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We will look at the best Unraid alternatives below, but please remember that there isn’t an individual alternative that is best. Each option will be better or worse depending on the requirements!

Unraid is a network-attached storage operating system. Unraid lets you create, manage, and delete shared folders, and run applications (even create and run Docker containers). Unraid isn’t a traditional hypervisor, but it gives you the ability to create virtual machines if needed. Unraid is incredibly user-friendly in my opinion. From my experience, a lot of NAS operating systems are confusing when you first set them up, but Unraid makes sense, meaning that you’ll get used to it quickly. Please keep in mind that Unraid is not free, so you must purchase a license based on the number of hard dri

TrueNAS is an operating system based on the OpenZFS file system. There are actually two different versions of TrueNAS: TrueNAS Core and TrueNAS Scale. TrueNAS Core has been available since 2005 (formerly known as FreeNAS) and is based on FreeBSD. TrueNAS Scale was released in 2022 and is based on Debian-Linux. They’re both similar, but different at the same time, so I urge you to learn about their differences if you decide to use TrueNAS. Regardless of which version you use, TrueNAS is open-source and free, unlike Unraid.

It depends on what you value. After using all three alongside TrueNAS (and also preferring TrueNAS for most), here’s how I’d break it down. If you want the most flexibility and don’t mind paying for a license, go with Unraid. The storage system is forgiving, the Docker support is excellent, and you’ll be up and running quickly. If you want something free, lightweight, and you have spare hardware (or a Raspberry Pi), OpenMediaVault is a great starting point. If you’d rather not build anything and want a polished, supported experience out of the box, Synology is still hard to beat. Just go in kn