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FreeBSD vs SmartOS: catalog facts
FreeBSD	SmartOS
Free Free and open source, supported by donations.	Free The SmartOS ISO is free and open source; Triton offers paid private and hosted cloud…
Self-hosted, Command line	Self-hosted
OpenZFS integrated into the base system Jails for isolating services	Runs zones and KVM or bhyve VMs on the same host ZFS and DTrace built in
Fewer desktop drivers and commercial apps than Linux Desktop setup takes more manual work than consumer systems	Illumos base is less familiar than Linux Cloud management features require Triton on top
Operating system	Operating system
Open source	Open source
License not stated	License not stated
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.