If you have read anything about TrueNAS in the last few years, you will have met the same question: SCALE or CORE. One built on Linux, one on FreeBSD, with long arguments about which was the serious choice.
That question is now closed. There is one product, called TrueNAS, and it is built on the Linux base that used to be SCALE.
This matters more than a branding change, because a great deal of the advice still sitting on page one of a search was written when the split was real, and it will send you looking for a download that is no longer the current one.
How you can see it for yourself
The clearest evidence is the maker’s own release schedule. The TrueNAS software status page is where iXsystems publishes which versions are supported and for how long. Checked on 21 September 2026, it tracks four version lines: 25.04, 25.10, 26 and 27.
Every one of those is the merged product. There is no separate CORE line on that page, and no FreeBSD release track running alongside. Material from the CORE era is labelled “TrueNAS Legacy” in the navigation on the TrueNAS site, and the documentation carries a guide for migrating off CORE rather than a page comparing it to the alternative.
When a maker publishes a migration guide away from a product and stops scheduling releases for it, the product line has ended, whatever the internet still says about it.
What version you should actually be on
Versions are numbered by year and month, so 25.10 shipped in October 2025. They also carry codenames, which is why you will see “Goldeye” and “Fangtooth” used interchangeably with 25.10 and 25.04 in forum posts.
As of 21 September 2026, 25.10.7 is the current maintenance build on the 25.10 line, according to the software status page. The 25.10 line first reached stable on 28 October 2025.
TrueNAS 26 exists but is still in beta. It appears on the schedule, which is why you may see it mentioned, but a beta is not the version to put your family’s photographs on. Unless you are deliberately testing, 25.10 is the line to be on.
What this changes for you in practice
If you are running CORE today, nothing has broken and your system has not stopped working. But it is no longer on a release track, which means the security updates you are relying on have an end date. Migration is the direction of travel, and the maker documents it.
If you are choosing now, the decision you thought you had to make has been made for you. Download the current TrueNAS and you get the Linux base, which is also the one with the container and app support that most home users are actually there for.
If you are reading a comparison article, check its date before you trust it. An article that carefully weighs SCALE against CORE is describing a world that no longer exists, however sensible its reasoning was at the time.
What it needs to run
The hardware guide states a minimum of 8 GB of memory and 20 GB of boot storage. Treat both as a floor rather than a target: that is what it takes to boot, not what it takes to run comfortably with apps and a decent amount of storage attached.
ZFS, the filesystem TrueNAS is built around, likes memory. The old rule of thumb about one gigabyte per terabyte of storage was always cruder than people treated it, but the direction is right. Memory is the component worth spending on first.
The licensing question, briefly
TrueNAS is open core rather than fully open source. The middleware that runs the system is published under the LGPL-3.0 licence, which you can check on the TrueNAS middleware repository, while some enterprise features are licensed separately.
For a home setup this is a distinction without a practical difference: the Community Edition is free to download and run on your own hardware, with no licence key and no device limit. What you give up against the paid Enterprise product is support and the turnkey appliances, neither of which applies to a machine in your own cupboard.