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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

I have a UCG-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 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.

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.

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, and use mdadm to setup RAID, then setup a network share in the OS, etc.

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?

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

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.

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/

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