Why I run FreeBSD for my home servers (2024)

Alpine, Void, Devuan or Artix all would have allowed author to use Linux while addressing his points of concern. I don't think the BSD's have real advantages anymore since so much core performance stuff is in Linux first. When most of the software is available on all these platforms, it mostly comes down to user preference.

To add to your list, Debian can be configured at installation to not use systemd (this option pretty well mooted Devuan) and MX Linux uses an optional shim to run their Debian spinoff without it if chosen at the Grub menu on bootup.

I run Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and SmartOS/illumos in various capacities personal and professional.

Each has its own strengths, but I choose FreeBSD for home servers (shared file/media server. and network gateway), for a few specific reasons:

  - ZFS (on root, fully integrated tooling for jails, etc)
  - More consistency/less churn in base system (great for set-and-forget systems)
  - Ports/pkg (still better than any Linux pkg manager)

Can you enumerate why ports/pkg is better than any package manager on Linux?

The first two are the exact reason I run FreeBSD on my home servers, too.