{"slug": "openbsd", "name": "OpenBSD", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "Free, security-focused Unix-like operating system descended from BSD, with the pf packet filter", "recommenders": 35, "commenters": 45, "warners": 0, "score": 33.696, "rising": 6.47, "first": "2025-11-03", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "HN commenters like it for home routers and firewalls built on pf, for stable daily use on older laptops, and for clear man pages and low-maintenance servers.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 41, "neutral": 13, "compare": 2, "warn": 0}, "spark": [3, 0, 2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 3, 2, 9, 2, 9], "listed": true, "loved": ["Routers and firewalls", "Daily driver"], "caveat": "Linux compatibility", "short_quote": "I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great.", "icon": true, "domain": "openbsd.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.openbsd.org/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["OpenBSD"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like it for home routers and firewalls built on pf,", "cites": [{"id": 802658288, "item_id": 50166143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166143", "by": "deltarholamda", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Extremely reliable, and pf is top tier.", "excerpt": ">`man` pages are consistently incredible I love this part of OpenBSD so much. FreeBSD is very good as well on this front. Sometimes the terseness of the man pages gets to me, but it's all there. I used OpenBSD as a daily driver way back, somewhere around v3.5, on a somewhat elderly Thinkpad. It was perfectly adequate. I still use it for various systems that I pretty much just set and forget. Extremely reliable, and p", "context": "", "use_case": "set-and-forget systems", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 777550416, "item_id": 48596901, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596901", "by": "pacija", "date": "2026-06-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenBSD is great for a router.", "excerpt": "Long time ago I used these BSD-based appliances such as opnsense, beleiving I'll have it easier with their web interfaces than with editing config files in vi. In the long run, after investing some time into learning actual BSDs I find editing a few config files much more convenient than clicking around in web interfaces. OpenBSD is great for a router. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html", "context": "", "use_case": "router", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS"}, {"id": 762236800, "item_id": 47639800, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639800", "by": "binkHN", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD as my router and firewall at home. I find the configuration of OpenBSD for this a lot more simple", "excerpt": "While I run Linux on my production workstation, I use OpenBSD as my router and firewall at home. I find the configuration of OpenBSD for this a lot more simple and everything that's needed, even for IPv6, is in the base install.", "context": "runs Linux on production workstation", "use_case": "home router and firewall", "switched_from": "", "story": "What changes when you turn a Linux box into a router"}, {"id": 786220208, "item_id": 49138763, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138763", "by": "efxhoy", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The setup on openbsd was very straightforward.", "excerpt": "I recently switched my router from pfsense to OpenBSD. I wanted a \u201cvanilla\u201d OS as opposed to a specific router OS like Opnsense. The setup on openbsd was very straightforward. I had to read up a bit and claude helped getting ipv6 and vlans up. Had I ignored ipv6 it would have been ready in half an hour from just reading man pages and official docs. The only reason ipv6 took longer is because I had no idea how it work", "context": "runs own router", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}]}, {"text": " for stable daily use on older laptops,", "cites": [{"id": 802592624, "item_id": 50162039, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162039", "by": "nanolith", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years. It's small. It remains mostly consistent between updates. In fact, it's so stable that I barely notice changes when I upgrade until I go hunting for them. The Lenovo laptop I use as my travel laptop and console display is a 2012. It still runs OpenBSD just fine.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802589952, "item_id": 50161872, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161872", "by": "somat", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I run openbsd on it and... well it's perfect.", "excerpt": "I have an old(mutters to self don't look at date then I will feel old... Oh god it's from 2012) lenovo laptop that is my daily driver for portable ops. I run openbsd on it and... well it's perfect. sleeps perfectly, radio works well, I understand the OS. I will be very sad when it dies. I did just re do the heatsink compound, so hopefully it has many years left, but I worry about the fan.", "context": "daily driver on a 2012 Lenovo laptop", "use_case": "daily driver on old Lenovo laptop", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 771778624, "item_id": 48236164, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48236164", "by": "tylerius", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great.", "excerpt": "Congratulations for another amazing release! This one even comes with a song :) I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great. I use it wherever possible: home router, laptops, obsda.ms vm, workstation, thin clients, etc. With every release OpenBSD becomes better. Fully recommended to take advantage of old hardware too, like a fanless thin client bought for cheap from surplus. I reall", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver, router, workstation", "switched_from": "Debian", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}, {"id": 758414784, "item_id": 47400924, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400924", "by": "seethishat", "date": "2026-03-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love OpenBSD for similar reasons, except, I still run it as my primary desktop", "excerpt": "I love OpenBSD for similar reasons, except, I still run it as my primary desktop and on an old Chromebook. It just works. No drama with updates. Upgrade every six months. I'd be lost without it.", "context": "", "use_case": "primary desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Love FreeBSD"}]}, {"text": " and for clear man pages and low-maintenance servers.", "cites": [{"id": 802616176, "item_id": 50163511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50163511", "by": "ctolsen", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend playing with it.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD the last year or so (as a bastion/jump host for a few systems) after using *BSD systems very little for probably the past decade, and... good lord I love it so much. Say what you want about the benefits of systemd or the usefulness of other parts of what is now unavoidable with Linux, and I won't argue with many of them, but OpenBSD just feels like a *nix system is supposed to. `ps aux` is like 10 e", "context": "uses it as bastion host", "use_case": "bastion/jump host", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 790462336, "item_id": 49403896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403896", "by": "tolerance", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the documentation is great", "excerpt": "I enjoyed the time I spent browsing the web and reading ebooks while running OpenBSD on a Thinkpad. The same goes for hosting a web page on a VPS I used to rent. I found that what people say about it is true: the documentation is great. To the extent that I needed to tinker I gained a fair amount of coherence about how things worked. This is sort of what I want the guys in my community to experience for themselves.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop use and VPS hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD and my life (2005)"}, {"id": 786274384, "item_id": 49142149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142149", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record.", "excerpt": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record. OpenBSD 7.9 was released 1-2 months ago. I know some people use OPNsense or pfSense for their router and firewall needs, which are both based on FreeBSD.", "context": "", "use_case": "web server", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 771195072, "item_id": 48199692, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199692", "by": "hmsp", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "so much easier to maintain than a linux server for my personal sites", "excerpt": "I use openbsd as my server via openbsd.amsterdam - so much easier to maintain than a linux server for my personal sites.", "context": "runs personal sites", "use_case": "personal sites server", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}]}, {"text": " The most common caveat is that some Linux-only tools and hardware are harder or impossible to use than on Linux.", "cites": [{"id": 802520338, "item_id": 50157521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157521", "by": "benfrancom", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "excerpt": "I used both for a long time. i3 for non-terminal work, and tmux in the terminal. Loved it, and am ready to move back to Linux for better OS-tiling management. I also ran it on OpenBSD on my laptop as a daily driver for about ~9 months. Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 782290290, "item_id": 48893143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48893143", "by": "titularcomment", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Still, they have a convulated install process, dubious hardware and software compatibility that is better solved in the Linux world today.", "excerpt": "Personal laptop use with Ada Lovelace or Ampere family NVIDIA GPUs (did you mean this or CUDA, i couldnt tell), personal desktop use with unusual peripherals, dependency on ports, existence and competition of FreeBSD etc. I love OpenBSD's code philosophy (they were the first to introduce a lot of security techniques[1]) and the programs they produce, OpenSSH is a lifesaver, and I use doas for its low footprint on my ", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop/laptop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "GhostLock, a stack-UAF that has existed in ALL Linux distributions for 15 years"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Routers and firewalls", "summary": "Commenters run it on home routers and firewalls and find pf and the base-install configuration simple.", "quotes": [{"id": 762236800, "item_id": 47639800, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639800", "by": "binkHN", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD as my router and firewall at home. I find the configuration of OpenBSD for this a lot more simple", "excerpt": "While I run Linux on my production workstation, I use OpenBSD as my router and firewall at home. I find the configuration of OpenBSD for this a lot more simple and everything that's needed, even for IPv6, is in the base install.", "context": "runs Linux on production workstation", "use_case": "home router and firewall", "switched_from": "", "story": "What changes when you turn a Linux box into a router"}, {"id": 786220208, "item_id": 49138763, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138763", "by": "efxhoy", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The setup on openbsd was very straightforward.", "excerpt": "I recently switched my router from pfsense to OpenBSD. I wanted a \u201cvanilla\u201d OS as opposed to a specific router OS like Opnsense. The setup on openbsd was very straightforward. I had to read up a bit and claude helped getting ipv6 and vlans up. Had I ignored ipv6 it would have been ready in half an hour from just reading man pages and official docs. The only reason ipv6 took longer is because I had no idea how it work", "context": "runs own router", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 777550416, "item_id": 48596901, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596901", "by": "pacija", "date": "2026-06-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenBSD is great for a router.", "excerpt": "Long time ago I used these BSD-based appliances such as opnsense, beleiving I'll have it easier with their web interfaces than with editing config files in vi. In the long run, after investing some time into learning actual BSDs I find editing a few config files much more convenient than clicking around in web interfaces. OpenBSD is great for a router. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html", "context": "", "use_case": "router", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS"}]}, {"label": "Daily driver", "summary": "Many use it as a daily laptop or desktop OS, including on hardware a decade or more old.", "quotes": [{"id": 802592624, "item_id": 50162039, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162039", "by": "nanolith", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years. It's small. It remains mostly consistent between updates. In fact, it's so stable that I barely notice changes when I upgrade until I go hunting for them. The Lenovo laptop I use as my travel laptop and console display is a 2012. It still runs OpenBSD just fine.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802589952, "item_id": 50161872, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161872", "by": "somat", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I run openbsd on it and... well it's perfect.", "excerpt": "I have an old(mutters to self don't look at date then I will feel old... Oh god it's from 2012) lenovo laptop that is my daily driver for portable ops. I run openbsd on it and... well it's perfect. sleeps perfectly, radio works well, I understand the OS. I will be very sad when it dies. I did just re do the heatsink compound, so hopefully it has many years left, but I worry about the fan.", "context": "daily driver on a 2012 Lenovo laptop", "use_case": "daily driver on old Lenovo laptop", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 771778624, "item_id": 48236164, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48236164", "by": "tylerius", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great.", "excerpt": "Congratulations for another amazing release! This one even comes with a song :) I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great. I use it wherever possible: home router, laptops, obsda.ms vm, workstation, thin clients, etc. With every release OpenBSD becomes better. Fully recommended to take advantage of old hardware too, like a fanless thin client bought for cheap from surplus. I reall", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver, router, workstation", "switched_from": "Debian", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}]}, {"label": "Security and simplicity", "summary": "Commenters value its security focus, small footprint and opt-in, no-nonsense design.", "quotes": [{"id": 786240144, "item_id": 49140009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49140009", "by": "ninefathom", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like OpenBSD when I want a small, highly-secure, rock-solid reliable system where everything beyond basic multi-user is opt-in, rather than opt-out.", "excerpt": "Presently in my home you'll find Debian, Alpine, and Manjaro Linux installations running almost constantly (plus Android if you wish to be pedantic), each for their various niches. You'll also find more esoteric stuff like OpenVMS/VAX 7.3 (on actual VAX hardware), Mac OS 7.5.5 and 9.2.2 and 10.4.11 (each on their native hardware as well), and occasionally 9front or Haiku or QNX or OpenIndiana for various purposes. Th", "context": "runs many OSes at home", "use_case": "border firewall", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 802520338, "item_id": 50157521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157521", "by": "benfrancom", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "excerpt": "I used both for a long time. i3 for non-terminal work, and tmux in the terminal. Loved it, and am ready to move back to Linux for better OS-tiling management. I also ran it on OpenBSD on my laptop as a daily driver for about ~9 months. Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 771101952, "item_id": 48193872, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48193872", "by": "kriro", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'll always endorse it", "excerpt": "I used it a bit, had it installed for a while on a G4 PowerBook (must have been early-ish 2000s). I like the no-nonsense attitude towards blobs, security focus. Overall the experience was very good. The bit of code I read was also written nicely. I'll always endorse it and should really install it somewhere again in the near future. This is also the 60th release. Congrats team.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}]}, {"label": "Stability", "summary": "It is described as extremely reliable and consistent across upgrades.", "quotes": [{"id": 802658288, "item_id": 50166143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166143", "by": "deltarholamda", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Extremely reliable, and pf is top tier.", "excerpt": ">`man` pages are consistently incredible I love this part of OpenBSD so much. FreeBSD is very good as well on this front. Sometimes the terseness of the man pages gets to me, but it's all there. I used OpenBSD as a daily driver way back, somewhere around v3.5, on a somewhat elderly Thinkpad. It was perfectly adequate. I still use it for various systems that I pretty much just set and forget. Extremely reliable, and p", "context": "", "use_case": "set-and-forget systems", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802592624, "item_id": 50162039, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162039", "by": "nanolith", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years. It's small. It remains mostly consistent between updates. In fact, it's so stable that I barely notice changes when I upgrade until I go hunting for them. The Lenovo laptop I use as my travel laptop and console display is a 2012. It still runs OpenBSD just fine.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 758414784, "item_id": 47400924, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400924", "by": "seethishat", "date": "2026-03-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love OpenBSD for similar reasons, except, I still run it as my primary desktop", "excerpt": "I love OpenBSD for similar reasons, except, I still run it as my primary desktop and on an old Chromebook. It just works. No drama with updates. Upgrade every six months. I'd be lost without it.", "context": "", "use_case": "primary desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Love FreeBSD"}]}, {"label": "Documentation", "summary": "The man pages and official docs are repeatedly called excellent.", "quotes": [{"id": 802616176, "item_id": 50163511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50163511", "by": "ctolsen", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend playing with it.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD the last year or so (as a bastion/jump host for a few systems) after using *BSD systems very little for probably the past decade, and... good lord I love it so much. Say what you want about the benefits of systemd or the usefulness of other parts of what is now unavoidable with Linux, and I won't argue with many of them, but OpenBSD just feels like a *nix system is supposed to. `ps aux` is like 10 e", "context": "uses it as bastion host", "use_case": "bastion/jump host", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 790462336, "item_id": 49403896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403896", "by": "tolerance", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the documentation is great", "excerpt": "I enjoyed the time I spent browsing the web and reading ebooks while running OpenBSD on a Thinkpad. The same goes for hosting a web page on a VPS I used to rent. I found that what people say about it is true: the documentation is great. To the extent that I needed to tinker I gained a fair amount of coherence about how things worked. This is sort of what I want the guys in my community to experience for themselves.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop use and VPS hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD and my life (2005)"}, {"id": 786274384, "item_id": 49142149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142149", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record.", "excerpt": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record. OpenBSD 7.9 was released 1-2 months ago. I know some people use OPNsense or pfSense for their router and firewall needs, which are both based on FreeBSD.", "context": "", "use_case": "web server", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}]}, {"label": "Easy server upkeep", "summary": "Several find it easier to maintain than Linux servers for personal sites and services.", "quotes": [{"id": 771195072, "item_id": 48199692, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199692", "by": "hmsp", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "so much easier to maintain than a linux server for my personal sites", "excerpt": "I use openbsd as my server via openbsd.amsterdam - so much easier to maintain than a linux server for my personal sites.", "context": "runs personal sites", "use_case": "personal sites server", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}, {"id": 771668416, "item_id": 48229276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48229276", "by": "bitbasher", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched from Debian based servers to OpenBSD and I have never been happier.", "excerpt": "I recently switched from Debian based servers to OpenBSD and I have never been happier. I wish I would have done it much, much earlier.", "context": "", "use_case": "servers", "switched_from": "Debian", "story": "Blog ran on Ubuntu 16.04 for 10 years. I migrated it to FreeBSD"}, {"id": 786274384, "item_id": 49142149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142149", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record.", "excerpt": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record. OpenBSD 7.9 was released 1-2 months ago. I know some people use OPNsense or pfSense for their router and firewall needs, which are both based on FreeBSD.", "context": "", "use_case": "web server", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Linux compatibility", "summary": "Some Linux-only tools and hardware are harder or impossible to use, and the install process is called convoluted.", "quotes": [{"id": 802520338, "item_id": 50157521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157521", "by": "benfrancom", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "excerpt": "I used both for a long time. i3 for non-terminal work, and tmux in the terminal. Loved it, and am ready to move back to Linux for better OS-tiling management. I also ran it on OpenBSD on my laptop as a daily driver for about ~9 months. Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 782290290, "item_id": 48893143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48893143", "by": "titularcomment", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Still, they have a convulated install process, dubious hardware and software compatibility that is better solved in the Linux world today.", "excerpt": "Personal laptop use with Ada Lovelace or Ampere family NVIDIA GPUs (did you mean this or CUDA, i couldnt tell), personal desktop use with unusual peripherals, dependency on ports, existence and competition of FreeBSD etc. I love OpenBSD's code philosophy (they were the first to introduce a lot of security techniques[1]) and the programs they produce, OpenSSH is a lifesaver, and I use doas for its low footprint on my ", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop/laptop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "GhostLock, a stack-UAF that has existed in ALL Linux distributions for 15 years"}]}, {"label": "SMP performance", "summary": "The Giant Lock model can make multi-core workloads interfere with things like USB audio.", "quotes": [{"id": 793438336, "item_id": 49589896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589896", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Running OpenBSD as a daily driver but with no DE.", "excerpt": "Running OpenBSD as a daily driver but with no DE. It has a working X11 with DRM from linux as base so everything graphical will work mostly fine. The issue is more around the OS and some subsystems. OpenBSD is still using the Giant Lock model, so SMP can be an issue. Linux has more independent subsystems so heavy processing is unlikely to impact usb audio (which is an issue I have with my oldish laptop). Another issu", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Research carried out using NetBSD"}]}, {"label": "No LTS", "summary": "Six-month upgrades without a long-term support release make it less appealing for corporate production.", "quotes": [{"id": 736598064, "item_id": 46037379, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46037379", "by": "jmclnx", "date": "2025-11-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD as a workstation and it works great", "excerpt": "For me, the only drawback for corporations is the 6 month upgrade. There is no LTS on OpenBSD. I use OpenBSD as a workstation and it works great, but in a production environment I doubt I would use OpenBSD for critical items, mainly because no LTS. It is a sad state of affairs because Companies do not want nor will want a system you need to upgrade so often even if its security very good.", "context": "", "use_case": "workstation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Moving from OpenBSD to FreeBSD for firewalls"}]}, {"label": "Filesystem options", "summary": "One commenter finds its filesystem choices weak for NVMe and full-disk encryption.", "quotes": [{"id": 759115728, "item_id": 47444733, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47444733", "by": "razighter777", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I would love to use openbsd. I really wanna give it a try but the filesystem choices seem kinda meh.", "excerpt": "I would love to use openbsd. I really wanna give it a try but the filesystem choices seem kinda meh. Are there any modern filesystems with good nvme and FDE support for openbsd.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD: PF queues break the 4 Gbps barrier"}]}, {"label": "Bugs", "summary": "A router user notes that releases still ship with bugs.", "quotes": [{"id": 774755264, "item_id": 48422204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48422204", "by": "atmosx", "date": "2026-06-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD for routers and love it", "excerpt": "Yeap and still has bugs (reports say that the base system bin in 7.9 doesn't work properly): https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=178070682043839&w=2 And here: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&w=2&r=1&s=rsync&q=b you can quite a few other bugs... I use OpenBSD for routers and love it :-) but it is software, hence it has bugs .-", "context": "", "use_case": "routers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Did Claude Increase Bugs in Rsync?"}]}, {"label": "Desktop practicality", "summary": "A long-time fan says it is no longer very practical as a daily driver.", "quotes": [{"id": 735147136, "item_id": 45946696, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45946696", "by": "dilippkumar", "date": "2025-11-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Long time OpenBSD fan. Used it as my daily driver for years", "excerpt": "Long time OpenBSD fan. Used it as my daily driver for years before standardizing all computers at home to macOS. I still think about going back to openBSD one day, but it's no longer very practical as a daily driver. I want to use OpenBSD for the next project I'm building. However, I can't wrap my head around the old way of doing deployments (before containers). People who've built production grade systems with OpenB", "context": "long-time OpenBSD user", "use_case": "daily driver and next project", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why use OpenBSD?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "naltun", "context": "language implementer, not affiliated with OpenBSD", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282784", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "ctolsen", "context": "uses it as bastion host", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50163511", "date": "2026-10-20"}, {"by": "somat", "context": "daily driver on a 2012 Lenovo laptop", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161872", "date": "2026-10-20"}, {"by": "president_zippy", "context": "forced to use Ubuntu at their job", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132421", "date": "2026-10-17"}, {"by": "lproven", "context": "owns ThinkPad X200/X220 machines", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896293", "date": "2026-09-29"}, {"by": "skydhash", "context": "knows CLI well", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49419534", "date": "2026-08-24"}, {"by": "peter_d_sherman", "context": "developer who avoids closed-source OSes", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389975", "date": "2026-08-21"}, {"by": "rootnod3", "context": "homelab user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141165", "date": "2026-08-01"}, {"by": "ninefathom", "context": "runs many OSes at home", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49140009", "date": "2026-08-01"}, {"by": "efxhoy", "context": "runs own router", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138763", "date": "2026-08-01"}, {"by": "hmsp", "context": "runs personal sites", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199692", "date": "2026-05-19"}, {"by": "binkHN", "context": "runs Linux on production workstation", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639800", "date": "2026-04-04"}], "tags": ["for home routers", "for old laptops", "for personal servers", "for network appliances"], "use_cases": ["daily driver os", "laptop daily driver", "desktop os", "home router", "operating system", "router"], "compared": [{"slug": "freebsd", "name": "FreeBSD", "co": 15, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "macos", "name": "macOS", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "debian", "name": "Debian", "co": 5, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ubuntu", "name": "Ubuntu", "co": 6, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "alpine-linux", "name": "Alpine Linux", "co": 4, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "netbsd", "name": "NetBSD", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "opnsense", "name": "OPNsense", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50160494", "title": "OpenBSD 8.0", "mentions": 7}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49136736", "title": "NetBSD 11.0 Released", "mentions": 7}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192882", "title": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587903", "title": "Research carried out using NetBSD", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45980474", "title": "Moving from OpenBSD to FreeBSD for firewalls", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313661", "title": "Digital minimalism", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 2}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2, "compare": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 9, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 9, "neutral": 3}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805039824, "item_id": 50314989, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50314989", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my daily driver is an old laptop I put OpenBSD on", "excerpt": "> beside social media minimalism I am also a big fan of compute minimalism. I don't use VScode with 100+ plugins or a zsh maxed up with so much bells and whistles That\u2019s what I thought the article would talk about. If it were social media, I\u2019d rather buy a cheap used phone, put the app on it, and turn it on only when I want to check something. Then it\u2019s off. But I deleted/haven\u2019t logged into my accounts for years now", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Digital minimalism"}, {"id": 804524544, "item_id": 50282784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50282784", "by": "naltun", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "OpenBSD 8.0 ships with getexecpath(3) [0], which I just happily added to Pie Lang", "excerpt": "OpenBSD 8.0 ships with getexecpath(3) [0], which I just happily added to Pie Lang [1] [0] https://man.openbsd.org/man3/getexecpath.3 [1] https://github.com/AliAlmutawaJr/Pie (not affiliated with the project, but it's a fun language)", "context": "language implementer, not affiliated with OpenBSD", "use_case": "porting a language to it", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 804124288, "item_id": 50257768, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257768", "by": "RunSet", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "> There is no alternative to Debian for me.", "excerpt": "> There is no alternative to Debian for me. https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=177411620801633", "context": "", "use_case": "alternative to Debian", "switched_from": "", "story": "I will no longer upload to NEW"}, {"id": 802757904, "item_id": 50172369, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50172369", "by": "so-cal-schemer", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is a heck of a system. I love it too.", "excerpt": "It is a heck of a system. I love it too. I have CD distros from 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5 in a drawer somewhere. I wish I bought more merch over the years: https://www.openbsd.org/tshirts.html This looks down atm; hopefully it will be up again soon: https://openbsdstore.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802662512, "item_id": 50166407, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166407", "by": "bemtevi", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It would be cool if we could run this thing on Apple Silicon macs.", "excerpt": "It would be cool if we could run this thing on Apple Silicon macs. I'm getting tired of MacOS and would love an alternative to Linux.", "context": "", "use_case": "alternative OS on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802658288, "item_id": 50166143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166143", "by": "deltarholamda", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Extremely reliable, and pf is top tier.", "excerpt": ">`man` pages are consistently incredible I love this part of OpenBSD so much. FreeBSD is very good as well on this front. Sometimes the terseness of the man pages gets to me, but it's all there. I used OpenBSD as a daily driver way back, somewhere around v3.5, on a somewhat elderly Thinkpad. It was perfectly adequate. I still use it for various systems that I pretty much just set and forget. Extremely reliable, and p", "context": "", "use_case": "set-and-forget systems", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802616176, "item_id": 50163511, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50163511", "by": "ctolsen", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend playing with it.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD the last year or so (as a bastion/jump host for a few systems) after using *BSD systems very little for probably the past decade, and... good lord I love it so much. Say what you want about the benefits of systemd or the usefulness of other parts of what is now unavoidable with Linux, and I won't argue with many of them, but OpenBSD just feels like a *nix system is supposed to. `ps aux` is like 10 e", "context": "uses it as bastion host", "use_case": "bastion/jump host", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802592624, "item_id": 50162039, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50162039", "by": "nanolith", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years.", "excerpt": "I've used OpenBSD as a laptop daily driver for nearly 20 years. It's small. It remains mostly consistent between updates. In fact, it's so stable that I barely notice changes when I upgrade until I go hunting for them. The Lenovo laptop I use as my travel laptop and console display is a 2012. It still runs OpenBSD just fine.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802589952, "item_id": 50161872, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50161872", "by": "somat", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I run openbsd on it and... well it's perfect.", "excerpt": "I have an old(mutters to self don't look at date then I will feel old... Oh god it's from 2012) lenovo laptop that is my daily driver for portable ops. I run openbsd on it and... well it's perfect. sleeps perfectly, radio works well, I understand the OS. I will be very sad when it dies. I did just re do the heatsink compound, so hopefully it has many years left, but I worry about the fan.", "context": "daily driver on a 2012 Lenovo laptop", "use_case": "daily driver on old Lenovo laptop", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 8.0"}, {"id": 802520338, "item_id": 50157521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50157521", "by": "benfrancom", "date": "2026-10-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "excerpt": "I used both for a long time. i3 for non-terminal work, and tmux in the terminal. Loved it, and am ready to move back to Linux for better OS-tiling management. I also ran it on OpenBSD on my laptop as a daily driver for about ~9 months. Loved the security/simplicity, but made it more difficult or impossible for certain Linux only tools.", "context": "", "use_case": "laptop daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tmux and Claude Code: Sessions, Send-Keys, and the Ceiling"}, {"id": 802118737, "item_id": 50132421, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50132421", "by": "president_zippy", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I've been forced to use Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04 at my job for the past 4 years, and the longer I use it, the more it makes me wish I was using OpenBSD w/ xfce.", "context": "forced to use Ubuntu at their job", "use_case": "desktop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Solar surpasses nuclear power globally for first time"}, {"id": 801037568, "item_id": 50064848, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50064848", "by": "doublerabbit", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "After shifting from FreeBSD to OpenBSD as my daily driver", "excerpt": "I didn't think of that, thanks. After shifting from FreeBSD to OpenBSD as my daily driver I have been looking for something to dig my teeth in to. Thanks.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver OS", "switched_from": "FreeBSD", "story": "BCHS is an open source software stack for web apps. BSD, C, httpd, SQLite"}, {"id": 798340691, "item_id": 49896293, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896293", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-09-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I run Haiku, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Ubuntu, and Pop OS, and all of them go like stink and are daily-drivable", "excerpt": "Indeed. I know of two \"best laptops ever made\": Drew DeVault says it's the X200: https://drewdevault.com/blog/Fucking-laptops/ \u00ab The best laptop ever made is the ThinkPad X200, and I have two of them. \u00bb He has a very strong case. I own one. It is certainly one of the best ever. On the other hand, Brad Taunt says it is the X220: https://btxx.org/posts/x220/ \u00ab The X220 ThinkPad is the greatest laptop ever made and you\u2019", "context": "owns ThinkPad X200/X220 machines", "use_case": "daily use on ThinkPad X220", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google ending ChromeOS support two years early"}, {"id": 795106032, "item_id": 49694127, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49694127", "by": "fmajid", "date": "2026-09-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use it to control my OpenBSD home router when traveling", "excerpt": "I got mine as a side-effect of ordering the Comet Q on Kickstarter... There is also the Comet 5G, which gives you cellular backup. I use it to control my OpenBSD home router when traveling if my Internet connection goes down.", "context": "", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "", "story": "JetKVM Mini"}, {"id": 793483216, "item_id": 49592701, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49592701", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD and the code is surprisingly approachable and readable.", "excerpt": "> The surface area of stuff that an OS has to do today is absolutely massive, and the dependency graphs are poorly understood even by the engineers who work on those systems. Innocuous pieces of functionality have a way of becoming load-bearing over time It\u2019s not that huge. I use OpenBSD and the code is surprisingly approachable and readable. And even with no support for runtime modules, it\u2019s pretty easy to customize", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Windows 11's \"special\" developer edition looks like another marketing misfire"}, {"id": 793438336, "item_id": 49589896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589896", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Running OpenBSD as a daily driver but with no DE.", "excerpt": "Running OpenBSD as a daily driver but with no DE. It has a working X11 with DRM from linux as base so everything graphical will work mostly fine. The issue is more around the OS and some subsystems. OpenBSD is still using the Giant Lock model, so SMP can be an issue. Linux has more independent subsystems so heavy processing is unlikely to impact usb audio (which is an issue I have with my oldish laptop). Another issu", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Research carried out using NetBSD"}, {"id": 793426721, "item_id": 49589170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589170", "by": "3eb7988a1663", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "compare", "quote": "it seems prudent to switch to a NetBSD/OpenBSD/Qubes system for the next few years", "excerpt": "How usable are the BSDs as a GUI daily driver? Like 99% of Linux applications work out of the box or more like 50%? With new CVEs being discovered in ancient bedrock code on the daily, it seems prudent to switch to a NetBSD/OpenBSD/Qubes system for the next few years until some vulnerabilities might get smoothed over.", "context": "", "use_case": "security-minded daily driver", "switched_from": "", "story": "Research carried out using NetBSD"}, {"id": 790712544, "item_id": 49419534, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49419534", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-08-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use OpenBSD without any DE because I know all the CLI commands to make things happens", "excerpt": "> For what it's worth, one of the most popular mass market \"GNU\" Linux devices today is the Steam Deck Then you might as well say that the most popular mass market FreeBSD device is the PlayStation. Factually true, but unrelated to the conversation. > Yet we have a new generation of Linux users that don't care for any of those. Why is that? Maybe Linux Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu are missing something? I don\u2019t think they", "context": "knows CLI well", "use_case": "daily desktop without DE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Omacom Foundation funding hits $10M"}, {"id": 790462336, "item_id": 49403896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49403896", "by": "tolerance", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the documentation is great", "excerpt": "I enjoyed the time I spent browsing the web and reading ebooks while running OpenBSD on a Thinkpad. The same goes for hosting a web page on a VPS I used to rent. I found that what people say about it is true: the documentation is great. To the extent that I needed to tinker I gained a fair amount of coherence about how things worked. This is sort of what I want the guys in my community to experience for themselves.", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop use and VPS hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD and my life (2005)"}, {"id": 790239602, "item_id": 49389975, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49389975", "by": "peter_d_sherman", "date": "2026-08-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenBSD, etc., any open source Operating System could work too", "excerpt": "I don't use MacOS. I don't use MacOS because it is not Open Source. I don't use Windows. I used Windows extensively in the past, but I don't use it in 2026, because it is not Open Source. Anytime you're dealing with a closed source OS, you're dealing with the following things: 1) Extra time/effort/complexity to make your programs work correctly. 2) Extra time/effort/complexity to make your already working working pro", "context": "developer who avoids closed-source OSes", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We Rebuilt the Linux MicroVM Stack on Apple Silicon"}, {"id": 788075808, "item_id": 49254738, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49254738", "by": "shoobiedoo", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "now run them through an OpenBSD packet filter", "excerpt": "On a whim I watched my favorite childhood movie last week, Hackers. It's goofy in some ways, but man it captures the \"wild west\" feeling of early and mid 90's internet. It was just you, a slow connection to anywhere, and open ports all over the place. Right after I watched it, I dusted off an old hub, connected a few external usb-to-ethernet adapters to my work PC VM's, and now run them through an OpenBSD packet filt", "context": "", "use_case": "packet filtering home lab", "switched_from": "", "story": "Google Search Is Dying. What Comes Next Is Worse"}, {"id": 786351377, "item_id": 49146961, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49146961", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I now use OpenBSD and the port systems of the BSD (each are different BTW) make it also easy to add extra software.", "excerpt": "I used alpine linux and it looks pretty easy to setup your own repository, including build scripts for packages. I now use OpenBSD and the port systems of the BSD (each are different BTW) make it also easy to add extra software.", "context": "", "use_case": "daily OS", "switched_from": "Alpine Linux", "story": "Pushes to arch AUR are suspendended right now."}, {"id": 786274384, "item_id": 49142149, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49142149", "by": "boomlinde", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record.", "excerpt": "I use stock OpenBSD with nothing else for a web server. Very easy to maintain and configure, very good manuals and very good vulnerability track record. OpenBSD 7.9 was released 1-2 months ago. I know some people use OPNsense or pfSense for their router and firewall needs, which are both based on FreeBSD.", "context": "", "use_case": "web server", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 786258640, "item_id": 49141165, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141165", "by": "rootnod3", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "My daily driver on all my machines.", "excerpt": "Absolutely. My daily driver on all my machines. My homelab started with FreeBSD on all machines with liberal use of jails. Now it is fully OpenBSD and only the file server is running FreeBSD now. All laptops are also OpenBSD, even the M2 Macbook Air", "context": "homelab user", "use_case": "daily driver and homelab", "switched_from": "FreeBSD", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 786240144, "item_id": 49140009, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49140009", "by": "ninefathom", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like OpenBSD when I want a small, highly-secure, rock-solid reliable system where everything beyond basic multi-user is opt-in, rather than opt-out.", "excerpt": "Presently in my home you'll find Debian, Alpine, and Manjaro Linux installations running almost constantly (plus Android if you wish to be pedantic), each for their various niches. You'll also find more esoteric stuff like OpenVMS/VAX 7.3 (on actual VAX hardware), Mac OS 7.5.5 and 9.2.2 and 10.4.11 (each on their native hardware as well), and occasionally 9front or Haiku or QNX or OpenIndiana for various purposes. Th", "context": "runs many OSes at home", "use_case": "border firewall", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 786238032, "item_id": 49139877, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49139877", "by": "somat", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "On desktop,I use a NFS home dir to a freebsd(zfs) fileserver.", "excerpt": "On desktop,I use a NFS home dir to a freebsd(zfs) fileserver. But I have to admit, that is not so much concern about the filesystem quality as I want a good(backed up, raid) storage system, and rather than trying to build good storage on all my system I just did it once (the fileserver) and use that as a home dir for almost everything. For instance. I have a laptop that only syncs intermittently to the main file serv", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 786220208, "item_id": 49138763, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138763", "by": "efxhoy", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The setup on openbsd was very straightforward.", "excerpt": "I recently switched my router from pfsense to OpenBSD. I wanted a \u201cvanilla\u201d OS as opposed to a specific router OS like Opnsense. The setup on openbsd was very straightforward. I had to read up a bit and claude helped getting ipv6 and vlans up. Had I ignored ipv6 it would have been ready in half an hour from just reading man pages and official docs. The only reason ipv6 took longer is because I had no idea how it work", "context": "runs own router", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 786219601, "item_id": 49138725, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138725", "by": "mattbillenstein", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I do believe OpenBSD is very very good software", "excerpt": "For a firewall/router I use Ubuntu - it's what I use for everything else, so it's comfy. I do believe OpenBSD is very very good software, but I do wonder if just given it's small install base if there are vulnerabilities simply nobody knows about. I guess may it doesn't matter since Linux is so much more widely deployed, perhaps that's just a better platform for hackers to spend their time.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 786214960, "item_id": 49138435, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138435", "by": "somat", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "obsd is my ultimate comfort system", "excerpt": "I use obsd as a desktop system, I would not necessarily recommend this to anyone, you give up a lot, but obsd is my ultimate comfort system, it is small but full featured. I feel I understand the system far more than I ever did linux, which is one of the good guys. Compare to windows where despite using it my whole life I always feel I understand barely at all. But openbsd is so well put together I love using it, So ", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop and firewall", "switched_from": "", "story": "NetBSD 11.0 Released"}, {"id": 785233825, "item_id": 49077114, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49077114", "by": "bitbasher", "date": "2026-07-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I mainly work inside an openbsd or linux virtual machine.", "excerpt": "A simple qemu virtual machine is nice and quick to spin up. I mainly work inside an openbsd or linux virtual machine. I use a different vm for each project and I have a \"sandbox\" vm I use to run random things I download/test.", "context": "", "use_case": "development VMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How to deal with security implications of running/installing projects?"}, {"id": 784573840, "item_id": 49035865, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49035865", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my daily driver which runs OpenBSD", "excerpt": "May not be applicable to most, but this can be solved by multiple devices. I have three laptops (my work mbp, my personal mba and my daily driver which runs OpenBSD) and two mini computers (one is a server for file and misc. stuff and the other also runs OpenBSD). I just switch devices depending on context and needs. If it were me, I'd just use the gaming PC as a console.", "context": "uses multiple devices for different contexts", "use_case": "daily driver laptop and mini computer", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nothing works and everyone is euphoric"}, {"id": 782290290, "item_id": 48893143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48893143", "by": "titularcomment", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Still, they have a convulated install process, dubious hardware and software compatibility that is better solved in the Linux world today.", "excerpt": "Personal laptop use with Ada Lovelace or Ampere family NVIDIA GPUs (did you mean this or CUDA, i couldnt tell), personal desktop use with unusual peripherals, dependency on ports, existence and competition of FreeBSD etc. I love OpenBSD's code philosophy (they were the first to introduce a lot of security techniques[1]) and the programs they produce, OpenSSH is a lifesaver, and I use doas for its low footprint on my ", "context": "Linux user", "use_case": "desktop/laptop OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "GhostLock, a stack-UAF that has existed in ALL Linux distributions for 15 years"}, {"id": 782152050, "item_id": 48884503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884503", "by": "Gud", "date": "2026-07-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD for various network appliances.", "excerpt": "I don't understand the constant (almost always unsubstantiated) criticism of the *BSDs from many Linux advocates. Personally I evaluate each OS by it's merit, and I've concluded that OpenBSD, FreeBSD and some Linux distributions(I use arch btw) are solid operating systems. On the server I prefer FreeBSD because of it's amazing flexibility, and stable yet evolutionary base system and in my opinion, superior init syste", "context": "", "use_case": "network appliances", "switched_from": "", "story": "Theo de Raadt: \"You've been smoking something mind altering\" (2007)"}, {"id": 780248128, "item_id": 48765508, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48765508", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-07-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD and the basic stance is that you need to look at the code of the system and the various software in ports.", "excerpt": "Pretty much. I use OpenBSD and the basic stance is that you need to look at the code of the system and the various software in ports. Because the only way to get timely support is you helping yourself and then the community will help you. And if you find some hackish code, there\u2019s generally a good reason it\u2019s that way.", "context": "", "use_case": "operating system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Many people misunderstand the purpose of code review"}, {"id": 778980880, "item_id": 48686305, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48686305", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-06-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD and it\u2019s actually the same thing with the additional niceties of binary packages.", "excerpt": "I use OpenBSD and it\u2019s actually the same thing with the additional niceties of binary packages. A bug or an issue with any program (including the kernel and drivers)? Patch and rebuild.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We All Depend on Open Source. We Will Defend It Together"}, {"id": 777550416, "item_id": 48596901, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48596901", "by": "pacija", "date": "2026-06-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenBSD is great for a router.", "excerpt": "Long time ago I used these BSD-based appliances such as opnsense, beleiving I'll have it easier with their web interfaces than with editing config files in vi. In the long run, after investing some time into learning actual BSDs I find editing a few config files much more convenient than clicking around in web interfaces. OpenBSD is great for a router. https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html", "context": "", "use_case": "router", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "Ubiquiti: Enterprise NAS, Built on ZFS"}, {"id": 775905088, "item_id": 48494068, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48494068", "by": "skydhash", "date": "2026-06-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD as a daily driver (but could use Alpine or VoidLinux too)", "excerpt": "I use OpenBSD as a daily driver (but could use Alpine or VoidLinux too) and my setup is pretty much silent. No notifications, no rainbows of colors, no glitz. Let\u2019s take mail. I use a combination of mutt hto directly connect via imap) and fdm/mu4e (to have them locally). I\u201dm not interested in having counters or notifications for any of those. The \u201ccalm technology\u201d book has an handful of advices, but one of the best e", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software Is Made Between Commits"}, {"id": 774755264, "item_id": 48422204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48422204", "by": "atmosx", "date": "2026-06-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD for routers and love it", "excerpt": "Yeap and still has bugs (reports say that the base system bin in 7.9 doesn't work properly): https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=178070682043839&w=2 And here: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&w=2&r=1&s=rsync&q=b you can quite a few other bugs... I use OpenBSD for routers and love it :-) but it is software, hence it has bugs .-", "context": "", "use_case": "routers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Did Claude Increase Bugs in Rsync?"}, {"id": 771778624, "item_id": 48236164, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48236164", "by": "tylerius", "date": "2026-05-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great.", "excerpt": "Congratulations for another amazing release! This one even comes with a song :) I'm using it as a daily driver since Debian adopted systemd and it works great. I use it wherever possible: home router, laptops, obsda.ms vm, workstation, thin clients, etc. With every release OpenBSD becomes better. Fully recommended to take advantage of old hardware too, like a fanless thin client bought for cheap from surplus. I reall", "context": "", "use_case": "daily driver, router, workstation", "switched_from": "Debian", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}, {"id": 771668416, "item_id": 48229276, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48229276", "by": "bitbasher", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched from Debian based servers to OpenBSD and I have never been happier.", "excerpt": "I recently switched from Debian based servers to OpenBSD and I have never been happier. I wish I would have done it much, much earlier.", "context": "", "use_case": "servers", "switched_from": "Debian", "story": "Blog ran on Ubuntu 16.04 for 10 years. I migrated it to FreeBSD"}, {"id": 771195072, "item_id": 48199692, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199692", "by": "hmsp", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "so much easier to maintain than a linux server for my personal sites", "excerpt": "I use openbsd as my server via openbsd.amsterdam - so much easier to maintain than a linux server for my personal sites.", "context": "runs personal sites", "use_case": "personal sites server", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}, {"id": 762236800, "item_id": 47639800, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639800", "by": "binkHN", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenBSD as my router and firewall at home. I find the configuration of OpenBSD for this a lot more simple", "excerpt": "While I run Linux on my production workstation, I use OpenBSD as my router and firewall at home. I find the configuration of OpenBSD for this a lot more simple and everything that's needed, even for IPv6, is in the base install.", "context": "runs Linux on production workstation", "use_case": "home router and firewall", "switched_from": "", "story": "What changes when you turn a Linux box into a router"}, {"id": 758414784, "item_id": 47400924, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47400924", "by": "seethishat", "date": "2026-03-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love OpenBSD for similar reasons, except, I still run it as my primary desktop", "excerpt": "I love OpenBSD for similar reasons, except, I still run it as my primary desktop and on an old Chromebook. It just works. No drama with updates. Upgrade every six months. I'd be lost without it.", "context": "", "use_case": "primary desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Love FreeBSD"}]}