This article compares FreeNAS with NextentaStor Community. They are both storage operating systems, FreeNAS being based on FreeBSD.
Original: http://www.freenas.org/freenas-versus-nexenta/
High Level Comparison
FreeNAS and NexentaStor Community are Storage Operating Systems that support many of the same features like CIFS, SMB, NFS, and iSCSI protocols. Each system works with OpenZFS (v5000) with feature flags, most virtualization platforms, and have support, training and certification available.
FreeNAS
Started in October 2005 by Olivier Cochard-Labbe, FreeNAS is a free and open-source software network-attached storage (NAS) system based on FreeBSD and the OpenZFS file system and is licensed under the terms of the BSD License. In September 2009, the development team realized that FreeNAS would need to be completely re-written in order to incorporate modern features like a plug-in architecture, updates to the base system, and an up-to-date User Interface. To carry this out, the FreeNAS Team transferred the project over to iXsystems, who moved from a m0n0wall and PHP-based architecture to one based on FreeBSD’s NanoBSD embedded build system, the Python programming language, the Django CMS and the dojo JavaScript toolkit.
NexentaStor Community Edition
Alex Aizman and Dmitry Ysupov created the Nexenta OS project after Sun Microsystems released the bulk of its Solaris operating system under free software licenses as OpenSolaris. NexentaStor is derived from the former Nexenta OS and based on the illumos operating system, utilizing OpenZFS as an underlying filesystem. The software delivers unified file and block storage services to consumers. NexentaStor Community edition is free up to 18TB of raw storage and does not include all the features of the professional version.
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FreeNAS NexentaStor Community Edition Overview FreeNAS 9.3 NexentaStor Community Edition Ease of Use Advanced UI, Very Little Command Line Required Advanced UI, Very Little Command Line Required Storage Experience Required Some Recommended (less) Some Recommended (less) UNIX Command Line Only Experience Required Minimal Moderate Documentation Complete Manual & User Guide Complete Manual & User Guide Languages Supported 49 US English Only Educational Resources Professional Training/Certification Available Professional Training/Certification Available How-To Videos Yes Yes Certified Hardware Available Yes No Professional Support Available Yes (on iXsystems hardware) Yes Professional Training Available Yes Yes Professional Certification Available Yes Yes Open Source Yes No Base Operating System FreeBSD 9.3-STABLE Illumos File System ZFS v5000 w/ feature flags (UFS available on <v9.3) ZFS v5000 w/ feature flags 64 Bit Hardware Supported Yes Yes 32 Bit Hardware Supported Yes (on <v9.3) Yes Project Info Source: https://www.openhub.net/p/compare?project_0=FreeNAS&project_1=Nexenta Active Developers 49 14 Project Activity Very High Moderate Project Commits 17,000+ 274 Development Language Mostly Python Mostly shell Lines of Code 450,000+ 17,722 Commits in Past Year 3,800+ 100+ Community Info Open Source Repository https://github.com/freenas/freenas Not Available Core Developers 49 Not Available Forum Activity Higher Lower Forum Members ~27,000 Not Available Forum Posts ~170,000 Not Available YouTube Community Videos 38,000+ 1,500+ IRC Channel #FreeNAS on Freenode #Nexenta on Freenode Facebook Page 20,000+ Likes 2000+ Likes 5,700+ Followers 5,700+ Followers Google+ 2,800+ Followers 280+ Followers Features Graphical User Interface (GUI) Yes Yes UI Speed/Responsiveness Slower Faster Downloadable/Uploadable Configuration file Yes No Default Settings Restore Yes No Visual Reporting Yes Yes Simple IP Management Yes Yes Web-based Volume Management Yes Yes Online Upgrades Yes Yes RAID Levels Supported (ZFS) ZFS Stripe*, ZFS Mirror, RAIDZ1, Z2,Z3 ZFS Stripe*, ZFS Mirror, RAIDZ1, Z2,Z3 RAID Levels Supported (UFS) RAID 0, 1, 5, 6*, 10, 50, 60* (on <v9.3) N/A Hot-Swap Hard Drives Yes Yes Encryption support Yes Yes Third Party Services (Plugins) Built-in sandbox Yes Web API Yes Yes Compression lz4, gzip, zle, lzjb lz4, lzjb, gzip Deduplication Yes Yes Snapshot management In Web UI In Web UI ZFS Replication In Web UI In Web UI Remote Replication In Web UI In Web UI Root-on-ZFS In Web UI Yes Boot from RAID-Z Yes Yes ZFS Import/Export to Other Systems Yes Yes Export/Import pool Yes Yes Mirrored Boot drive Yes Yes ZFS Monitoring (Email) Yes Yes SSD Trim Support Yes No Live CD Option No No Protocols, Utilities, and Directory Services NFS (Supported Versions) Yes (v3, v4) Yes (v3, v4) CIFS/SMB Yes Yes Apple Shares (AFP) Yes No iSCSI Management Yes Yes Kernel iSCSI Yes Yes Rsync Yes Yes FTP Yes Yes TFTP Yes No WebDAV Yes No LLDP Yes No Unison Yes No SSH Yes Yes Dynamic DNS Yes No UPnP Command Line Only No Lighttpd Command Line Only Yes Active Directory Integration Yes No Active Directory Domain Controller Yes Yes LDAP Yes Yes Kerberos Yes Yes NIS Yes No NT4 Yes Yes S.M.A.R.T. Yes Yes SNMP Yes Yes UPS Integration Yes Yes Virtualization Support Virtualization Host Support KVM/XEN/VMware/VirtualBox KVM/XEN/VMware/VirtualBox/HyperV VirtualBox Guest Support Yes Yes Hyper-V Guest Support Yes Yes KVM Guest Support Yes Yes ESXi Guest Support Yes Yes ESXi (VMXNET3) support Yes Yes VMWare Coordinated snapshots Yes Yes VMWare VAAI Support Yes Yes Third Party Plugins & Additional Services Bacula network Backup Server Plugin Available No BT Sync Plugin Available No CouchPotato Movie Downloader Plugin Available No Crashplan Plugin Available No Crucible WDS Plugin Available No Firefly Media Server Plugin Available No HTPC-Manager (graphical HTPC software manager) Plugin Available No LazyLibrarian eBook Downloader Plugin Available No Maraschino XBMC HTPC Web Interface Plugin Available No MediaBrowser Media Center Plugin Available No MineOS Minecraft Server Plugin Available No Mylar (Comic Book Downloader) Plugin Available No Owncloud Plugin Available No Plex Media Server Plugin Available No s3cmd Amazon S3 backup utility Plugin Available No Sabnzbd Plugin Available No Sickbeard PVR Plugin Available No Subsonic Plugin Available No Syncthing Plugin Available No Transmission (BitTorrent client) Plugin Available No XDM eXtendable Download Manager Plugin Available No *Can be applied to any disk or raid group
**Certain configurations only
