General Information
| Primary developers | First public release | Based on | Latest stable version | Cost (USD) | Preferred license | Purpose | Short description | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Version | Release Date | |||||||||
| FreeBSD | The FreeBSD Project | Dec 1993 | 386BSD, 4.4BSD-Lite | 9 | January 12, 2012; 11 months ago (2012-01-12) | Free | BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance, Embedded | Aims for maximum performance. | |
| OpenBSD | The OpenBSD Project | September 1996 | NetBSD | 5.2 | 01 November 2012 | Free | ISC | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance, Embedded | Aims for maximum security. | |
| NetBSD | The NetBSD Project | May 1993 | 386BSD, 4.4BSD-Lite | 6.0.1 | 26 December 2012 | Free | BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance, Embedded | Aims for maximum portability. | |
| DragonFly BSD | Matt Dillon | 12 Jul 2004 | FreeBSD 4.8 | 3.0.1 | February 22, 2012; 10 months ago (2012-02-22) | Free | BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance, Embedded | Emphasis on multiprocessor systems and clustering | |
| 386BSD | William and Lynne Jolitz | Mar 1992 | 4.3BSD Net/2 | 1.0 | 1994 | Free | BSD | ? | Historical | |
| BSD/OS (BSD/386) | BSDi, Wind River Systems | Mar 1993 | 4.3BSD Net/2, 4.4BSD | 5.1 | Oct 2003 | ? | Proprietary | ? | Historical | |
| SunOS | Sun Microsystems | 1982 | 4.xBSD, UNIX System V | 4.1.4 | Nov 1994 | ? | Proprietary | ? | Historical (Solaris is a different code base) | |
| Ultrix | Digital Equipment Corporation | 1984 | 4.2BSD, SVR2 | 4.5 | 1995 | ? | Proprietary | General Purpose | Historical (ran on DEC VAX & MIPS systems or emulators). | |
| Tru64 UNIX (DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX) | DEC, Compaq, HP | 1993 | 4.3BSD, 4.4BSD, Mach 2.5, UNIX System V | 5.1B-6 | October 2010 | Non-free $99 (non- commer- cial) |
Proprietary | General Purpose | Only runs on HP Alpha systems or emulators. | |
| OS X | Apple Inc. | Mar 1999 | Darwin | 10.8 "Mountain Lion" | 25 July 2012 | Non-free Client: $19,99 Server (add-on application): $19,99 |
Open source core system (see Darwin) with proprietary higher level API layers | Workstation, Home Desktop, Server | Ships with Apple hardware and is locked to it. | |
| iOS | Apple Inc. | June 2007 | Mac OS X | 6.0.1 | 1 November 2012 | Non-free | Proprietary | Embedded mobile device | Ships with Apple iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple TV | |
| Darwin | Apple Inc. | Mar 2001 | NeXTSTEP, FreeBSD, Mac OS | 10.7.0 | 23 March 2011 | Free | APSL, GPL and others | Workstation, Home Desktop, Server | The kernel and certain userland components of OS X | |
| PC-BSD | Kris Moore, Mike Albert, Tim McCormick, Dimitri Tishchenko | 29 Apr 2006 | FreeBSD | 9.0 | January 13, 2012; 11 months ago (2012-01-13) | Free | BSD | Desktop | Easy to use while maintaining full use of FreeBSD base | |
| GhostBSD | Eric Turgeon and Nahuel Sanchez | March 2010 | FreeBSD | 2.5 (FreeBSD 9.0) | January 24, 2012; 10 months ago (2012-01-24) | Free | BSD | Desktop, Workstation | Easy to use, full FreeBSD w/ GNOME or LXDE desktop; Live-CD/USB image. | |
| DesktopBSD | Peter Hofer, Daniel Seuffert | 25 Jul 2005 | FreeBSD | 1.7 | 07 Sept 2009 | Free | BSD | Desktop | Easy to use | |
| ClosedBSD | Joshua Bergeron and various contributors | ? | FreeBSD | 1.0B (floppy), 1.0-RC1 (CD) | ? | Free | Proprietary | ? | firewall/NAT, boot floppy, Live CD | |
| FreeSBIE | ? | ? | FreeBSD | 2.0.1 | Feb 2007 | Free | ? | ? | Live CD of FreeBSD. DistroWatch lists as discontinued. | |
| PicoBSD | Michael Bialecki | ? | FreeBSD | 0.42 | ? | Free | BSD | boot floppy | ? | |
| Anonym.OS | ? | beta as of Jan 2005 | OpenBSD 3.8 | none | ? | Free | ? | Anonymous browsing | Live CD | |
| MirOS BSD | The MirOS Project | ? | OpenBSD 3.1 | #10 | 16 Mar 2008 | Free | ? | ? | European | |
| ekkoBSD | Rick Collette | ? | OpenBSD 3.3 | ? | ? | ? | ? | Server | easy to administer | |
| MicroBSD | Bulgarians | ? | OpenBSD 3.0/3.4 | 0.6 | 27 Oct 2003 | Free | ? | General purpose | Small, secure | |
| OliveBSD | Gabriel Paderni | ? | OpenBSD 3.8 | ? | ? | Free | ? | Live CD | DistroWatch lists as discontinued. | |
| Gentoo/FreeBSD | Gentoo Linux developers | ? | FreeBSD | ? | ? | Free | GPL, BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance | uses Gentoo framework | |
| Gentoo OpenBSD | Gentoo Linux developers | ? | OpenBSD | ? | ? | Free | GPL, BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance, Embedded | uses Gentoo framework | |
| Gentoo NetBSD | Gentoo Linux developers | ? | NetBSD | ? | ? | Free | GPL, BSD | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance, Embedded | uses Gentoo framework | |
| Gentoo DragonflyBSD | Robert Sebastian Gerus (project not yet officially supported by Gentoo) | ? | DragonFly BSD | ? | ? | Free | ? | Server, Workstation, Network Appliance | uses Gentoo framework | |
| Debian GNU/kFreeBSD | The Debian GNU/kFreeBSD team | 6th February 2011 | GNU, FreeBSD | 6.0 | 6th February 2011 | Free | DFSG | General purpose | GNU userspace on FreeBSD kernel | |
| Debian GNU/NetBSD | The Debian GNU/kNetBSD team | Abandoned | GNU, NetBSD | Abandoned | Abandoned | Free | DFSG | General purpose | GNU userspace on NetBSD kernel | |
| MidnightBSD | Lucas Holt | ? | FreeBSD 6.0 | none | none | Free | BSD | Desktop | GNUstep based Desktop Environment | |
| pfSense | various contributors | 1.0 | FreeBSD | 2.0.1 | 20 Dec 2011 | Free | BSD | Security appliance | firewall/NAT, Live CD | |
| Paxym FreeBSD for Octeon | Paxym Inc. | 4.0 - 11-Dec-2007 | FreeBSD 7.0 | 4.7 | 13 Aug 2008 | ? | Proprietary | Network, Storage, Security Applications: Routers/UTM/Firewall/NAS | For Cavium Networks Octeon MIPS architecture multicore processors | |
| MaheshaBSD | ? | FreeBSD 8 | ? | ? | Free | BSD | FreeBSD multipurpose | |||
| KarmaBSD | ? | FreeBSD 8 OpenBSD |
? | ? | Free | Free software | FreeBSD, OpenBSD Firewall, MP3 player, backup, others | |||
| Jibbed | OpenBSD, NetBSD | Free | BSD | Live CD of NetBSD | ||||||
| Developer | First public release | Based on | Version | Release Date | Cost (USD) | Preferred license | Purpose | Short description | ||
Read more about this topic: Comparison Of BSD Operating Systems
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