Umbrel Personal Cloud
Shares rank 5 of 6 self-hosting platforms by recommenders
People recommend it for pairing open source self-hosting software with a polished interface on pre-installed hardware. Critics say the price is high for the hardware and storage offered.
People recommend it for pairing open source self-hosting software with a polished interface on pre-installed hardware. Critics say the price is high for the hardware and storage offered.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 50%
Recommended in 1 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1 recommender for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 1 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Open source software sold with hardware
“I quite like this business model of sharing open source software and selling hardware with software pre-installed”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Umbrel – Personal Cloud” “The software is both well-designed (from UX / UI pov) AND it's OSS”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Umbrel – Personal Cloud”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Poor value for the price
“$500 for an N150 mini PC pre-loaded with a 4tb nas and a custom OS is a terrible value proposition.”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Umbrel – Personal Cloud” “looks like you're paying almost twice the price for the NAS-type software”
Comment from 15 Dec 2025 in “Umbrel – Personal Cloud” “when you click to purchase, you'll find that $499 only gets you 1TB.”
Comment from 16 Dec 2025 in “Umbrel – Personal Cloud”
Other self-hosting platforms people recommend
The four most recommended other self-hosting platforms, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Umbrel | 20 | 14 | 59% | 6 | — | — |
| Zo Computer | 15 | 7 | 68% | 6 | — | Approved |
| Cloud in a Bottle | 14 | 10 | 58% | 1 | — | — |
| Sandstorm | 10 | 4 | 71% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Umbrel Personal CloudThis page | 6 | 6 | 50% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
All 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“We recently shipped backups baked directly into umbrelOS.”
“Kind of wild that even an option literally phrased in a way indicating you want to immediately give them money requires clicking again to even start making a selection”
“when you click to purchase, you'll find that $499 only gets you 1TB.”
“$500 for an N150 mini PC pre-loaded with a 4tb nas and a custom OS is a terrible value proposition.”
“Works extremely well, I highly recommend it for similar applications.”
“I quite like this business model of sharing open source software and selling hardware with software pre-installed”
“The software is both well-designed (from UX / UI pov) AND it's OSS”
“there seems to be a pretty big mismatch between that performance and their website claims”
“the NC clause is exactly what makes it hard for someone else to step in”
“it would border on useless for local inference”
“does not even have a RAID 1 for a bit of redundancy? Big no no.”
“looks like you're paying almost twice the price for the NAS-type software”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.