By Brett Davis, CEO, TrueNAS

As I step into my new role, I wanted to speak directly to the TrueNAS community.

Many of you have been with us on this journey for a long time. Some of you have been running TrueNAS for more than a decade. Others joined more recently, whether through a homelab, a small business deployment, research lab, or a large enterprise environment. Wherever you sit, I want you to know something: you are a primary reason this platform is as good as it is.

TrueNAS has grown into a storage platform trusted by organizations around the world, including a majority of the Fortune 500. That did not happen because of marketing alone, or because of a single product release. The reliability TrueNAS delivers at enterprise scale exists because millions of users have run it, stress-tested it, provided input, and pushed it in ways no internal team could replicate on their own.

That feedback loop matters. It makes the software better. It surfaces issues earlier. It strengthens reliability. And it lowers risk for everyone who depends on TrueNAS for critical data. This is the practical value of our open-core business model, and it is a core reason we are able to deliver better long-term economics to our users and customers.

The dominant model in enterprise storage is built around maximum value extraction from its users. Meaning, products are only accessible after money changes hands.

TrueNAS is built differently. We operate on a model of value creation and reciprocity. We believe technology should first deliver real utility to its users, whether or not they have paid us. The software proves itself. It earns credibility in labs, in pilots, and in production. We then earn our revenue when organizations require enhanced capabilities, enterprise reliability, performance, and/or dedicated support.

Value FIRST, monetization SECOND. This model fundamentally reshapes the economics of enterprise storage.

As I step into the CEO role, that does not change. In fact, it becomes even more important.

The storage market is under pressure. Flash and memory costs are skyrocketing. Architectures are becoming more rigid. Too many organizations are being asked to trade control for convenience or predictability for lock-in.We believe there is a better path forward.

We believe infrastructure vendors should be accountable to the organizations running their data. Not the other way around.

Our focus in 2026 is simple. Continue fixing the broken economics of enterprise storage by delivering predictable costs, hybrid and flash storage efficiency, and lifecycle control. That means performance where it matters, capacity where it scales, and the ability to adapt over time without lock-in or forced migrations.

The community plays a critical role in making that possible. Your real-world deployments, your feedback, your testing, and your contributions help ensure that what we build works not just in theory, but in practice. That benefits everyone, from individual users to the largest enterprises and the partners who support them.

When someone inside your organization says, “We should look at TrueNAS,” that should mean something. It should mean architectural flexibility. It should mean cost predictability. It should mean long-term control over your data strategy.

Our job in 2026 is to help make that internal case even stronger for you.

I’ve been a member of this community since the beginning. That doesn’t change in my new role. So, I also want to hear from you directly. Whether you have ideas for where we should take the platform, frustrations you want to get off your chest, features you’ve been waiting on, or just want to share what TrueNAS has meant to your organization, I’m all ears.

This community has never been shy about telling us what it thinks, and I hope that doesn’t change on my watch. Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments, and I’m committed to reading each and every one.

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Thank you for the trust you place in TrueNAS and for the role you play in making the platform stronger. Thank you for being part of this community, for holding us accountable, and for pushing the platform forward. We are building something different. And, we are building it together. We are all TrueNAS.

Brett