extremely rich selling products to the Russian military despite sanctions?
I’ll be avoiding Unifi products until they stop doing this.
I don’t think it was on them, I thought from reading the article it was 2nd hand not directly from the company itself. I’m saying the reasons listed are good for consumers especially as the US gets more oppressive against its own citizens.
This situation is not unique to Ubiquiti. Many technology manufacturers face similar challenges: Once products are sold through distributors, resellers, or secondary markets, control over final destination becomes limited. Sanctions enforcement often focuses on exporters and sellers, not manufacturers alone. Networking hardware is inherently dual-use, meaning it can support both civilian and non-civilian applications
That’s still on Unifi. They’re responsible for where their products are sold.
Actually they are not, only who they sell to, if it’s an official distributor they can put that in their policy and stop giving them product if the distributor breaks the policy. If I buy 10 switches and then sell them to some guy in Russia, that’s on me, not ubiquity.
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People seem to love it. But it’s highly proprietary and there seems to be planned obsolescence built into their model
