TrueNAS 26 isn't trying to be Proxmox, but it's getting awfully close for homelab users

At a glance:

• TrueNAS 26 elevates LXC containers from experimental to fully supported status, with GPU passthrough capabilities for hardware acceleration
• High availability now extends to LXC containers, allowing failover between nodes with static IP requirements
• The web UI receives significant improvements for container management, bridging the gap with Proxmox while maintaining storage-first philosophy

The Blurring Lines Between Storage and Virtualization

For years, TrueNAS and Proxmox have occupied distinct spaces in the homelab ecosystem. TrueNAS has been the go-to solution when storage reliability takes precedence, built on the robust ZFS filesystem designed to withstand drive failures, bitrot, and other storage-related issues. Proxmox, conversely, has established itself as the preferred hypervisor for running virtual machines and LXC containers, with clustering and high availability features that have quietly powered countless home server setups. It's common practice for enthusiasts to run TrueNAS inside a Proxmox virtual machine, provided drive passthrough is configured correctly.

TrueNAS 26 marks a significant shift in this relationship. The latest beta release from iXsystems introduces LXC containers, high availability for those containers, GPU passthrough functionality, and a web interface that increasingly resembles the dashboard of a hypervisor-centric platform. While iXsystems would likely avoid positioning it this way, TrueNAS 26 effectively responds to homelab users who have long deployed Proxmox alongside their NAS systems. The platform isn't abandoning its storage roots—ZFS remains central—but it's clearly expanding beyond being merely a storage appliance.

LXC Containers: From Experimental to Production Ready

LXC containers aren't entirely new to TrueNAS, but their implementation has been inconsistent until now. TrueNAS 25.04 (codenamed Fangtooth) introduced them as an experimental feature under the Instances tab, alongside the more established virtual machine workflow. While functional, the experimental label created uncertainty for users considering critical workloads, with the understanding that updates might require reconfiguration—a significant concern for services like media servers or reverse proxies.

TrueNAS 26 resolves this by promoting LXC to a fully supported feature for running Linux workloads on a NAS, with seamless migration for containers created in previous releases. This stability is crucial for users who proceeded with experimental containers despite the warnings. LXC containers offer a compelling advantage over full virtual machines, particularly for resource-constrained homelab setups with limited RAM (such as 16GB systems). By sharing the host kernel, containers consume far fewer resources than VMs, making them ideal for running multiple services on modest hardware. The efficiency difference becomes pronounced when managing four or five workloads simultaneously, and now users can leverage this efficiency directly within TrueNAS without the need for a separate Proxmox installation.

GPU Passthrough and Device Support

A standout feature in TrueNAS 26 is the introduction of GPU passthrough for containers. Users can now directly assign Nvidia and other supported graphics cards to LXC containers through the container configuration interface. This capability enables hardware acceleration for demanding applications like Ollama (AI model inference), Immich (photo management), or Jellyfin (media transcoding) within containers, rather than relying on TrueNAS Apps. For those who have struggled with GPU passthrough in Proxmox containers—a notoriously finicky process—this native implementation in the TrueNAS UI represents a significant usability improvement.

Beyond GPU passthrough, TrueNAS 26 also supports the passthrough of USB and PCIe devices to both containers and virtual machines, following the resolution of a regression introduced in earlier nightly builds. This functionality enables users to expose specialized hardware like Zigbee dongles to Home Assistant or Coral TPUs to Frigate (AI video surveillance) directly from their TrueNAS system. The ability to passthrough these devices expands the versatility of containers and VMs, allowing for more specialized homelab applications without additional hardware.

High Availability Extends to Compute Workloads

High availability (HA) has been a cornerstone of Proxmox's appeal, allowing users to cluster nodes and automatically fail over workloads during hardware failures. While primarily associated with enterprise environments, HA is accessible to homelab users running multiple mini PCs, providing continuity for critical services like Nextcloud or home automation controllers. TrueNAS has offered HA on its Enterprise edition, but it was limited to storage layer redundancy, leaving compute workloads vulnerable to node failures.

TrueNAS 26 extends HA to LXC containers, enabling them to fail over between HA controllers when a node goes offline. This represents a fundamental shift in how TrueNAS approaches system resilience. While containers require static IP addresses for failover (DHCP-based containers won't transition automatically), this limitation aligns with best practices for HA implementations. By incorporating compute workloads into its HA strategy, TrueNAS is building a more comprehensive solution that addresses both storage redundancy and the applications running on top of that storage. This change directly addresses the long-standing gap between TrueNAS and Proxmox in terms of workload management during failures.

The Evolving Web Interface

TrueNAS Scale's web interface has undergone gradual improvement but has often felt somewhat disjointed, with nested menus and terminology that assumes prior knowledge of ZFS concepts. This has created opportunities for third-party solutions like HexOS, which aims to make TrueNAS more approachable for regular users. TrueNAS 26 doesn't overhaul the interface but continues to refine it, making the container experience feel more like a dedicated virtualization management platform rather than an add-on feature.

The instances view has been streamlined, container creation follows a more guided workflow, and GPU passthrough is now accessible through a simple dropdown menu rather than requiring manual configuration. The new WebShare UI also simplifies file sharing operations. While stylistically distinct from Proxmox—TrueNAS maintains its storage-first orientation with compute as a secondary capability—the functional overlap has grown substantially. Users can now create containers, assign GPUs, configure failover, attach ZFS datasets as volumes, and monitor resource usage directly from the TrueNAS dashboard without terminal access. This convergence of functionality is gradually eroding the philosophical divide between the two platforms.

Strategic Direction Without Direct Competition

TrueNAS 26 introduces several other changes beyond container enhancements, including a shift to annual releases (dropping the bi-annual cadence and fish codenames in favor of version numbers like 26.1 and 26.2). OpenZFS 2.4 brings Hybrid Pools, Kernel 6.18 LTS is included, and new features like Ransomware Detection and WebShare reinforce the platform's storage-first identity. These developments clearly reflect iXsystems' core focus.

However, the container-related changes—particularly LXC support, HA extension, and UI improvements—appear strategically targeted at users who historically maintained separate TrueNAS and Proxmox systems. By enabling comprehensive container management with HA on a single TrueNAS instance backed by ZFS, iXsystems is weakening the argument for dual-platform setups. This doesn't constitute a direct challenge to Proxmox's enterprise clustering capabilities or VM tooling maturity, but it significantly strengthens TrueNAS's position for homelab users seeking an integrated storage and compute solution.

For enthusiasts who previously used Proxmox solely for container workloads while running TrueNAS for storage, TrueNAS 26 presents a compelling alternative. The platform has evolved from being "a NAS that can run containers if needed" to "a NAS that can feasibly serve as your primary container host." Whether intentional or coincidental, TrueNAS 26 has made the boundaries between these two specialized platforms more permeable than ever before.