Berkeley BSD
CSRG, UC Berkeley. Retired
The original Berkeley Software Distribution by Bill Joy and the CSRG, introducing TCP/IP networking, the Fast File System (FFS), and vi.
BSDs as of Nov 2026
Rank 31 BSD operating systems, appliances, and commercial products from 28 makers, from FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFly BSD to pfSense, OPNsense, TrueNAS CORE, macOS, PlayStation OS, and historic Unix pioneers. Filter by filesystem, firewalls, and use cases, inspect detailed spec sheets, and drag, tap, or use the keyboard. Your rankings save locally in your browser and can be shared as a link or exported as an image.
Drag BSDs into tiers, or tap one and then a tier. Keyboard: focus a BSD, press 1–6 to rank it and 0 to unrank, or Enter then the arrow keys to move it. Ctrl+Z undoes.
Trace modern operating systems and appliances back to the 386BSD and Berkeley Software Distribution roots they share, and hover a logo for details.
18 of the 31 BSD systems here descend directly from FreeBSD, 3 from the NeXT and Darwin lineage, and 3 from the portable NetBSD and OpenBSD branch.
CSRG, UC Berkeley. Retired
The original Berkeley Software Distribution by Bill Joy and the CSRG, introducing TCP/IP networking, the Fast File System (FFS), and vi.
William & Lynne Jolitz. Retired
The pioneering port of 4.3BSD-Net/2 to Intel 386 PC architecture. FreeBSD and NetBSD both originated directly from it.
The FreeBSD Project. Still developed
High-performance general-purpose Unix with the bhyve hypervisor, ZFS root support, and Jails containment.
Matthew Dillon & team. Still developed
Branched to pioneer lockless SMP kernel threading and the revolutionary HAMMER and HAMMER2 transactional filesystems.
The NetBSD Project. Still developed
Unmatched hardware portability ("Of course it runs NetBSD"), portable pkgsrc package management, and clean architectural design.
Theo de Raadt & team. Still developed
Uncompromising security focus, proactive auditing, pledge/unveil sandboxing, PF packet filter, and OpenSSH upstream.
NeXT Computer. Retired
Steve Jobs’ innovative Unix workstation OS, pairing the Mach microkernel and 4.3BSD userland with Display PostScript and Objective-C.
Apple. Still developed
The open-source Unix core of macOS and iOS, combining the XNU hybrid kernel (Mach + FreeBSD) with POSIX userland.
BSDi. Retired
Commercial BSD Unix founded by CSRG members, widely used in early Internet Service Providers before being acquired by Wind River.
Various vendors. Still developed
Proprietary appliances and operating systems incorporating FreeBSD kernel subsystems, networking stacks, or userland tools.
Dashed logos mark systems that grew out of that base before moving on.