 | |
| Developer | Theo de Raadt and other people. |
|---|---|
| Written in | C, assembly, Perl, Unix shell |
| OS family | Unix-like |
| Working state | Current |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | July 1996 |
| Latest release | 7.9 / May 19, 2026 |
| Repository | |
| Package manager | OpenBSD package tools |
| Platforms | Alpha, x86-64, ARMv7, ARMv8 (64-bit), PA-RISC, IA-32, LANDISK, Omron LUNA-88K, Loongson, MIPS64, PowerPC, 64-bit RISC-V, SPARC64 |
| Kernel type | Monolithic |
| Userland | BSD |
| Default user interface | Modified pdksh, X11 (FVWM) |
| License | BSD, ISC, other permissive licenses |
| Official website | www |
OpenBSD is a secure, free computer operating system. Many different types of hardware platforms and CPU microarchitectures can be used with OpenBSD, including AMD amd64 Intel i386, 64-bit ARM PCs and servers, 32-bit ARM embedded systems, Apple Computer and IBM PowerPC, 64-bit RISC-V and Sun and Fujitsu 64-bit SPARC .
Like the other open source BSDs, the whole operating system (Kernel_(computer_science), Device_driver, user Utility_software and Documentation) is developed by the OpenBSD project's developers. Software from other third-party source is available separately via binary packages or source-code ports.
OpenBSD is often the first to add new security tools to make it harder to break. Developers have also carefully read through the programming code to check for mistakes more than once. The project is led by Theo de Raadt from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. There are few restrictions on people that use the source code, the BSD licence.
OpenBSD releases new versions every six months. Each version is supported for one year after release. OpenBSD 7.9 (the 60th release) was made available on 19th May 2026.
OpenBSD's first mascot was a BSD daemon with a halo, it was replaced with Puffy, a pufferfish, on June 15th, 2000, with the release of OpenBSD 2.7.
The operating system's developers add in many new technologies to make the system more secure and harder to break, technologies like W^X, Stack Protection, randomised malloc reconfigurations, privilege separation and privilege revocation, syscall capability reduction via pledge(2) and per-process filesystem views with unveil(2).
In addition to the OpenBSD operating system the OpenBSD Project's associated projects produce security software commonly used in many operating systems: the most widely used derivative of SSH OpenSSH is utilised by not only other BSD systems, but macOS, Microsoft Windows and the majority of GNU/Linux distributions and embedded in many networking devices
LibreSSL (a fork of OpenSSL 1.0.1g as a repsonse to the Heartbleed Software bug of 2014) provides a modern cryptography and TLS stack (default or selectable) for other BSDs, commercial UNIX, macOS, GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows see the LibreSSL for a discussion of platform coverage and relationship with other SSL implementations.
OpenBGPD which provides diversity in Border_Gateway_Protocol, Version 4 implementation at the routing level of the internet it is utilised by many internet exchange operators around the world.
Because of its security features, OpenBSD is often used as a firewall and for other security-related jobs. It is also usable on a desktop computer.
