FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms. A large community has continually developed it for more than thirty years. Its advanced networking, security, and storage features have made FreeBSD the platform of choice for many of the busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.

By contrast, FreeBSD is and always has been a complete operating system—both the kernel and software ecosystem are managed and maintained by the same group of people. FreeBSD can rightfully claim to be the most popular of the BSDs at the moment, with a (rough guess) 80% market share. Among the BSDs, FreeBSD is notable for its high performance as a network operating system. Although originally designed for i386 processors, there are FreeBSD ports for Sun UltraSPARC, Alpha and AMD64, plus a PowerPC port.