TrueNAS, Unraid, and Proxmox all replace Synology, but only one does the same job

Published Sep 2, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT Dhruv Bhutani has been writing about consumer technology since 2008, offering deep insights into the personal technology landscape through features and opinion pieces. He writes for XDA-Developers, where he focuses on topics like productivity, networking, self-hosting, and more. Over the years, his work has also appeared in leading publications such as Android Police, Android Authority, CNET, PCMag, and more. Outside of his professional work, Dhruv is an avid fan of horror media spanning films and literature, enjoys fitness activities, collects vinyl records, and plays the guitar. As a keen participant in networking, backup, and storage communities, I've noticed a curious pattern. Whenever someone is frustrated with Synology's hardware restrictions, or simply wants a more powerful setup, they're usually looking at the same three options — TrueNAS, Unraid, or Proxmox. The reason is simple. Enthusiast communities attract the kind of audience that wants to run their own services, use their own hardware, and expand storage on their own terms. In fact, more often than not, I've ended up looking at the same options for my own setup because my NAS is now more of a server than just a NAS box. But keep in mind that while the three platforms overlap, they approach the problem we're all trying to solve very differently. Here's the deal: TrueNAS is the closest replacement for a traditional NAS. Meanwhile, Unraid is built around the idea of combining storage, applications, and virtual machines. Finally, Proxmox is primarily a virtualization tool. As you can see, only one of these is trying to be a NAS. TrueNAS is the closest to a Synology replacement Snapshots and replication to protect your data Credit: If your goal is to build a server that is primarily a NAS, TrueNAS is the first place to look. The main reason is its ZFS support and how the software approaches standard NAS functions. TrueNAS includes essential NAS functions like snapshots, data integrity checks, scrubbing, and replication as part of the standard experience. These are critical features when the server backs up and stores files you care about. With TrueNAS, you can use separate datasets for documents, media, and backups, then give each service access only to the storage it needs. Snapshots are also a key TrueNAS feature and are useful for recovery when something goes wrong. And if you've been in this hobby long enough, you'll know that something is always going wrong. It's just a matter of when. Snapshots give you a fallback option if you accidentally delete something. Meanwhile, replication is what you fall back on in case of catastrophic failure. Think hard drive failure. This feature lets you back up your data to another device altogether, something like a NAS or even another server. Of course, as is the norm in 2026, TrueNAS also works pretty well as an application server. You can install Docker-based applications just fine to build a single space for your backups and home lab. All that to say, TrueNAS is the go-to when it comes to building a true-blue Synology replacement. It goes without saying that since this is entirely a DIY effort, the learning curve can be steep. Unlike Synology, which offers a practically set-and-forget approach, using TrueNAS means you also need to know what you're configuring. But despite that, I believe TrueNAS is the natural choice for anyone leaving Synology for a better NAS. Unraid and Proxmox go far beyond NAS functions You're approaching server territory As capable as TrueNAS is, Unraid and Proxmox are the other two options enthusiasts often turn to. Unraid, in particular, is where things get interesting. The biggest advantage here is how Unraid handles storage. You can mix drives in an array and expand storage without sticking to strictly matched hard disks. That's a SHR-style setup that makes a lot of sense in a home lab, where costs matter as much as growing storage needs. I tend to use a mix of old and new drives, and if I were upgrading my Synology setup today, Unraid is probably what I would turn to to maximize the storage offered by my hard drives. The software is designed around incremental expansion. Unraid can equally handle segregated storage for running applications. So your Docker containers can run on an SSD while spinning drives handle bulk storage. The third route most people take is Proxmox. This is also the tool where you stop thinking of your server as a NAS. You see, Proxmox is primarily a virtualization platform that can run virtual machines and LXC containers. On a powerful enough machine, you can have completely separate environments running on the same hardware. Think running a container dedicated just to Home Assistant, isolated from everything else. Or a Linux container for testing that won't break anything else. That isolation is what makes Proxmox stand out in terms of the freedom it offers. Of course, Proxmox can back up entire virtual machines and containers, giving you a proper backup workflow as well. But that additional freedom comes with a much more involved setup. It's much more involved than a Synology, which makes sense since it's also solving a very different problem. The right choice depends on what you need your machine to do The right choice depends largely on what you expect your machine to do. If you want a true-blue NAS first, that's a replacement for a Synology, TrueNAS is what you should turn to. The NAS operating system is geared toward storage operations while still giving you the flexibility to run applications. On the other hand, if storage flexibility is paramount, Unraid makes the most sense. And finally, there's Proxmox. I wouldn't really call it a NAS replacement operating system even though it's often used as such. Proxmox should be your go-to if you want to run multiple operating systems and services on the same hardware. But if that's your priority, you're not really looking for a NAS anymore; you're building a server. TrueNAS Core TrueNAS is an open-source operating system built for storage management and backups using ZFS