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Product Comparison

There are similar systems out there but they are all missing important pieces of the puzzles to make a self-hosted system simple and turnkey. A goal is to be able to provide a elegant Apple-like design experience in a small box with built-in battery backup and redundant storage that you plug into your modem instead of a router, and go through a short installation process and be up and running in minutes. There is currently no other product that does all of the following out of the box without heavy technical lifting.
  • Router/Gateway
  • Firewall
  • Wireless Access Point
  • Ad Blocking
  • Dynamic DNS
  • Reverse Proxy with automatic certificate management
  • Full Application Suite
  • Single Sign-On
  • NAS

OPNSense/PFSense

OPNSense and PFSense are popular Open Source router products that can replace a typical router/access point provided by an ISP, with a lot of additional functionality like firewall functionality, ad blocking, intrusion detection, etc. These products can be used at home, but are rather technical and complicated, requiring a lot of configuration. They are also not very suitable for serving general applications.

Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro

The Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro is a similar product to OPNSense, but with a highly polished front-end. It is a corporate product, and as such is not free, nor is it open source. It also does not work well with other network hardware that is not part of the Ubiquiti ecosystem. It is also a relatively complex product that requires a level of technical understanding.

Synology

Synology offers a wide range of products that began with NAS (Network-Attached Storage) but has extended into offering the ability to run applications in docker containers. Since they are first and formost network storage devices, they often don't come with much memory and CPU power, so are not well suited to heavy application usage. Thye also are expensive and not open source, and not purpose built as routers for WAN facing applications.

TrueNAS

TrueNAS TrueNAS covers a similar NAS space to Synology, but with an open source offering. Being open source, it can be run on better hardware and can more suitably serve applications, but is not purpose built as a router, and would require heavy configuration to work as one.

CasaOS, Umbrel, and Yunohost

CasaOS, Umbrel, and YunoHost are focused on serving applications as a first class concern, but less capable in routing and gateway capability, which would need to be configured separately. From a user experience perspective though, they are closer to what HomeFree is trying to achieve.

NextCloud

NextCloud is a heavy multi-purpose web platforms with a built-in suite of applications. It serves a more narrow niche than CasaOS and Umbrel as it cannot run arbitrary applications, but rather those built specifically for the NextCloud ecosystem.