Synology or QNAP: which should I actually buy in 2026?+
Buy Synology if you want the box to mostly manage itself, you like polished first-party apps (Photos, Drive, Hyper Backup), and a calmer security history matters to you. Buy QNAP if you want more hardware for the money, you need built-in hardware transcoding for Plex or Jellyfin, you want 2.5GbE and HDMI out as standard, or you plan to run lots of VMs and containers. For a typical home user who values simplicity, Synology edges it. For a media server or tinkerer on a budget, QNAP usually wins.
Is QNAP safe to use given its ransomware history?+
It can be, but you have to do the work. QNAP has been hit by real, widely reported ransomware campaigns (Deadbolt and Qlocker among them), largely against devices exposed directly to the internet. If you keep QTS patched, never port-forward the admin interface, disable UPnP, use a VPN for remote access, and avoid exposing services directly, the practical risk drops a lot. Synology has had fewer major incidents, but no NAS is safe if you expose it carelessly. Treat any NAS as something that should sit behind a firewall, not on the open internet.
Do I need hardware transcoding, and which brand has it?+
You need it mainly for Plex or Jellyfin when clients cannot play a file directly and the server must convert it on the fly, especially for 4K or multiple simultaneous streams. The Intel-based QNAP units here (TS-264, TS-464) include an integrated GPU that does this well. The Synology Plus models in this guide use AMD CPUs without an iGPU, so they do not hardware transcode. If your devices can direct-play your files (common with modern apps and good clients), transcoding matters far less and Synology's other strengths come back into play.
How does Frank make money?+
Affiliate links. If you buy through one of our Amazon search links we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. That commission never changes our rankings, our trust scores, or which products we recommend. We picked the DS923+ as our top overall and the QNAP TS-464 as best value based on software, hardware value, transcoding, and security track record, not on which one pays more. If a product is the right call we say so, and we always list at least one real downside for every pick.