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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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[-] tophneal@sh.itjust.works 27 points 4 months ago

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.

this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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