I use it on my personal laptop, essentially because I like how slim and simple it is.

Packaging is simple, kernel development and upgrade is simple, etc. Also the kernel code itself is written in a style I like, it's to the point, no useless abstractions, no fuss. I prefer it even amongst other BSDs I tried (netbsd and free*lbsd/dragonfly).

It just feels nice to be able to understand most of your system. It's not as fully featured as Linux, but there is a sense of understanding your system that is refreshing. A bit like if you're on vacation in a small and cute village where life is mundane and calming. At least that's how I feel with it. Mileage may vary.

I used to run it on a laptop too, but the battery life was shorter and the laptop ran noticeably hotter than under Linux, so I eventually switched back.

That said, OpenBSD feels unusually coherent (ej. check wifi connection from terminal). The whole system has a level of consistency that's hard to find elsewhere, also between other BSDs.

For pet servers, it usually fits perfect.

This.

A while ago I made some blog posts[1] diving into the source code of OpenBSD and FreeBSD (shameless self plug), but haven't had the time recently to write more.

Being able to understand the system, or at least being able to take a quick look when something doesn't work is very refreshing. Not to mention the outstanding man pages. Barely need to google things.

[1]: https://blog.wollwage.com/

> there is a sense of understanding your system that is refreshing

That's why I used to run Slackware, and then foud Alpine to be the best - much better than Void or Arch IMO. Works well as a very minimal system, and I know everything very well because of it. It's an ideal approach IMO, the best of both worlds.

> I like how slim and simple it is.

I ran OpenBSD on my laptop 22 years ago. Back then, a full GUI environment with terminal, web browser, editor: 28MiB of memory for the whole operating system and user environment!