I agree with you DianaOlympos
It’s great to see SmartOS, Illumos etc develop, and not only because its engineers are responsible for some of the great recent additions to FreeBSD, but because alternatives that keep FreeBSD on its toes are always needed.
But at this time, when checking off the usual criteria for choosing a dev and production OS - from user base (WhatsApp to cloud/server providers like Digital Ocean that offer easy to create and configure cheap FreeBSD servers) to an active supportive community (including up-to-date docs to forums and howtos) to the availability of a huge number of packages and ports as well as the option for Linux Binary compatibility, I think FreeBSD is the obvious pick for a startup or company wanting to scale with stability and security that Linux distros rarely can match if they can at all.
For cutting edge stuff that hasn’t yet made it into FreeBSD, if you need it, then I suggest SmartOS/Illumos or a Linux distro alternative.
