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The problem with lists like this is that any possibly convincing feature tends to get copied after a while. For instance, jails are nice -> docker, podman,...

The problem with lists like this is that any possibly convincing feature tends to get copied after a while. For instance, jails are nice -> docker, podman,... exist. Might be better or worse for your use case, but similar enough that it is not worth switching for. Or ZFS is nice -> ZFS is still nice and also available on linux. Btrfs also exists. Boot environments are nice -> Snapper does this and more and things like NixOS or Fedora Silverblue go much further still. Popular package is in the repos of ... -> It is in any OS's repo. Package manager is good -> Even Windows now includes apt-... er, winget https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/winget/ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/package-manager/win... Kdeconnect offers nice integration of your phones, tablets and pcs -> Apple copies it, MS copies it; gsconnect, mconnect.... Combine that with the fact that switching always involves some uncomfortable adjustment and any "killer feature" becomes -> Eh, now I will have to wait a bit until it is available on the OS I am comfortable with.

krylon 4y ago
Yes, FreeBSD these days does not really have any unique selling point. Anything you can do on FreeBSD, you can do on Linux. But you can also do them on FreeBSD, and usually do them well. But having some variety is good thing in itself, IMHO. I recall some major DNS company making a point of always running a mixture of various hardware/OS platforms to ensure that a problem with a particular configuration would not take down the entire site. (This is a bigger issue, too - on the server and desktop, you basically have the choice between Windows and some variant of Unix[0]. There are a few alternatives on the server, OS/400, OpenVMS, z/OS, etc., but those are pretty niche.)
- smm11 4y ago
  Diversification is the key here, but not so much when your last failsafe has one expert on earth and they're 5000 miles away.

krylon 4y ago

Yes, FreeBSD these days does not really have any unique selling point. Anything you can do on FreeBSD, you can do on Linux. But you can also do them on FreeBSD, and usually do them well. But having some variety is good thing in itself, IMHO. I recall some major DNS company making a point of always running a mixture of various hardware/OS platforms to ensure that a problem with a particular configuration would not take down the entire site. (This is a bigger issue, too - on the server and desktop, you basically have the choice between Windows and some variant of Unix[0]. There are a few alternatives on the server, OS/400, OpenVMS, z/OS, etc., but those are pretty niche.)

smm11 4y ago
Diversification is the key here, but not so much when your last failsafe has one expert on earth and they're 5000 miles away.