In case you haven’t seen the news, TrueNAS announced a new open beta of a new and exciting app called, TrueNAS Connect. It is a hosted, management interface that is designed to complement and not replace the TrueNAS web UI. Also, It is supposed to provide better visibility and streamined workflows for your storage environment. In addition, it will give us real-time health-monitoring and a few other things. Let’s take a look at what TrueNAS Connect is and how you take advantage of it.
What Is TrueNAS Connect?
First of all, let’s take a look at what TrueNAS Connect is and what it can do. TrueNAS Connect is a new management service that is hosted in the IXsystems cloud. So, this is not a self-hosted option, although for all of us that self-host and like to keep control on-premises, would be great to know if that might be on the roadmap.
It is mentioned in the announcement that it is hosted in their multiple datacenters for redundancy and is available for systems running TrueNAS 25.10. They are beginning with a test rollout beginning in October 2025.
In the official blog post it is mentioned this will be available for free access to Community Edition users as well before its official release in December. They also mention a staged rollout will begin for Enterprise users by next year, March 2026.
Does this change how we manage TrueNAS?
Well, not necessarily. They seem to stress this is a complementary dashboard instead of a replacement for the current TrueNAS dashboard. This seems to be targeted at providing ease of management for everyday tasks. You can view information, report reviews, and do simple checks on your storage infrastructure.
The good news is there is no agent that needs to be installed for TrueNAS versions starting in TrueNAS 25.10. You can register your system to TrueNAS Connect and start looking at your NAS in the hosted dashboard.
As a juxtapose to what we said earlier, one of the benefits of the solution is that it is hosted in the cloud, so ones do not have to have the infrastructure to self-host the app. It also uses the ever more popular WebSockets for control channels and it limits these to private network links. Also, the traditional UI for TrueNAS web UI remains functional when connected to the new Connect service.
Design of security
There are potential security risks when you have a centralized control plane that has access to multiple systems, IXsystems says with the new Connect system that it does not have control over the data on the remote NAS device. This control is supposed to remain with the user.
No user credentials are stored on the TrueNAS servers. Connect uses OAuth using Google or GitHub currently and those are never stored on the TrueNAS servers.
Also, something I think is pretty neat. For the control ports, they only use WebSockets over private networks. What this means is the data does not transit through Connect. The only connections that can be made are from your device through its browser on the same private network. Of course, if you have a VPN setup using WireGuard or TailScale, etc, you can manage the device also, as long as it has management line-of-sight with the NAS.
Connect beta core features
Out of the gate, the new TrueNAS Connect offering has features that will help admins with daily management activities and these I think as well will be pretty cool for home lab environments.
- Real-Time health checks – This will collect CPU usage, memory, disk I/O, temperature, storage capacity, etc. It also shows critical alerts like (e.g. drive offline status or unresponsiveness)
- Customizable alerts and notifications – Users can configure alerts based on metrics or thresholds. These can be configured to go to email, SMS, Slack, or PagerDuty (especially in the paid tier).
- Inventory – Track hardware across many different systems and you can export data to CSV or JSON format. This is useful for compliance or other audits.
- Install from web – TrueNAS Connect supports web-based installation (for TrueNAS 25.10 and above), and this helps to make it simpler with no keyboard and mouse needed
- Map your enclosures – You can map out your drives and hardware within enclosures. This allows being able to quickly locate failing drives and “see” the hardware of the system.
With the TrueNAS Connect Beta offering, you get access to:
- Early access to new features
- Direct feedback channel to development
- Evaluation of Plus features without cost
- You can manage up to 4 systems
These are the first features that are available and will definitely evolve over time.
Foundation vs plus tiers
There are two tiers of TrueNAS Connect that are going live with the solution once it is fully GA. These including Foundation and Plus. Note the differences and features with each:
- Foundation (free, perpetual license) – This tier is included for all TrueNAS users. This will be good for a single system with basic alerting (using email), WebUI SSL/ certificate management, secure login using connect.truenas.com using OAuth, and the web installer. For a single edge deployment or for a home lab, this tier will probably work for those use cases.
- Plus (subscription, $50/NAS/year) – The Plus tier unlocks advanced fleet and scaling features. It is meant for setups that have more than one system, or need more modern alerting, reporting, and management. This tier targets non-Enterprise users managing up to four systems or 1 petabyte of combined capacity. Some of the additional features include:
- Single sign-on (KeyRing) across multiple TrueNAS systems
- Custom enclosure management and visual mapping
- Historical stats and reporting for up to 90 days
- Alerting using SMS and PagerDuty (beyond basic email)
- Inventory management of multiple systems
- Replication management (in development)
- App management across systems
During the open beta period, TrueNAS Connect Plus access is free through December 2025. After that, you will have to subscribe to keep access to the Plus features. However, I think this will be a good amount of time for those with home labs and small environments to see if the Foundation tier will do enough for your environment before you spring for the Plus tier.
Also interesting, iXSystems has mentioned there may be a higher tier coming in 2026 that will be more appropriate for enterprise customers with additional features. So, we will have to wait and see what is included in that offering.
TrueCommand vs TrueNAS Connect
Wait doesn’t TrueNAS have something called TrueCommand that is doing similar things to TrueNAS Connect? TrueCommand is the existing management/monitoring product from iXsystems. It is usually deployed on-premises and is suited for environments that are air-gapped or don’t need to depend on external systems. In the announcement, TrueCommand 3.2 will continue to support TrueNAS 25.10 and above, and will remain the recommended way to manage older TrueNAS versions. Or if you have environments with strict isolation requirements.
Like they mention with the local TrueNAS web UI, TrueNAS Connect complements TrueCommand. TrueNAS Connect is a more hands-off and as we have highlighted, it is hosted in the cloud. It is a scalable solution, while TrueCommand is the on-premises option. Over time, iXsystems may align features of each and possibly integrate them more closely. We will just have to wait and see on that front.
Rollout and Access
The rollout of TrueNAS Connect is staggered:
- The initial test rollout begins October 2025, coinciding with the release of TrueNAS 25.10 RC1
- TrueNAS Community Edition users will have free access to the beta prior to the general launch
- Full rollout for TrueNAS Enterprise users is planned for March 2026
To get started, TrueNAS users can register their 25.10 system at connect.truenas.com and follow the documentation.
Then, you pick your OAuth source (Google or GitHub):
Once you connect your OAuth source of choice between Google and GitHub, you will see the following dashboard of TrueNAS Connect. Here you will see several buttons and options, including:
- Create keyring
- Install TrueNAS
- Register TrueNAS UI with TrueNAS Connect
- etc
Adding a TrueNAS 25.10 instance to TrueNAS Connect
For testing, I spun up a TrueNAS 25.10 RC1 instance up in Proxmox. Below, you can see the web UI dashboard after logging in.
Next, from the TrueNAS web UI, click the little “cloud” button and this will pop out the card and you will click the Get Connected button.
When you click the Get Connected button, it will take you to the TrueNAS Connect dashboard with the Add System dialog box. Here you will name the instance of TrueNAS you have connected and Confirm it.
You will see the process as it onboards the TrueNAS instance.
Once it is onboarded. You can enter the credentials for the TrueNAS instance you just onboarded. Also, you can check the box for Add to Keyring and click Submit.
Once you do that, you should start to see the metrics for the TrueNAS instance streaming into the TrueNAS Connect dashboard.
Allows headless installation of TrueNAS
Another really cool feature of TrueNAS Connect is that it allows you to perform a headless installation of TrueNAS SCALE on your NAS hardware without having to hook up a monitor, keyboard, etc. You boot the device from USB and then TrueNAS connect scans your network for that device and allows you to pick up the installation from the TrueNAS Connect console.
Steps
- From the TrueNAS Connect dashboard, click Install TrueNAS, download the current ISO, and boot your target system from that USB on the same local network as your browser.
- In Connect, choose Detect System to find the machine, then walk through the in-browser setup
- Create an admin password, pick the install disk, review, and start the install
- When prompted, remove the USB and reboot.
After it boots the first time, TrueNAS Connect lets you add the new system’s creds to the browser keyring like you did when importing. So you can launch the local TrueNAS web UI with a valid certificate and finish the configuration. The whole process runs through your browser using local access or a VPN connection. So nothing is publicly exposed and you do not need to plug in a monitor or keyboard.
TrueNAS Connect Pros and Cons
Take a look at the table below for a list of pros and cons for TrueNAS Connect.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Centralized cloud dashboard that allows you to manage and monitor multiple TrueNAS systems | It requires Internet connectivity to access the hosted dashboard |
| You don’t need a management server to install or keep up with (lifecycle, etc) | Some advanced “Plus” features still under development during beta |
| You get real-time health monitoring and alerting | OAuth login limited to Google and GitHub accounts and no others |
| Secure design where user data and credentials stay are locally stored and not sent to cloud | Not ideal for air-gapped or isolated environments (use TrueCommand instead) |
| Free “Foundation” tier has basic monitoring and setup tools for single NAS users | Paid “Plus” tier introduces recurring subscription cost after beta period (post December 2025) |
| It support web-based installation of new TrueNAS systems | Hosted dependency means downtime if service is unreachable |
| Centralized hardware inventory that you can export for compliance or audit reporting | Historical reporting is limited to 90 days in Plus tier |
| Plus allows you to integrate with other alerting services (SMS, PagerDuty, Slack) | Feature set may change before the final release |
| Enclosure mapping helps identify physical hardware issues | Some replication and app management features are still planned but are not included in this release |
| Built directly by iXsystems with roadmap for 2026 and beyond | Early beta may have bugs or limited documentation, so test in a lab first |
Future of TrueNAS Connect
This is a pretty neat project from TrueNAS. Of course, this is going to be a paid product once it is GA after December. These are a few of the things that I expect we will see:
- It will continue to expand in monitoring and reporting capabilities, possibly beyond 90 days
- Possible integration with automation workflows or APIs to allow scripted responses to alerts
- More alerting channels (webhooks, Teams, etc.), more identity providers, etc
- Expansion of the replication and app management features for centralized control
- Enterprise tier will be announced in 2026 with features like RBAC (role-based access control), audit logging, multi-region support, high concurrency, and SLA guarantees among other new capabilities
- More alignment between TrueCommand and Connect, which will allow more flexible hybrid or disconnected environments
Wrapping up
The new TrueNAS Connect beta looks to be a powerful new solution that we can take advantage of, either for home labs or for enterprise environments. It offers a centralized way to manage your TrueNAS instances. It gives you real-time monitoring, alerting, inventory capabilities, and installation tools.
Keep in mind it is currently in beta at this time, so that is good and bad. The good is that it means you get access to “pay for” features through December 2025. The bad is that there may be bugs and other things that you may uncover while using it before it is fully GA. What are your thoughts on TrueNAS Connect? Have you already signed up for an account? Already using it? Let me know in the comments.
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Thank you definitely going to try it out.