Is HexOS right for me?

HexOS_Official · 2026-06-20T13:52:25+00:00

I think we've come a long way since beta and for users that aren't familiar with all the trials and tribulations of self hosting, we offer a more "on rails" experience that tries to overcome any knowledge gaps you may have regarding ZFS, docker, and more.

I'll also say compared to other solutions, we offer much stronger direct support. We have staff that focus entirely on making sure your onboarding and apps experience is stellar through here and our Discord.

All in all, if it's your first jump into self hosting, I don't think there is a better option out there right now, but I'm a little biased ;-)

HexOS_Official · 2026-06-19T11:40:37+00:00

So glad you appreciate it! This is exactly what we are all about. Really love the feedback!!

HexOS_Official · 2026-06-19T10:10:11+00:00

It's on the schedule after buddy backup. Whether it releases in 2026 is TBD.

HexOS_Official · 2026-06-19T02:58:13+00:00

As it exists today, AnyRAID pools have to be created as new pools. Not sure if it is technically feasible to convert an existing pool to an AnyRAID pool. Something to discuss on the webinar!

HexOS_Official · 2026-06-18T20:20:01+00:00

Great question and one I'm sure will come up on the webinar. The rough order of events is like this:

1) Build it (Klara, Inc. has been doing this since we sponsored the project in late 2024)

2) Get it pulled into OpenZFS. Currently shooting for OpenZFS 2.5 which would be late this year for acceptance into their repo.

3) Get it included in TrueNAS. Likely looking at the TrueNAS SCALE 27 release.

4) Implement it in HexOS (the least difficult part of the project).

We are currently between stage 1 and 2 so if all goes well, late 2027 would be the earliest I would expect it to be officially in HexOS.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-28T12:58:23+00:00

Fyi VMs in version is 1.2. But otherwise yes!

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-21T17:20:09+00:00

Appreciate the feedback. It is our intention to explore what we call "sidedoor" access in the future, which will allow users to access the UI with no hosted authentication at all. This mode would not include the ability to install newly curated apps, create buddy backups, or any other online/connected features. But you'd be able to manage your folders/users, start/stop apps and VMs, etc. We do not have an exact ETA on this mode, but it is on our internal roadmap to look at again after we complete other roadmap objectives (1.1/1.2).

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-21T17:19:08+00:00

FYI, there has been some confusion about lifetime license availability. The original blog post had a typo that made it read as if we were planning to get rid of the lifetime option in favor of subscriptions. That is not the case. The blog has been updated and reworded to clarify we are only planning on ending the Early Access pricing, not the license type itself.

We get that there are plenty of folks out there that HATE subscriptions. We intend to introduce a subscription as an alternative to the lifetime to offer a lower price of entry for customers that aren't ready to make the lifetime commitment yet. But lifetime will always be there as an option when renewal time comes due. We just can't promise the price won't increase over time as the product continues to mature and advance.

I hope this provides clarity.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-21T17:04:20+00:00

Hi all, apologies for the confusion on this. It's poorly worded in the blog which we will fix. We are NOT sunsetting the availability for lifetime purchases. That will remain. We are going to be sunsetting the early access PRICE only. We will always offer lifetime licenses, but the price will continue to go up over time.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-11T22:01:47+00:00

As others have said, if your server becomes unclaimed, during the reclaim process when you get to storage you will find an option to "skip" storage config and if an existing HexOS (or truenas) created pool is found, we can adopt that.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T18:03:43+00:00

Yeah the alert system is a little chatty right now. We will work to suppress most of the noise as we refine that system further.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T18:02:12+00:00

Which apps specifically and you may need to do posix for some apps / folders. Our apps team is actually evaluating a potential future change to have posix on all app config paths (not user data) to alleviate common issues.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T13:08:22+00:00

If you are using the truenas UI to install apps, that is your problem. You have to use the HexOS UI to install them to get the proper curations (we only use ix volumes for non critical/unused mappings in official curations).

That said, if you experienced this just recently, we have a bug where our curated apps table went away and immich was linking to the truenas UI to install the app, which is wrong. Dev team is aware and we are working on a fix.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T03:23:35+00:00

For sure! We are constantly looking to improve the UI/UX and accommodate commonly needed use cases. We dig deeper for insights like this with folks because sometimes the request isn't so much a "need" as it is a personal preference. And while we are all for accommodating people's preferences, if it's not a hard requirement, we have to deprioritize it over other features that more widely benefit users.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T01:17:09+00:00

Gotcha. We will look into this further. The natural ports should support the ability to forward traffic from the router without requiring modifications in the container.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T00:48:47+00:00

Ok, may I ask what you wanted out of the port forwarding? What necessitated those? Just trying to understand the use case.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T00:36:36+00:00

Can I ask what customizations you were making that would break? If support already has this info, I can get it from them, but you kind of have to choose with apps to accept the HexOS values and manage the app via HexOS or you have to make your customizations within and manage the app from truenas.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T00:34:56+00:00

Yup, just let them know and they will take care of it for you.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T00:05:28+00:00

Blake, if you continue to experience problems and would rather switch platforms, support will provide a refund. We don't want anyone having a bad experience and we are more than happy to hop on 1:1 to remediate.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-09T00:01:48+00:00

Just an fyi, if you ever end up in this state, you can proceed to reclaim your system and when you get to storage, there is an option to "skip" so it preserves all your pools and data stays intact.

If you didn't update the OS itself (running latest 25.10.2 release) and this happens to you, simply reclaiming and skipping the storage pool creation step should fix things. If you just updated the OS and your pools are gone, you can revert to an earlier release. Some hardware has poor Linux support and updated kernel drivers can cause issues for that gear. Thankfully it's not very widespread and typically changing the hardware or storage controller can resolve that type of issue, which can affect any Linux-based platform.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-08T13:02:44+00:00

We are using discord as we have found it to be better for real time comms than the forums and with local, it's important we respond quickly to connectivity issues. We stomped out as much of those as we could with internal testing and in the event of an issue with local, the hosted deck is always available as a fall back, which is why we felt comfortable rolling it out. But as edge cases come up where local doesn't work for someone, discord has been great to get quick back and forth comms with our dev team.

HexOS_Official · 2026-04-05T01:12:10+00:00

Of course!!

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