I've been using it for about 4 years and agree that it the community feels like it's an open source project... and then you remember you've paid for it, and there hasn't been a (non beta) release in almost a full year, and all development is happening behind closed doors.

I still really enjoy unraid for what it does, but I also feel like I can't recommend it any longer.

To be clear it was a one-time lifetime payment!

Kinda seems like this latest release accumulated a lot features and could be part of the relatively slow release pace.

https://forums.unraid.net/bug-reports/prereleases/unraid-os-...

However, their iteration approach seems smart to me. As far as I can tell they have experimented with some of the big features as optional plugins before adding them to an official release.

For example: in between the latest official release and now they released MyServers plugin to remotely monitor and perform high level server operations. It’s great and has been gone from early access alpha to a full fledged product.

Additionally the wireguard integration was released as a plugin first, and will simply be more deeply integrated in the latest upcoming release.

https://unraid.net/product/my-servers

> To be clear it was a one-time lifetime payment!

That's on them and their business model, not on the customers.

In software a business needs a source of income, otherwise you have what unraid has currently: a burst of income at the beginning, and less and less resources to handle the support calls that come in later.

Edited to add: It's also why Plex sucks lately. Lifetime members paid up front for maybe $100. When Plex burnt through that money and wasn't getting a return with new subscriptions, they started looking for ways to make Plex more profitable rather than making better software for their users.

My perspective was that I purchased unraid because it satisfied my requirements at that point in time. I don’t really expect _any_ major feature additions. The fact that it’s getting better is amazing IMO.

I think a lot of peoples perceptions are skewed from SaaS models maybe?

Sounds like a great tagline: "All the support and drive of an open-source project at commercial prices!"

it’s such a pet peeve, but the unRAID community normalizing the usage of “Dockers” for “Docker containers” makes me twitch.

That's a good point. I never thought of that before, unfortunately I tend to pickup bad habits like that by watching the way others write. Though I do have to wonder if the Docker team would have used that term were it not already a registered trademark. I suppose it does sound a little silly.

that's not your bad habit, that's just how language evolves naturally. like I said, a pet peeve. the part that makes me twitch is that the evolution of the term is happening in a hobbyist community, where I've never heard a professional use the term. when I read it it doesn't make linguistic since to me -- a "Docker" is not a thing, what is its plural?

anyway, you do you.

I regularly cringe when people refer to "Docker images" as "containers" but this is a step further.

That’s close to the usage of “screen saver” to mean wallpaper/background image and those people who think MAC and Mac are the same.

And browsing through 80 pages of a forum post to find the information you are looking for is frustrating. I regret dropping FreeNAS for Unraid. It feels amateurish and I don't trust community plugins at all.

I think that's true for other mass market commercial closed source products too. Plex comes to mind.