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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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.
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 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/report-slams-ubiquiti-products-keep-203750691.html
This sounds like a good thing for consumers.
According to Hunterbrook, Ukrainian military sources and Russian vendors interviewed for the story say Ubiquiti devices are favored because they are inexpensive, easy to deploy, and difficult to disable remotely.
How is this a good thing? Getting extremely rich selling products to the Russian military despite sanctions?
I’ll be avoiding Unifi products until they stop doing this.
I don’t think it was on them, I thought from reading the article it was 2nd hand not directly from the company itself. I’m saying the reasons listed are good for consumers especially as the US gets more oppressive against its own citizens.
This situation is not unique to Ubiquiti. Many technology manufacturers face similar challenges: Once products are sold through distributors, resellers, or secondary markets, control over final destination becomes limited. Sanctions enforcement often focuses on exporters and sellers, not manufacturers alone. Networking hardware is inherently dual-use, meaning it can support both civilian and non-civilian applications
That’s still on Unifi. They’re responsible for where their products are sold.
Actually they are not, only who they sell to, if it’s an official distributor they can put that in their policy and stop giving them product if the distributor breaks the policy. If I buy 10 switches and then sell them to some guy in Russia, that’s on me, not ubiquity.
Semi-related: companies advertising “military grade” like it means something other than “made by the lowest bidder”.
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.
Use opnsense instead.
Pfsense is shady on the OSS side these days. I think. I haven’t gotten into the drama. Opnsense is a popular fork.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters NAS Network-Attached Storage NUC Next Unit of Computing brand of Intel small computers PCIe Peripheral Component Interconnect Express Plex Brand of media server package RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage SSD Solid State Drive mass storage Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand ZFS Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity
8 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.
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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 use their WiFi access points. They’re great. That’s about it.
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’d say they offer prosumer options for sure, but they also have what I would consider enterprise offerings as well. Even a large campus can easily be run off their enterprise gear.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Of course it can, they just don’t provide a pre-containerized version but other people do. The server software just a regular program that you can install on any Linux OS. I use the linuxserver Docker version, it’s regularly updated and works without issue. It uses about 1.2 GB of RAM, so a little heavy, but nothing crazy.
https://docs.linuxserver.io/images/docker-unifi-network-application/
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.
TPlink Kasa smart gear didn’t used to need a TPlink account until they made an app update. I would be very wary of anything from them.
I buy TPLink gear, but only because I check to make sure it can be flashed with OpenWRT beforehand. I may not actually do that (my router is running it, but my PoE access points aren’t yet), but I make damn sure I can.
(Also, I almost bought Kasa smart plugs, then checked to see whether they could run ESPHome or Tasmota and picked a different brand instead. You always have to check, every single time!)
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.
I have a QNAP NAS in addition to the unas2 mentioned in the OP. Both have WD red drives. I also run Proxmox on an ancient laptop. How does virtualizing a file server work?
In my case, I setup a ZFS pool of my disks in my old desktop PC running Proxmox. Then I allocated some storage to an LXC container running Debian and Samba for file sharing.
In your case, since the QNAP already runs Samba, it would be best to run it directly on the NAS.
But if you want to do it for the learning experience, you can setup an NFS share on the QNAP and link it to the Proxmox. The Proxmox can then use the NAS for storage and you can have VMs or LXC contsiners use for virtual disks.
