Synology is no longer the best NAS anymore
For a long time, Synology was the NAS brand. If someone asked what NAS to buy , you'd say Synology and move on. Their hardware was always decent but DiskStation Manager was genuinely exceptional—nothing else in the consumer space came close to the software experience. You were paying a premium, but it made sense.
However, in 2026, that's no longer true. The hardware has fallen behind, the competition has caught up on software, and the recent debacle around Synology-branded storage devices has left a bad taste in many users' mouths. As a result, if you're shopping for a NAS right now, Synology should not be your default choice.
Synology has been getting worse—and the NAS community noticed
They had a good run—until they alienated their fanbase
Synology's hardware was never great value. At most price points, it ships aging Intel Celeron or low-end AMD chips, modest RAM, and standard 1GbE networking. Meanwhile, competitors at the same price offer 12th-gen Intel N-series chips, DDR5 memory, and 2.5GbE as a baseline. When you're spending $500–600 on a NAS , that gap matters—especially when the device is expected to last 7–10 years.
That said, Synology fans were still willing to pay the premium. But the company pushed things too far, announcing that its new Plus-series models would require Synology-branded drives to access key features like health monitoring and deduplication. Third-party drives from brands like Seagate or Western Digital—the drives most people actually use—would lose access to those features. The worst part is that Synology doesn't even manufacture its own storage devices—it's essentially rebranding drives from companies like Seagate or Toshiba at higher markups.
The backlash was fast and loud. Synology eventually backtracked with DSM 7.3 , adding broader drive compatibility, but the damage was already done. For many users, it was a wake-up call. After years of defaulting to Synology, people started seriously considering alternatives—and those alternatives suddenly looked very appealing.
The competition offers better value for the money
The NAS market finally has real competition
Ugreen entered the NAS space a couple of years ago with its NASync line and immediately made Synology's hardware a tougher sell. For comparison, consider the DXP4800 Plus from Ugreen and the DS423+ from Synology. Both are 4-bay units priced around $600–620. At first glance, they look similar—but in practice, they're not.
The DXP4800 Plus ships with a 5-core Intel Pentium Gold 8505, 8GB of DDR5 memory, a built-in 10GbE port , and 4K HDMI output. The DS423+ runs a quad-core Intel Celeron processor, paired with just 2 GB of RAM and 1GbE LAN ports . For roughly the same price, Ugreen offers more cores, faster memory, and significantly better networking.
And it's not just Ugreen. QNAP has long been a strong, hardware-focused alternative to Synology, typically offering better specs at comparable prices. The NAS market has real options now, and the hardware tier Synology occupies no longer justifies its brand premium. The key point is that NAS hardware determines how useful the device will be five years from now. Faster networking, a capable processor, and expandable memory are features you want built in from the start.
DSM isn't special enough to justify the premium
Open-source NAS OSes are now good enough to replace DSM
Synology's real advantage was always DSM (DiskStation Manager). It's polished, reliable, easy to set up for non-technical users, and its app ecosystem is genuinely useful. You could justify the mediocre hardware because DSM made the overall experience smooth.
However, as of today, standalone NAS operating systems like TrueNAS SCALE and Unraid have closed the gap significantly—and they're incredibly affordable (TrueNas Scale being free, open-source).
Unraid is incredibly flexible. It lets you mix drive sizes without traditional RAID constraints, handles Docker containers well, and has been the homelab community's go-to for years for good reason. Sure, it's not as plug-and-play as DSM, but it's not difficult to set up either—and it gives you far more control.
Then there's TrueNAS SCALE, a more robust and enterprise-leaning alternative. It uses the ZFS file system, which guarantees strong data integrity. You can also expect mature support for virtual machines and containers.
However, the biggest advantage is that both of these OSes run on standard x86 hardware. Your Ugreen NAS, your QNAP, an old PC, or a mini server—it doesn't matter—these NAS operating systems will run on all of them. At this point, the NAS OS is effectively a commodity. It makes no sense to factor "staying inside DSM" into your purchase decision—especially when you're paying a premium.
If you want the best value, build your own
An old PC and a free NAS OS are all you actually need
Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek
A NAS doesn't need to be that powerful. So, the most cost-efficient NAS you can have is one you build yourself using hardware you already own or can buy secondhand. This way you control every component—RAM, networking, storage bays, and CPU—and nothing is soldered down or vendor-locked. Even the software experience is entirely under your control. You can install a specialized NAS OS like the ones discussed above, or go with a full-blown desktop OS like Ubuntu and repurpose it for your NAS needs.
I built my own DIY NAS by repurposing an 8-year-old machine with a Ryzen 3 2200G, 16GB of RAM, and 8TB of storage. For the OS, I installed ZimaOS—it's intuitive and offers a polished, modern interface. It handles file serving across the network without issues, runs Jellyfin as a media server , and hosts a Linux Mint VM, so the machine doubles as a spare computer when needed. The best part is that the entire setup cost me nothing extra because the hardware was already sitting around.
Yes, setting up a DIY NAS does require some comfort with basic networking, drive configuration, and OS installation—but it's not rocket science. If you've ever built a PC yourself and installed Linux on it, this is going to feel very familiar.
So, where does that leave Synology?
The Synology premium was justified when DSM was clearly ahead of everything else. That gap is now gone. The hardware was always mediocre, and the 2025 drive lock-in attempt made it clear that Synology's strategy isn't about giving users more—it's about tightening its ecosystem over time.
With all of that in mind, choosing Synology as your next NAS doesn't make much sense. A better option is to find an old PC or laptop and repurpose it as a NAS. Just make sure to use NAS-certified HDDs —standard desktop drives aren't designed for that kind of workload.
