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Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

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Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#181

Post by windexh8er »

baby_souffle wrote: post #143
psyclobe wrote: post #131

I have nothing but good things to say about ubiquiti. I run their cameras door bell and network switches at my house and have had nearly 100% uptime for years. Their ui constantly improves and it’s very well integrated into home assistant. Lotta haters out there but this is just advanced as I want to get in my home lab; and the racks are just so cool even with their gimmicky front touch panel, it’s just so sexy when…

> Lotta haters out there but this is just advanced as I want to get in my home lab IN all fairness, that hate is reasonable. Ubiquity has _some_ things done super well. As long as your needs are addressed by the config/options/UX/API that they expose, you'll have a pretty good experience. As soon as you need to do something that isn't easy, you're going to be fighting your core network infra the entire time and that'…

This is 100a% wrong from my perspective. I host multiple sites using UniFi, old Router/SwitchOS as well as AirOS/UISP. I have many VLANs under management spanning these different variations of "old" and "new" implementations and none of them are "a miserable place to be". Maybe if one doesn't actually understand networking nomenclature or interop, sure. I happen to have a pretty deep networking background - but Ubiquiti products have actually made it easier in many cases to do some of the more advanced things in other routing platforms.

While I don't like many of the shady things Ubiquiti did with respect to OSS and for a while I did try to move away from them. However what I found was the prosumer market riddled with less polished alternatives. Microtik does offer some interesting hardware for edge cases that UniFi doesn't cover, but when it comes to a unified system Ubiquiti have done an amazing job.

The pricing has gotten a bit outrageous. For example: trying to find a reasonably priced high wattage PoE switch in UniFi's line is no longer an easy task. It's tradeoffs all the way down. I have an original (SwitchOS) 48 port GbE & 4 SFP+, full L3 with a >250W budget and replacing it will be rather pricey or I'll have to make concessions.

But overall... There's no better prosumer option - good, bad or otherwise. They haven't enshittified the product with subscriptions / software upgrades and my guess is they're making this move back to self hosted options to actually save themselves money. A win on both sides.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#182

Post by Spooky23 »

psyclobe wrote: post #131

I have nothing but good things to say about ubiquiti. I run their cameras door bell and network switches at my house and have had nearly 100% uptime for years. Their ui constantly improves and it’s very well integrated into home assistant. Lotta haters out there but this is just advanced as I want to get in my home lab; and the racks are just so cool even with their gimmicky front touch panel, it’s just so sexy when…

I love my ubiquity kit, but they annoy me with half finished stuff.

I upgraded my venerable USG with the new UXG as I have gig service now. The gear is great, even supports IPv6, and uses much less power. But… no internal DNS is enabled. So now, I ended up buying a thin client on eBay to roll my own DHCP/DNS. Not fun. It is baffling to me because there’s lots of complex new features in the Unifi stack, and they already had an interface to configure static names in dnsmasq.

I went the Eufy route for cameras as the batteries were a big draw for me.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#183

Post by windexh8er »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #169
Already__Taken wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just think £360 for an IP camera is too steep, half would be a no brainier over ring. Their new Lite switches replace stuff that was rack-mountable, not there's no ears are far as I can tell. The gateways are awesome value.

I got into Ubiquiti due to their APs being effectively enterprise level features for consumer level prices. Their coverage and quality was a cut above the TP-Link gear I'd used previously (which was, in turn, better than the D-Link and Netgear stuff that I'd tried). So I am confused by their Camera prices being so high. I went with Reolink on cameras and NVRs and don't regret that decision. Probably spent a third of…

I have a couple sites with both types of cameras. And I really love all the customizability with my Frigate / Reolink site. But UniFi can command the premium on the camera hardware because of all the features they give you on the software side of their NVR. It's far better than what you get out of the box compared to something like Reolink in terms of detection and set-it-and-forget-it mentality.

I have a site that has 8 cameras and 2 of the 8 are original cameras that are >5 years old still getting firmware updates. Reolink does not do this and I have had much higher failure rate with them as well. Especially in outdoor cameras that have to handle snow/ice/extreme cold.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#184

Post by Silhouette »

supertrope wrote: post #135
cowpig wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does strict privacy requirements imply enterprise gear?

Enterprises often have to pass audits and have regulatory compliance requirements. So no surveillance capitalism for them. Where enterprise tech vendors get you is licensing cost.

Enterprises often have to pass audits and have regulatory compliance requirements.

So do many smaller organisations. The market for prosumer/SOHO/SME tech is in a sorry state lately with many being pushed towards what is essentially consumer level junk with a slightly different finish on the case and a different badge.

There is an irony here in the UK that we're finally seeing widespread availability of FTTP broadband with gigabit+ speeds and the latest WiFi standards but trying to find decent routers, switches, and access points that support 10G internal networking and the full rates of the available broadband and WiFi standards is a nightmare. It's like the only conceivable options are extremely expensive "enterprise" products and consumer junk that you control with a mobile app (until it becomes unsupported at some indeterminate future date presumably) that phones home to the manufacturer's servers (until they get shut off at some indeterminate future date presumably) and only works with an account on the manufacturer's system (until it deliberately or accidentally gets disabled for any reason presumably) and possibly a subscription payment (that can increase arbitrarily in future years presumably). It seems like literally no manufacturer that has previously provided reputable mid-level equipment still trying to compete in this segment of the market any more and that is both sad and potentially dangerous.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#185

Post by newsclues »

jeremywho wrote: post #76
oceanplexian wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped buying Ubiquiti when I reset my UDM Pro and took it to another house without internet access, and it refused to "activate" without an Internet Connection or a phone app connection. Seems they are more interested in selling a lifestyle rather than actual production network equipment.

What are you using instead?

If I ditched my modest ubiquiti gear I’d probably try out https://www.alta.inc/ Because https://chrisbuechler.com/

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#186

Post by esseph »

shermantanktop wrote: post #173
esseph wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Robert Pera, CEO/founder used to work for Apple for a few years when he was very young.

Has he said that? I did a lot of jobs when I was very young. I wouldn't want someone to draw conclusions about me today based on my failed stint at Burger King, for example.

Google it.

But yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pera#Apple

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#187

Post by windexh8er »

kingnothing wrote: post #116
amluto wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My general impression is that it “Just Works” if you don’t do anything remotely interesting with it. Want to create a VLAN with no Internet connectivity? Better test that it actually has no Internet connectivity because the setting doesn’t actually work. Want to use the firewall? Better test all the rules — it’s amazingly buggy. Want to change a WiFi setting without WiFi going down for a minute or two? Good luck — Un…

I took a hybrid approach -- Unifi for everything except the firewall, and a Firewalla for that. I'm overall quite happy with it, although you won't get a single pane of glass for management.

This. I don't use their gateways/ security devices anymore. I run ONSense at every edge which allows me to so some really nice things with respect to remote access for non-home sites.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#188

Post by dmoy »

windexh8er wrote: post #181
baby_souffle wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lotta haters out there but this is just advanced as I want to get in my home lab IN all fairness, that hate is reasonable. Ubiquity has _some_ things done super well. As long as your needs are addressed by the config/options/UX/API that they expose, you'll have a pretty good experience. As soon as you need to do something that isn't easy, you're going to be fighting your core network infra the entire time and that'…

This is 100a% wrong from my perspective. I host multiple sites using UniFi, old Router/SwitchOS as well as AirOS/UISP. I have many VLANs under management spanning these different variations of "old" and "new" implementations and none of them are "a miserable place to be". Maybe if one doesn't actually understand networking nomenclature or interop, sure. I happen to have a pretty deep networking background - but Ubiqu…

> There's no better prosumer option - good, bad or otherwise

Mikrotik maybe?

I run both ubiquiti and mikrotik stuff. The mikrotik definitely has... a learning curve, but you can do some stuff with it that's pretty difficult with ubiquiti.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#189

Post by inferiorhuman »

windexh8er wrote: post #181
baby_souffle wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lotta haters out there but this is just advanced as I want to get in my home lab IN all fairness, that hate is reasonable. Ubiquity has _some_ things done super well. As long as your needs are addressed by the config/options/UX/API that they expose, you'll have a pretty good experience. As soon as you need to do something that isn't easy, you're going to be fighting your core network infra the entire time and that'…

This is 100a% wrong from my perspective. I host multiple sites using UniFi, old Router/SwitchOS as well as AirOS/UISP. I have many VLANs under management spanning these different variations of "old" and "new" implementations and none of them are "a miserable place to be". Maybe if one doesn't actually understand networking nomenclature or interop, sure. I happen to have a pretty deep networking background - but Ubiqu…

  Maybe if one doesn't actually understand networking nomenclature or interop, sure.
After owning a few EdgeRouter X models I can safely say that the whole lineup a was half baked proof of concept at best. Ubiquiti used two different chipsets in the EdgeRouter lineup, both had data corruption issues with hardware acceleration that Ubiquiti couldn't fix… because they simply cobbled together some open source projects and called it a product. One ran so hot that they'd reliably cook themselves. Because EdgeOS was Vyatta based, it used an end-of-lifed version of Debian (maybe this was eventually remedied?). The PoE models provide non-standard passive PoE, if memory serves the initial batch had PoE enabled by default on some ports = fries unsuspecting devices.

They're cheap and nasty, but they mostly worked.

Re: Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting

#190

Post by esseph »

aetherspawn wrote: post #151

So I’m confused, this is just the network management appliance right, you can’t use this to make a switch or firewall? Seems like a strange sink of capex because the pocket sized network appliance is cheep.

Cameras, networking, door controls, etc.

Yes it has the whole UniFi Network piece, which is various unifi routers, switches, wireless access points, wireless mesh units, etc.

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