Self-Hosted Main

proxmox. i fine its very easy to work with and manage. also proxmox backup server is amazing

Arch. No Window Managers or Desktop Environments. Its easy to work with when no extra fluff is installed.

Proxmox 4 lyf

Debian. All day, everyday.

Home Server: VMware ESXi NAS: Unraid

Debian, I wouldn't pick another one.

Debian. I use mostly docker containers and super easy to spin up and manage.

Debian Stable. Clean, easy, and reliable. Upgrades smoothly without drama.

Debian

Debian, FreeBSD. Proxmox is awesome for hosting VMs, LXC, and Docker Containers (via a VM).

FreeBSD with its jails

Ubuntu server LTS

VMware esxi. The only one I tried, and it works amazing.

Proxmox, truenas

Ubuntu server, some bash scripts, and a docker install. KISS

I don't have much of a homeserver, its more of an experiment - but I have Fedora IoT as hypervisor OS running a Open Media Vault guest and another Fedora IoT VM for container services.

I'm a big fan of Fedora's Ostree setup, and have used Silverblue on the desktop for a while now, so IoT makes a lot of sense for me.

Ubuntu LTS server. I chose it because it's got good support both in community and enterprise support. Also it's pretty simple to use and almost forgot it's got zfs built in.

vSphere 8

If you want a beautiful front end for docker containers

CasaOS/ZimaOS Cosmos-server Unbrel

Otherwise

• proxmox
• truenas
• unraid

I think it really depends on what you intend to do with it... Many answers here will mention what they use but not why.

In my case I want to have various services installed in docker containers, and I have the skills to manage Linux in console. A very simple solution for me was to use a rock-solid, established Linux distro on the host (Debian stable) with Docker sourced from its official apt repo. It's clean, it's simple, it's reliable, it's easy to reinstall if it explodes.

Why containers (as opposed to directly on the host)? I've done both over several years and I've come to consider the container approach cleaner. (I mention this because I've seen people wondering why even bother with containers.) It's a nice sweet spot in-between dumping everything on the host and a fully reproducible environment like nixOS or Ansible. I get the ability to reproduce a service perfectly thanks to docker compose; I get to separate persistent data very cleanly thanks to container:host mapping of dirs and files; I get to do flexible networking solutions because containers can be seen as individual "machines" and I can juggle their interfaces and ports around freely; I get some extra security from the container isolation; it's less complicated than using VMs etc.

Arch, because I've always had a better experience with it than Ubuntu, be it server or desktop. I also daily drive it on my desktops.

It's so much easier to setup. Only with Docker and MergerFS it's a command and easily updatable, instead of the PPA setups or bash installs you have to do on Ubuntu. The wiki is still the best.

And it's way easier to maintain when there's less stuff.

TrueNAS scale. Why: my main concern is backup and data protection, and TrueNAS offers just that. On top of that it's flexible enough to build a media suite on top of it, and it's easy to manage. I could have also gone unRAID, but since trueNAS is free and offer a bit better protection imo (at the cost of flexibility), I picked that

Alma, Talos, OpenBSD

I used unraid last year, excellent experience learning how to use docker + vm in a user-friendly interface.
Now I use debian (installed via debootstrap) headless (docker only).

I went from freenas to unraid and couldn't be happier.

Unraid has a ton of really amazing features, it's super easy to use, the docker support is great (freenas didn't have docker support when I left), the parity drives are magic, and just being able to slap random disks of any size in your NAS is great.

I've had a few issues with freenas, but I've never had a single issue with unraid. That shit just works.

Edit:

I have a live stream porn downloader, that'll watch when people come online and start capturing the stream. I don't want this to be part of my system and putting strain on it, so with unraid I'm able to put disks in my system and use a plugin called unassigned devices, which allows me to add them to the system, but have them be separate from my main array.

That's why I just love unraid. The flexibility is great.

Truenas for the nas, proxmox for everything else

Proxmox, TrueNAS, Ubuntu server.

Proxmox, unraid, pihole ftw

Ubuntu server, everything on it runs with docker, nothing beside docker is installed, because of this i use rolling release instead of LTS

NixOS. Only been running it on that server for a couple of weeks now, but so far I'm happy with it.

I like being able to manage almost every aspect of the system from a single declarative configuration file.

I don't do any fancy NAS and/or RAID stuff though. Just the OS living on an nvme, and a logical volume running across two spinning disks. If I need direct file access I use scp, but the storage is more for jellyfin and a syncthing node.

Proxmox 👍👍👍

Homeserver? Surely you mean home serverS.

Proxmox, unraid. Ubuntu server vms

Proxmox because it's just Debian with a pretty UI for QEMU

I'm liking it a lot more than ESXi - it's just better honestly

good support keeping the compatible packages readily available is one of the feature you might do well with

Truenas scale and xcpng

AlmaLinux + portainer. Cockpit-machines for vms.

I use Rocky Linux, since it is similar to my my company uses but I don't have to worry about developer keys/license to use the os

Fedora server + cockpit

solid and simple admin web panel with containers support (via plugin)

I use OpenMediaVault, with a Docker plugin and a few containers for Plex and Transmission. Although, I don't actually remember if OpenMediaVault is the OS itself, or running on top of it, which is a testament to stability, I suppose.

Proxmox on bare metal. Then a TrueNas VM for storage. And a Ubuntu VM for containers.

I have only ever used UnRaid, so I can't speak to the differences between server options. But I love UnRaid!

I am not very experienced in using text-based command terminals, so having a GUI is very helpful for me. In the past, I've tried to really understand the Linux terminal, making reference sheets for all the commands and writing down file paths, but in the end, I just spend way too much time trying to remember/ figure out how to do something that would only take clicking an icon. (I'm not here to argue the merits of terminal vs GUI. I understand the power of the terminal and still occasionally use it when necessary).

I originally started using UnRaid because of the Linus Tech Tips video, where they made 2 gaming PCs in one computer. I really wanted to do that too for my partner and I to game together. I mainly wanted to do that for the cool factor, but ultimately, it was cheaper to buy all the parts for one PC and just get a second GPU and an UnRaid license than it was to buy everything for 2 PCs.

UnRaid's built-in Docker and VM support is amazing! The Community Applications plugin has also made Docker Containers a breeze! People make pre-configured apps that only take minimal setup on my side to get running (mostly setting the file path for save folders). I've never made much luck with Docker itself on other OSs, but now I run Plex, Home Assistant, Blender, Cura Slicer, photo backup, minecraft server, etc. All only took a few clicks and setting file paths, and then they are up and running!

The ability to quickly spin up VMs in UnRaid and choose how many resources you want to give it (CPU cores, RAM, passing through USB or any PCIe device) has been amazing! It is really making it easier for me to learn Linux since I can easily access Windows or Linux as VMs and easily give GPU access to either if I need to. I guess it's like having all the benefits of bare metal installs and VMs.

UnRaid also has a terminal for more advanced users. Really, it seems anything is possible with some of the stuff I've read about people doing. And I never imagined I could build two gaming PCs into one!

Unraid for my disks and *arr stack and 3 other Ubuntu LTS boxes for my containers

unraid if you're running media apps, cameras, etc it works well