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.

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.

New Report Slams Ubiquiti for Products That Keep Showing Up on the Front Lines of the Russia-Ukraine War: What Investors Should Know …yahoo.com/…/report-slams-ubiquiti-products-keep-…

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.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

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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.

Not so much to the content of your post but to your title:

Their web interface is nice, reasonably priced (not cheap) prosumer sort of gear. I have 2 APs and 1 router, 1 AP is flaky, it’s the 7 XGS which should be a high end AP. It gets pretty bad coverage with it and it’s flaky, randomly going offline once a week. RMAed it, replaced Ethernet cable, poe injector (ubiquity branded) and tried tweaking settings. Still happening

So to the subject, some good in the web interface but I will not buy again. That said, most network gear has some sort of jank in my experience, flaky, or just bad management interface, etc…

I’ve fully invested into UniFi equipment and cameras. I love having a centralized dashboard for my entire network. Network wise you can completely disable the cloud functionality, but then it’s not as easy to remotely manage your equipment. Depends on your security risk acceptance or privacy concerns. So far Ubiquiti hasn’t given me any reason not to trust them…yet. NAS wise, I’ve been running TrueNAS for a few years and it’s worked out great so far. I’ve been hosting container apps within TrueNAS more recently. B2 Backblaze for off-site backups. Unifi has Wireguard built right in and I have Tasker on my phone to auto VPN back into my network when I disconnect from my home WiFi. Overall, I’m happy with my setup. Not having the latest equipment sucks, but why upgrade for the sake of upgrading if everything still works?

I’ve been running the original Unifi Dream Machine (the can, not rack) since it released in 2019. Been pretty solid, no complaints; it replaced my trusty Asus RT-N66U w/Tomato firmware; I think the UDM has been deployed longer than the Asus at this point.

The single built-in AP on the UDM was getting a bit overwhelmed, so recently I bought a U7 Lite AP to help split the load a little better. Working great so far, but now I’m looking into adding an NVR for cameras.

I like my Unifi setup, I’m just scared of a rug pull.

Same here.

Can’t say anything on unify, but what’s wrong with ZFS in the homelab, especially if you know it already? I use ZFS on my Proxmox hosts and my TrueNAS.

I’ve been using their access points for a long time. They have been working quite well. I do have an old WiFi 5 AP that’s starting to fail, but that’s not too surprising considering the age.

I’ve just been running the controller with a local account. Hopefully they won’t try to force me into using a cloud account.

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.

I use their WiFi access points. They’re great. That’s about it.

At home, I have a shit ton of in-wall HD’s behind TVs, a Dream Machine SE Pro. A 16 port and an 8 port POE switch.

At work, I have a Pro Max, a 24 port enterprise switch, and a handful of access points. I also have one of their door controllers with its attached video doorbell.

Their cameras aren’t bad, but they’re overpriced. I went full reolink and haven’t regretted any of that. I use their protect nvr stuff at work, and while it works, it’s not great. If you just want something easy to set up and go, it’s good enough. If you want to do some really complicated, complex things, you’re better off with frigate or blue iris.

Their VPNs a little bit light duty. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but when I did my setups there was no local DNS option. But that’s easy enough to take care of.

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.

Mikrotik for switches. Grandstream for APs. All been just working, and easy to set up. Good price as well.

Just use switches and APs and I’m happy. Had 2 generations of AP and will eventually upgrade to the current ones, but am not in a rush.

I have no desire to expand beyond that, but the networking gear works well.

My whole work and home networks are all Unifi stuff. I absolutely love them. Way more reliable than anything else I’ve ever tried.

I have an edge router and switch, and two unifi APs. All accounts running locally. Works fine for my uses, though I think if I had it to do over again I’d investigate pfsense or opnsense. Not sure about hardware tho.

since it uses ZFS I don’t know it would be good for home use

TrueNAS is all I’ve used for my home for the better part of a decade. It’s been fine, what is your concern?

I run Ubiquity AP (used to be flashed to OpenWRT but now stock) as well as Mikrotik, all local. Firewall is opnsense. NAS is FreeNAS, but not really use it at the moment. zfs is great. If you really need 48 port L3 switches, look into whitebox. I use used enterprise gear for lab, too much noise and power draw and no real use for terabit L3 at home.

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

1. The UI keeps changing and moving around settings for no good reason after each update
2. You can’t setup devices directly if you have a device or two, you are required to setup a control center
3. The control center is already slow and sluggish, but the real nightmare starts when you start having 100 or more devices
4. 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.
5. Honestly fuck 'em. there’s more but I don’t wanna give them any more rent space in my head on a Sunday lol

I have a ICG-Ultra driven network infrastructure with 3 switches and 7 APs at home. I wouldn’t use their NAS options though. For NAS I just have 20TB of spinning disks sitting there attached to my ProxMox for all my data, and have all services in VMs or LXCs. I set up an UnRaid (before it was a subscription) in my brother’s house to backup off-site and sync it once per week.

I only use their WiFi because I got some in- and outdoor ap’s for free. The Wifi manager is selfhosted and has no internet access. For upgradesi downoad the deb file, trasnsfer and install. It’s not the best out there, but works for me and i’m still happy with it.

A NAS is just a computer and TrueNAS is just Linux (ok, TrueNAS CORE is Bsd).

You can run zfs on any machine: they recommend loads of RAM for optimal performance, which you don’t need at home (or at work, unless your job is running a data center).

You can choose from a number of FOSS NAS-specific operating systems, plus all linux distros (since you post here, I’d assume you either can or aim to administer a home sever?)… why would you go with a proprietary OS?

There are several FOSS operating systems for network equipment too (keyword “NOS”), but as far as I’m aware none that work on small soho/edge switches. OpenWrt runs both my router (mikrotik) and WAPs (tplink), but the two 8-port switches I have at home (also tplink) run their proprietary firmware.

@early_riser I use #unifi for #switching and #wifi. I enjoy those products. I don't like their #NAS and #routing options.

I ran #pfsense for over a decade, but since the 2.8 release you can't do an offline install. So I switched to #opnsense.

We use it exclusively at work, it’s great for almost anything

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.

Try stay away from their cheap consumer side stuff, they underspec the hardware and fill it with (useful) bloat that the hardware can barely run.

OpenWRT?

It isn’t really a vendor but it is Foss. It isn’t as robust as vendor solutions but the advantage is that it will run anywhere.

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)