FreeNAS® first made the leap onto the internet in 2005 and over the last decade, has become a household name with over 10 million downloads and 1 million deployments worldwide. For many years, FreeNAS and TrueNAS® grew alongside each other at iXsystems®— FreeNAS as the community-supported software edition and TrueNAS as the enterprise edition for mission-critical storage applications. The two were maintained separately despite having much in common, including a near-identical codebase.

In 2019, we decided to unify both projects under the TrueNAS Open Storage name. FreeNAS is now known as TrueNAS CORE and what was previously known as “TrueNAS” is now TrueNAS Enterprise. This naming convention and distribution strategy allows us to innovate rapidly by consolidating our efforts behind one downloadable image and product family.

Although the FreeNAS name has changed to TrueNAS, our commitment remains the same: to build the best Open Source storage operating system that millions can rely on daily to protect their most important data.

We’re proud to say that the same code and technology behind FreeNAS will always be at the core of TrueNAS, providing the same features that you know and love and much more. Although FreeNAS will take on a less prominent role moving forward, the heritage and spirit will always remain in making TrueNAS CORE the world’s best Free NAS. Older legacy downloads of FreeNAS are available at the bottom of this webpage, although new feature updates will only take place on TrueNAS.

TrueNAS CORE will always be completely Open Source and free. TrueNAS Enterprise and iXsystems support are available for more critical storage applications.

The upgrade from FreeNAS to TrueNAS CORE is as simple as clicking a button in the UI. The upgrade is free and the software is still Open Source. If you haven’t joined the open storage revolution yet, download TrueNAS CORE and get started today!