14.4 is a maintenance release. If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0

Why FreeBSD ?

- Well manicured OS, excellent docs. More performant than OpenBSD in every way and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking)

- FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux which makes it more approachable and more difficult to mess up.

- Though it has fewer features, it still has a lot of features -- many big companies (Netflix most famously) still use it today for critical functions.

- FreeBSD Kernel and Userland developed together -- it has got that undefined "cohesive" feel

- Has less layers of abstraction than Linux, gets the job done. Because there are fewer layers it's easier to understand what is going on and potentially easier to fix.

- FreeBSD is great if you want to learn pf, zfs, ...

- Worth your while if you are bored of the Linux monoculture and just want to try something a bit different (but not tooo different)

- Changes slowly, so good for setting up on a server that you want to just leave running without too much maintenance

- Will increase your Linux skills because diversity always helps the human brain

- Very simple daemon configuration via /etc/rc.conf

- FreeBSD `bectl` controlled zfs boot environments are just so life changing and amazing. (this is possible via snapper on Linux + btrfs but needs complex installation and is not so integrated).

- FreeBSD will accept (smallish) PRs via GitHub if you find a minor bug. Otherwise it uses the decent Phabricator interface at https://reviews.freebsd.org . This is much better IMHO than the mailing list workflow of Linux. The barriers to contribution are lesser than Linux !!

- FreeBSD still has that warm fuzzy small "community" feel which I like

> and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking)

FreeBSD has been the gold standard for networking features and performance for decades; not sure I'd agree.

> FreeBSD tends to have fewer features in almost all areas compared to Linux

I'm not sure FreeBSD has fewer features in total but on a new install, many of them are turned off; it doesn’t mandate what should be running. There's a lot beneath the surface to get into.

> FreeBSD Kernel and Userland developed together -- it has got that undefined "cohesive" feel

Definitely! It feels like a single entity rather than a collection of components.

> Has less layers of abstraction than Linux, gets the job done. Because there are fewer layers it's easier to understand what is going on and potentially easier to fix.

Agreed. You can tell the FreeBSD developers attitude is to compose features using what the operating system already offers instead of creating new things from scratch.

> Very simple daemon configuration via /etc/rc.conf

I'd say in a good way; quoting from "Service Management: init vs systemd" [1]:

The comparison is best understood structurally. [FreeBSD](https://vivianvoss.net/dictionary#freebsd)'s init system is composed of precisely five elements: shell scripts, one library, one configuration file, one ordering utility, and the shell itself. Each is inspectable, replaceable, and debuggable with tools that predate the engineer using them.

[systemd](https://vivianvoss.net/dictionary#systemd) is composed of, well, rather more. The binary count stood at 69 in 2013, which prompted some concern. By 2024, it had doubled. The project absorbed fifteen distinct tools that previously existed as independent, single-purpose programs, each maintained by specialists who understood them intimately.

[1]: https://vivianvoss.net/blog/init-vs-systemd

> this is possible via snapper on Linux + btrfs but needs complex installation and is not so integrated

FWIW, openSUSE defaults to btrfs on the root filesystem and uses snapper in a very similar manner to zfs boot environments on FreeBSD. I don't have a lot of experience with the latter, but I have been running openSUSE Tumbleweed on my desktop and primary laptop for about 10 years now, and the btrfs+snapper arrangement has worked pretty well for me.

(I also run FreeBSD on my home server and just did the upgrade to 15.0 this weekend, which left me wondering why I had procrastinated this upgrade for so long. It went perfectly fine.)

If you're installing FreeBSD today, use 15.0

Or just run -current in production, like we do. See https://people.freebsd.org/~gallatin/talks/OpenFest2023.pdf

Or https://papers.freebsd.org/2019/fosdem/looney-netflix_and_fr...

> and approaches Linux performance in some areas (e.g. Networking)

I started using FreeBSD 26 years ago when I worked for Sendmail, who had a couple of core committers on staff or staff-adjacent. Back then the refrain was "it can't do nearly as much as Linux, but what it does do it's much better than Linux".

And specifically it was known that if you wanted the best possible networking stack, FreeBSD was the choice to make (And also why Netflix uses it, for the networking stack).

All this to say, is it true that Linux now has better network performance, or did you mistype that?

I heard, that BSD is dying...

It's also worth mentioning that FreeBSD lives outside of Redhat's influence. If you find yourself lamenting the direction Linux is moving in, FreeBSD remains an attractive escape hatch. It's not perfect (rc.d is definitely not as nice as runit, it's still focusing on LVM filesystems for the future, last I tried to use OSS4 it had some issues), but I would be straight up lying to you if I implied these weren't kind of trivial in the grand scheme.

>Will increase your Linux skills because diversity always helps the human brain

Is this still true, given how much runs through systemd now? I thought about trying out FreeBSD last time I got a new computer, but decided on sticking with Debian to help skill building on other Linux systems