The interesting opportunity here isn’t selling a fancy N100 box, it’s turning “self-hosted everything” into something your non-technical friend could actually live with. That’s mostly about boring stuff: automatic off-site backup that isn’t tied to one vendor, painless replacement/restore if the hardware dies, and clear guarantees about what runs locally vs phoning home. If Umbrel leans into being forkable and portable across generic hardware, it has a shot at being trusted infrastructure instead of just another pretty NAS that people regret once the marketing site goes dark.
Ability to share, good default security, and seamless integration with the things people care about.
If this device can't automatically backup a phone wirelessly and without my interaction, it will be a poor proposition to most people.
We would all have been better off fiercely advocating for open protocols for all this stuff first (forced interop), but technologists have not wanted to wade into that in a sustained, en masse way
It's basically what Apple learned during the Macintosh clones era. Churning out countless units of the same stuff isn't that complicated once you have figured out what needs to be copied. Getting the worth-copying state is the hard and expensive part; nobody is going to do it for free.
This can readily be seen in the "free" open-source software world. The vast majority of it is just lower-quality copies of existing software.
My next experiment is just to use NFS over Nebula/Tailscale and see how much data I can just host off my NAS, but it's surprisingly been quite a journey for a simple problem.
The whole whole ecosystem is designed around it.
Don't get me wrong, Apple could've written their software with different upstream options, but they choose not to - hence going away from iCloud forces you to give up on a lot of features
I'm just pointing this out because if you've already attempted different options and went back to iCloud, then trying others isn't likely to be worthwhile, honestly.
You'd first have to accept that moving away from it means sacrificing features such as the photos sync (including delete etc).
And as someone who has been in Apple's hardware ecosystem for more than a decade now (almost exclusively), I can't in my right mind bring myself to use any of its software/service products (and for good reasons, seeing it go bad to very bad to downright pathetic over the years) except for the OS because that's not really an option. Yes, I do have a small Cryptomator folder syncing to iCloud as well, but that's just because I wanted to have that as a backup sync, and it's a very tiny set of data that I anyway backup to elsewhere.
The bad of it? Yes, keeping everything under one roof really feels simple and easy.
The good? If Apple blocks my a/c today or nukes it, it will take a few hours to few days but I will get back everything single piece of data I have online on a new laptop or phone (Apple or Android or Windows or Linux) - everything! And it's a joy to use specific better/superior options for your software/service needs as per your specific choice!
Goal is my mom running it, and keeping it 100% open source.
It looks like there isn't a lot of visible progress, but there's now a branch with a live CD installer, and an admin UI, so no command line shenanigans are necessary. Once that is cleaned up, the website will be refreshed.
I really need to quit my job so I can work on this full time.
Your mom runs Nix?
Administration is through a web UI.
It could easily be pre-installed on a device like a NUC and delivered to my mom.
Did you read the FAQ?
I've got all this running on a branch but it's still rough. Once it's relatively stable it will be merged to master and the home page completely revamped.
> Get a Nix environment set up on your host machine. HomeFree must be deployed from another machine with Nix installed. If you are on NixOS, you should be good to go. If you are on a different distribution of Linux, follow the instructions on how to install and use Nix.
> how do I keep using this thing in 5–10 years without your cloud, your app store, your updates?
The code is publicly available with a non-commercial restriction. If Umbrel the company disappears it's possible for a community maintained fork to live on. Someone else in this discussion mentioned that the NC clause hurts maintainability due to no future company being able to profit from taking over maintenance. They suggested we add a clause revoking the NC restriction if Umbrel goes out of business. It's a good suggestion and something we'll definitely consider, I think it should be possible.
Regarding apps specifically, we have the concept of "community app stores". Anyone can host their own app store which is just a public git repo that any other user can use by pasting it's url into their web ui once. Community app stores completely bypass our main app store, they don't rely on our infrastructure and will continue working if we disappear. There are already hundreds of community app stores in use:
- https://github.com/getumbrel/umbrel-community-app-store/fork... - https://github.com/search?q=in%3Areadme+sort%3Aupdated+-user...
> automatic off-site backup that isn’t tied to one vendor, painless replacement/restore if the hardware dies
We recently shipped backups baked directly into umbrelOS. You can backup to a local NAS, USB device, or another Umbrel (local or remote). You can restore individual files from hourly/weekly/monthly snapshots, or restore the entire state of your Umbrel onto a fresh device from your backups.
https://x.com/umbrel/status/1970508327479320862
> portable across generic hardware
We currently support running on Raspberry Pi, all amd64 devices, virtual machines and there is unofficial support for running in Docker.
> The interesting opportunity here isn’t selling a fancy N100 box, it’s turning “self-hosted everything” into something your non-technical friend could actually live with.
I completely agree, that's the plan.
If so, couldn't you just use the OS on non-premium-priced mini-PC hardware and never have to worry about them locking you out of your box? I guess maybe it's concerning if you're being forced to update by the OS? I've never actually run a system like that, but was considering umbrel OS (didn't actually know about the hardware until this post), so if I'm being naive about something, it's in earnest.
Yes, Umbrel OS is on GitHub and you can already run it on generic NUCs / Pi etc. That’s great. But the value prop of the hardware is the whole bundle: curated apps, painless updates, maybe remote access, maybe backups. If Umbrel-the-company pivots or withers, the repo still being there under a non-commercial license doesn’t guarantee ongoing maintenance, an app store, or support. And the NC clause is exactly what makes it hard for someone else to step in and sell a fully supported forked “Umbrel but maintained” box to non-technical users. So for people like you and me, sure, we can just install it elsewhere; for the target audience of an expensive plug-and-play box, the long-term social contract is still the fragile part.
I also run Cloudron on a VPS.
I wish both of those solutions had more mindshare. They save me so much time and effort. Especially Cloudron!
Install ≠ operate
Totally agreed. I had seen umbrel and others in the past but recently decided to just get a 4-bay m.2 ssd enclosure (using RAID 1 for 2 sets of 2), not a NAS (after previously having a Synology NAS). I only want pure file access in a small, quiet form factor and I can have another Mac host and cloud backup. Currently using Tailscale Drive (alpha feature) to share it with devices and working pretty well so far.
making self hosting more seamless is key, we simply can't trust to be dependent on third parties for access to our own data in the long term
Hell, all the compelling software isn't even theirs! They're just running other OSS apps, and god knows whether you'll be able to manage or upgrade it.
Arguably, this is the worst of all worlds: you're paying the overhead of closed hardware, running closed software that you don't control, and sort of just crossing your fingers that they don't pull the rug out from underneath you. You'd be infinitely better off buying a comparable NUC and spending an afternoon loading up Docker on it. Shit like this is genuinely insulting to the demographic of folks who should be the target audience.
> Details are extremely thin on the site, so let me know if I'm wrong.
You can get a very similar 16GB RAM, 1TB storage Minipc in the same form factor from Amazon for around $260 so looks like you're paying almost twice the price for the NAS-type software?
Not apples/apples, it looks like the Umbrel at $500 comes with 4TB, you're pricing out a 1TB above. A bare Samsung 990EVO 4TB is $328, on a straight $/TB that's an extra $246 putting your total build more like $500.
if you click "Buy Now" and then...click "Buy Now" again, that takes you to the actual pricing. $500 for 1TB, or 4TB for $800.
On a non-backup "Personal Cloud" that does not even have a RAID 1 for a bit of redundancy? Big no no.
It looks really cool, but I really dislike products that encourage dangerous behaviors, especially to users that might completely be unaware and think about replacing their Apple or Google Cloud with this so called "personal cloud".
I might pay 1000 bucks for a box that came with that promise of 'never lose anything again'
I also like their marketing approach: They really have a nice app store and a nice page for each app.
I did not like the reliability around app installations and the disappointment that it’s actually quite proprietary.
I wish there was a standard „server app“ format similar to what Umbrel uses with a strong ecosystem and multiple solutions. It‘s a key missing piece to self hosting stuff, IMO.
I’ve had the same idea. It’s the missing piece to beautiful UI wrapping around a homelab. I think this is one of the cooler pieces of what Umbrel is providing.
The lack of RAID or similar means that you've traded the cloud for 1 component losing all your data. Coupled with the lack of any (obvious) backup solution is concerning. Do you really want to backup your files/images to a single point of failure? If this is supposed to be turn-key then I think there are opportunities to sell cloud backup as an add-on but as-is you are handing people a ticking time bomb.
I'm not a fan of the Crypto angle highlighted in the store, it's a red flag.
I'm interested in what the app compatibility story is here. Like how much post-install configuration are they handling?
> Sonarr on umbrelOS will automatically connect to download clients installed from the Umbrel App Store. Choose from Transmission, qBittorerent, and SABnzbd. Simply install your preferred client(s).
Does that mean they have post-install hooks (on both Sonarr and the download client's end) to configure those? Or is that just speak for "Yeah, you can easily configure XYZ download client that you also installed".
All-in-all it seems overpriced and limited for what it's offering and that's all assuming they stick around and don't peter out. Maybe this is a good first step for someone interested in this but I feel like the type of person interested in this either already can figure out how to set it up themselves (Synology, UnRaid, Docker, etc) or will need a lot of handholding when things break/don't work as expected.
It's entirely possible that there are a lot of people that this would be good for, I just don't know who it would be.
Lastly, no mention of anything like SSO or Remote Access (both things that could be a good value-add IMHO alongside cloud backup). It's overly nerdy in some ways and underly nerdy in others which is why I can't figure out the target audience.
Although I'm not at all convinced Umbrel is the right answer, they seem to be on the right track. Can they empower regular people to own their data without causing havoc down the road if they run out of money and go out of business? I'm sceptical, but I do respect them for trying to tackle this head on. But having skimmed their website, they could do a better job of building trust and answer the long-term question of what happens if they fail.
I do believe this is a growing market, giving people who are fed up with BigTech a way out that does not require that you are a nerd. I am only worried people can be scared it this goes wrong. Paying a premium for rather basic hardware if the setup and software is super smooth could be perfectly acceptable to non-techies that do not at all want the hassle of maintaining a custom NAS.
Most people I interact with don't even think about "Big Tech" in this way. They don't question iCloud storage, Google Drive or Google Workspace, Microsoft OneDrive etc.
They do sometimes get upset about right to repair, AI, and sometimes I hear about net neutrality or how Google search sucks, or how Facebook is privacy invasive.
To reiterate though, the core services like a product like this would replace - Google Drive, iCloud Drive, OneDrive etc. - that is not on the radar. Let alone having functional seamless replacements for email or calendar or contacts etc.
These are people adept at using technology too, there simply is no reason to invest in these types of products to them.
The reason these companies struggle is because mass market doesn't care about this enough first and foremost. They aren't seamless drop in replacements.
They don't handle my phone backups, for example, wirelessly and seamlessly. They don't offer seamless contact sharing, photo sharing and sometimes even file sharing is so clunky compared to a Google Drive link, or an iCloud download link.
How do they handle expiry on a link address for said share?
At best, what you have here is an on premise redundant storage drive and little else. It doesn't have the seamless features to do what the other services do. Even if its on the spec sheet, the experience isn't seamless enough. This is the same problem Nextcloud has been trying to solve for some time.
I think among technologists, the market for this is growing, but thats been the case for some time, its simply reaching more and more of us. This being a knock out commercial success where every 3rd person you know is buying something like this? That isn't happening in the foreseeable future.
Unless they make their software fully open and make the devices hackable, no.
I'm glad to pay for cloud hosting because at least I know my money is getting me some degree of service in return. The risk that my iCloud data will be lost in the next five years is very low. The risk that this company will disappear in the next five years and I've got a $500 paperweight is exceedingly high.
Ideally, I think we would something like Sandstorm but that can be deployed on everything from a home server to a Docker-based cloud service like Google Cloud Run or... Amazon Fargate (I'm not too familiar with their services).
I don't use the cloud for scaling, but so that I never have to worry about power, internet, or machine-level security.
The biggest upgrade of this movement is privacy & data sovereignty, so I hope it continues growing, and hope Umbrel has success in being a gateway for a lot of selfhost-curious.