Hmmm this doesn't look bad at all. The linked page doesn't make it too clear but apparently you can install it yourself for free, you don't have to buy their hardware.

It's not something I'd go for to be honest. I need to have full tinker access :) Most of my servers now have a bunch of custom docker scripts. But it looks good I have to say.

I think I'll roll this out in a VM on my homelab just to play with it and get some ideas.

PS: One thing that's notably missing in their app store is headscale, the only have the official Tailscale service client.

Ok, and what do I do when these guys go out of business/get bought by Amazon/microsoft/whatever in 3 or 5 years? Like, the game’s up with this cloud stuff, surely. None of it is to be trusted.

The self-hosted is interesting but the real challenge is the long-term commitment. What happens when: - The hardware fails - The company pivots or shuts down - You need to restore from backup

I'd love to see more focus on data portability and guaranteed migration paths. If the OS is truly open, that helps, but the "appliance" model makes people nervous about vendor lock-in even when self-hosting.

IF I already have a NAS/mini pc can I just install this stuff and get all the benefits because I don't need the hardware?

I run an umbrel on an off the shelf mini pc and it’s been great! Very polished and nice experience!

Or get the same specs with Beelink for $300? This is a mini PC with Linux pre-installed.

Why would anyone want this? It's got a fairly tiny drive size for this day and age, not to mention it appears to just be a generic aliexpress N150 box thats been branded and had their software pre-installed.

Picked up an Umbrel server to run Bitcoin Knots node last month. Works extremely well, I highly recommend it for similar applications. Nice web based UI.

"run a Bitcoin node" <closes tab>

Cool, but honestly I always end up regretting another device that is not just plain "non user-firendly" Linux. First you buy Synology because it's just quick and easy to set-up, and "I'll figure the rest later". But when time comes to figure the rest out, it's just so unreasonably inconvenient. In theory, it is just Linux, and DSM is just for convenience, and there are special packages intended to use Docker and install stuff and all, but there are so many "user-friendly improvements" on top of that, that I get tired even just thinking about all the hoops I have to jump to do something super-simple and end up choosing some another device for all tasks that theoretically would be a good fit for my NAS to perform. The only good thing is hot-swap and automatic volume rebuild, that is super convenient. But, honestly, are these 2 minutes of convenience worth the rest? I don't know.