Battle of the noobs: CasaOS X Yunohost X TrueNAS Scale
All of the above have web GUIs to install, configure, and maintain services and are commonly suggested for someone that is new to self hosting. What are their key differences? Their advantages and disadvantages for common use cases?
CasaOS is very easy to use and it's a good starting option so you can test if self-hosting is for you. If you outgrow CasaOS, I can recommend an intermediate solution called: Coolify.
YunoHost is very nice to run on a VPS (or a box at home, or anything). It has good email hosting support, and I feel people without systems administration experience could get it running and host a couple of apps for a group without too much trouble.
TrueNAS Scale has awesome NAS capabilities. ZFS is the bomb. Plus, they are integrating Incus, which I'm a huge fan of. I think it hits a sweet spot for people with systems administration experience. Just install it and you get great NAS capabilities, the option of running a K8S instance, LXC/VM capabilities, and some "app catalog" (I test drove that briefly and it looked decent, but I think less hands-free than Yunohost.). My pet peeve (and I understand why they do this) is that you need separate drives for the OS and for data, so if you want redundancy you need 4 drives- which is likely fine for home use, but I'd like to run TrueNAS Scale on a Hetzner dedicated server, and that increases costs a lot.
If your primary desire is to run a few apps and you want to minimize your learning/effort, I'd check out YunoHost. If you want to do more, but also invest more time, TrueNAS Scale is awesome.
You don't need 4 drive for redundancy, 2 is enough. You only need 4 minimum for a raidz2, or raid 10.
My setup uses a pair of SSD in mirror for apps, and a 5 disk raidz2 (4 data disk + a hot spare) as a main data backbone.
You need two drives for the OS, four for data. Hetzner boxes are cheap with 2 drives, cost multiplies if you add any other.
dont know Yunohost
CasaOS is not an operating system and more like a GUI for Docker with access to the terminal via said GUI (at least thats how i used it)
I personally think thats a very good option if you simply want to use an old PC to host stuff and test around but its limited in its scope so if you want things like RAID you need other or additional solutions
TrueNAS is an operating system Might be overkill for a newbie and i think it was ressource intensive but offers a lot of features in return like RAID
Cant really say more because i did not visit the websites recently
CasaOS is not an operating system and more like a GUI for Docker
So it’s more like Portainer?
It’s a web management system for the entire system, including docker containers. So less like Portainer and more like Cockpit with something like Portainer built in. Unlike Portainer the container management is also based around an application marketplace for “one click” deployments with opinionated more-secure defaults. So once installed you’re sort of hiding the regular Linux OS underneath a more beginner friendly appearance of an OS with some guard rails.
had to look it up, seems like it
CasaOS is not an operating system
No, but ZimaOS is the actual OS version.
Ive tried them all and only stuck with Yunohost.
Hate to say it, but Docker compose is giving you the best flexibility and portability of your files. Any of those services can decide tomorrow to enshittify their services and you will be left with nothing.
Look at Plex, now they require Plex pass to stream your own content.
Wrong, Plex fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software.
YunoHost is a non-profit. Things could change, of course, but I'd fear more that YunoHost dies than it tries to monetize.
TrueNAS is backed by a for-profit company that so far has a good track record and looks pretty sustainable. Plus, while YunoHost might be a bit more troublesome, TrueNAS Scale is pretty much based around "open" things- their app catalog is basically Helm charts, for example.
Docker Compose is quite portable too, but if you are re-using YAML compose definitions from the Internet, or non-official container images by third-parties, there's also risks involved- not everything is easy to migrate! I prefer a very hands-on approach to my personal infra (I package some RPMs!), so I think I wouldn't personally use YunoHost, but I feel somewhat comfortable recommending it to others.