{"slug": "smartos", "name": "SmartOS", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 7, "commenters": 13, "warners": 1, "score": 6.316, "rising": -2.29, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-08-07", "why": "I run SmartOS[1] and it's zone management is great and the webui they've been working on is pretty cool too.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 6, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 4, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I run SmartOS[1] and it's zone management is great and the webui they've been working on is pretty cool too.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "smartos.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://smartos.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["SmartOS"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 771655425, "item_id": 48228464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228464", "by": "NexRebular", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SmartOS[1] running hypervisor duties on zones and bhyve", "excerpt": "> solid ZFS w/excellent networking NAS device. illumos distros might be a good alternative. I have OmniOS[0] as a filer and SmartOS[1] running hypervisor duties on zones and bhyve. [0] https://omnios.org [1] https://docs.smartos.org", "context": "", "use_case": "hypervisor host", "switched_from": "", "story": "FatGid: FreeBSD 14.x kernel local privilege escalation"}, {"id": 771255169, "item_id": 48203448, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48203448", "by": "JdeBP", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's worth mentioning at this point that one can still get (Open)Solaris descendent operating systems: OmniOS, SmartOS, and Tribblix.", "excerpt": "It's worth mentioning at this point that one can still get (Open)Solaris descendent operating systems: OmniOS, SmartOS, and Tribblix. The latter still has SPARC in its installation guide. * https://tribblix.org/install-sparc.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}, {"id": 747430800, "item_id": 46714425, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46714425", "by": "bluesounddirect", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we never had any dataloss from failed disks", "excerpt": "I ran a fairly large SmartOS with project-fifo.net as the controller for a number of years . We also had the amusing time with Pluribus networks switching too. When they started they were also a Illumos based switchos . Bhyve on illumos came out of Pluribus and happened partly due to a number of FreeBSD users heckling the \"SUN GODS\" over why the official kvm port was a piece of shit . In any case in the 6 years os sm", "context": "", "use_case": "Running large VM hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747374432, "item_id": 46710902, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46710902", "by": "eduction", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The whole thing just feels very thoughtfully put together", "excerpt": "I use it for a home server. Zones provides a secure way to have (on one physical machine with one physical network interface) some stuff you can only get to on the local network and some things you can get to over the public internet and some things via internet if you have the right ssh key. Each contained natively from each other. Crossbow firewall provides a nice way to contain traffic securely as well. ZFS let me", "context": "runs SmartOS for a home server", "use_case": "home server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747359728, "item_id": 46709983, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709983", "by": "samtheDamned", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like the simplicity", "excerpt": "I use it. It's not the most practical I'll admit but I like the simplicity (I'm not super experienced with linux server administration so both of them feel similarly foreign, but SmartOS is pretty minimal and has been pretty straightforward to manage), and I won't lie it's a fun gimmick to be running a descendant of SunOS for random household services.", "context": "Not very experienced with Linux server administration", "use_case": "household services server", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 747368864, "item_id": 46710554, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46710554", "by": "cyberpunk", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "my problems with that started when i needed a lot more", "excerpt": "I used it for smaller scale (low 10s of physical servers) back in the day also. But my problems with that started when i needed a lot more, the sysadmin/devops/whatever story doesn't scale. Yes, ansible exists but it's actually quite hard to run ansible on a few hundred machines -- you need lots of RAM just to run the playbook and your first hundred or so separate deployments, you do need to reach for something like ", "context": "", "use_case": "Zone-based server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}]}], "who": [{"by": "calvinmorrison", "context": "former user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217903", "date": "2026-08-07"}, {"by": "eduction", "context": "runs SmartOS for a home server", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46710902", "date": "2026-01-21"}, {"by": "samtheDamned", "context": "Not very experienced with Linux server administration", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709983", "date": "2026-01-21"}, {"by": "EvanAnderson", "context": "runs SmartOS homelab boxes", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709973", "date": "2026-01-21"}, {"by": "cthalupa", "context": "Used SmartOS 7-8 years, then switched to Proxmox", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708597", "date": "2026-01-21"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["home server os", "hypervisor host", "running large vm hosting", "zone-based server os", "household services server", "homelab virtualization"], "compared": [{"slug": "proxmox", "name": "Proxmox", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "triton", "name": "Triton", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "linux", "name": "Linux", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "omnios", "name": "OmniOS", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "bhyve", "name": "bhyve", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "pkgsrc", "name": "pkgsrc", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 747331536, "item_id": 46708221, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708221", "by": "nwilkens", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SmartOS is the core operating system for Triton datacenter", "excerpt": "SmartOS is the core operating system for Triton datacenter -- https://www.tritondatacenter.com; Triton is the orchestration of SmartOS compute nodes. Code + issues are active under https://github.com/TritonDataCenter (smartos-live, illumos-joyent, triton, etc.), and docs are at https://docs.smartos.org/. SmartOS is released every two weeks, and Triton is released every 8 weeks -- see https://www.tritondatacenter.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "Datacenter compute node OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46706947", "title": "SmartOS", "mentions": 11}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49174407", "title": "Oxide Computer raises $445M (SEC Form D)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48221415", "title": "FatGid: FreeBSD 14.x kernel local privilege escalation", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48192882", "title": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708807", "title": "illumos", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46352231", "title": "Debian's Git Transition", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 4, "warn": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 787486448, "item_id": 49217903, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217903", "by": "calvinmorrison", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "as a former Triton/SmartOS user", "excerpt": "I used 'sellout' somewhat facetiously but as a former Triton/SmartOS user, what was Samsungs interest in Joyent?", "context": "former user", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Oxide Computer raises $445M (SEC Form D)"}, {"id": 771655425, "item_id": 48228464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48228464", "by": "NexRebular", "date": "2026-05-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "SmartOS[1] running hypervisor duties on zones and bhyve", "excerpt": "> solid ZFS w/excellent networking NAS device. illumos distros might be a good alternative. I have OmniOS[0] as a filer and SmartOS[1] running hypervisor duties on zones and bhyve. [0] https://omnios.org [1] https://docs.smartos.org", "context": "", "use_case": "hypervisor host", "switched_from": "", "story": "FatGid: FreeBSD 14.x kernel local privilege escalation"}, {"id": 771255169, "item_id": 48203448, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48203448", "by": "JdeBP", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's worth mentioning at this point that one can still get (Open)Solaris descendent operating systems: OmniOS, SmartOS, and Tribblix.", "excerpt": "It's worth mentioning at this point that one can still get (Open)Solaris descendent operating systems: OmniOS, SmartOS, and Tribblix. The latter still has SPARC in its installation guide. * https://tribblix.org/install-sparc.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenBSD 7.9 Released"}, {"id": 747640864, "item_id": 46727554, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727554", "by": "lazylizard", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "compare", "quote": "", "excerpt": "rather deeper rabbit hole than installing 3 x proxmox, i think..but it exists...https://warewulf.org/ lots of other stuff will do the \"boot from single image\" part...say...https://fogproject.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747504576, "item_id": 46719036, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46719036", "by": "gr4vityWall", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Their Github repos seem fairly active, from a quick look", "excerpt": "Their Github repos seem fairly active, from a quick look: https://github.com/TritonDataCenter Their website is indeed out of date. Reminds me of Haxe in that aspect. The language itself is receiving significant development, but the website looks abandoned, and no new blog posts have been posted in a while.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747430800, "item_id": 46714425, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46714425", "by": "bluesounddirect", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "we never had any dataloss from failed disks", "excerpt": "I ran a fairly large SmartOS with project-fifo.net as the controller for a number of years . We also had the amusing time with Pluribus networks switching too. When they started they were also a Illumos based switchos . Bhyve on illumos came out of Pluribus and happened partly due to a number of FreeBSD users heckling the \"SUN GODS\" over why the official kvm port was a piece of shit . In any case in the 6 years os sm", "context": "", "use_case": "Running large VM hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747410272, "item_id": 46713142, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46713142", "by": "abrookewood", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I did not know that! https://www.tritondatacenter.com/blog/a-new-chapter-begins-for-triton-and-smartos", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747374432, "item_id": 46710902, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46710902", "by": "eduction", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The whole thing just feels very thoughtfully put together", "excerpt": "I use it for a home server. Zones provides a secure way to have (on one physical machine with one physical network interface) some stuff you can only get to on the local network and some things you can get to over the public internet and some things via internet if you have the right ssh key. Each contained natively from each other. Crossbow firewall provides a nice way to contain traffic securely as well. ZFS let me", "context": "runs SmartOS for a home server", "use_case": "home server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747368864, "item_id": 46710554, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46710554", "by": "cyberpunk", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "warn", "quote": "my problems with that started when i needed a lot more", "excerpt": "I used it for smaller scale (low 10s of physical servers) back in the day also. But my problems with that started when i needed a lot more, the sysadmin/devops/whatever story doesn't scale. Yes, ansible exists but it's actually quite hard to run ansible on a few hundred machines -- you need lots of RAM just to run the playbook and your first hundred or so separate deployments, you do need to reach for something like ", "context": "", "use_case": "Zone-based server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747359728, "item_id": 46709983, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709983", "by": "samtheDamned", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like the simplicity", "excerpt": "I use it. It's not the most practical I'll admit but I like the simplicity (I'm not super experienced with linux server administration so both of them feel similarly foreign, but SmartOS is pretty minimal and has been pretty straightforward to manage), and I won't lie it's a fun gimmick to be running a descendant of SunOS for random household services.", "context": "Not very experienced with Linux server administration", "use_case": "household services server", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747359568, "item_id": 46709973, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709973", "by": "EvanAnderson", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I enjoy the CLI tooling very much.", "excerpt": "SmartOS has grown a web UI in the last couple years, too. I haven't gotten around to trying it out on my last remaining SmartOS homelab box. I enjoy the CLI tooling very much. For some, though, the web UI might be worthwhile: https://docs.smartos.org/web-interface/", "context": "runs SmartOS homelab boxes", "use_case": "homelab virtualization", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747352273, "item_id": 46709517, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46709517", "by": "samtheDamned", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I run SmartOS[1] and it's zone management is great and the webui they've been working on is pretty cool too.", "excerpt": "I really enjoy working with illumos on my home server. I run SmartOS[1] and it's zone management is great and the webui they've been working on is pretty cool too. 1. https://www.tritondatacenter.com/smartos", "context": "", "use_case": "home server virtualization", "switched_from": "", "story": "illumos"}, {"id": 747337552, "item_id": 46708597, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708597", "by": "cthalupa", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "like it for most of that time", "excerpt": "Home stuff was the last holdout for me, but even that has been replaced by Proxmox these days. I used SmartOS for a solid 7-8 years, though, and like it for most of that time. I couldn't point to any one single major reason that prompted the switch - just lots of small annoyances stemming from the world expecting you to be running Linux instead of Solaris, and once you move away from zones, you lose one of the most c", "context": "Used SmartOS 7-8 years, then switched to Proxmox", "use_case": "Home server OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 747333184, "item_id": 46708324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46708324", "by": "nwilkens", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The SmartOS release changelog for reference:", "excerpt": "The SmartOS release changelog for reference: https://us-central.manta.mnx.io/Joyent_Dev/public/SmartOS/smartos.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "SmartOS"}, {"id": 741676177, "item_id": 46354761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46354761", "by": "eduction", "date": "2025-12-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use this on smartos", "excerpt": "pkgsrc is great, I use this on smartos (as just an end user) and it\u2019s extremely straightforward", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Debian's Git Transition"}, {"id": 738418065, "item_id": 46151129, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151129", "by": "NexRebular", "date": "2025-12-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "vanilla SmartOS[1] it's based on", "excerpt": "And there's also Triton[0] and vanilla SmartOS[1] it's based on [0] https://github.com/TritonDataCenter/triton [1] https://docs.smartos.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Proxmox Datacenter Manager 1.0 available"}, {"id": 734929920, "item_id": 45933120, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45933120", "by": "scrps", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out SmartOS, it's illumos/solaris based but I think you'll find it is a nice middle ground.", "excerpt": "Check out SmartOS, it's illumos/solaris based but I think you'll find it is a nice middle ground. Not as abstracted, nice tooling that makes common tasks simple but not so opinionated you have to de-abstract things to get under the hood. Not painless but what is?", "context": "", "use_case": "Hypervisor OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}]}