Hi Lemmy Community,
At the moment i got a router-modem-combination from my ip and i want to be more independent. Therefore i want to use the provided hardware as bridge and buy my own router to manage my network.
In my home network i got
- 2 Desktop PCs (cable)
- 1 Switch (cable)
- Several WiFi devices including smart home devices
- Pi-Hole
- Mac Mini as a linux Server (cable)
- Synology NAS (cable)
- AVM repeater
Before i start my own extensive research, may you recommend me a Router for my setup?
Thank you in advance :-)
How much wifi and open-source do you really want?
If you are willing to go with commercial hardware + open source firmware (OpenWRT) you might want to check the table of hardware of OpenWrt at https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi and https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864_ac-wifi. One solid pick for the future might be the Netgear WAX2* line or the GL.iNet GL-MT6000. One of those models is now fully supported the others are on the way. If you don’t mind having older wifi a Netgear R7800 is solid.
For a full open-source hardware and software experience you need a more exotic brand like this https://www.banana-pi.org/en/bananapi-router/. The BananaPi BPi R3 and here is a very good option with a 4 core CPU, 2GB of RAM Wifi6 and two 2.5G SFP ports besides the 4 ethernet ports. There’s also an upcoming board the BPI-R4 with optional Wifi 7 and 10G SPF.
Both solutions will lead to OpenWRT when it comes to software, it is better than any commercial firmware but there’s a catch about open-source wifi. The best performing wifi chips are Broadcom and those don’t usually see open-source software support**. MediaTek is the open-source alternative and while they work fine they can’t, unfortunately, beat Broadcom. As most hardware is Broadcom they have hacks that go behind the published wifi standards and get it go a few megabytes/second faster and/or improve the range a bit.
DD-WRT is another “open-source” firmware that has a specific agreement with Broadcom to allow them to use their proprietary drivers and distribute them as blob with their firmware. While it works don’t expect compatibility with newer hardware nor a bug free solution like OpenWRT is.
Side note: while there are things like OPNsense and pfSense that may make sense in some cases you most likely don’t require that. You’ve a small network and OpenWRT will provide you with a much cleaner open-source experience and also allow for all the customization you would like. Another great advantage of OpenWRT is that with a great router like the BananaPi BPi R3 you’ve the ability to install 3rd party stuff in your router, you may even use qemu to virtualize stuff like your Pi-Hole on it or simply run docker containers.
I don’t think openwrt will ever be bug free. Stable yes but bug free no. Additionally I’m not sure why you think Broadcom has the best performance. There are plenty of devices out there and they don’t need to be Broadcom to be good.
Stable yes but bug free no
Is any software really bug free? Most likely not, but compared to DD-WRT it is bug free. :P
Additionally I’m not sure why you think Broadcom has the best performance. There are plenty of devices out there and they don’t need to be Broadcom to be good.
Because Broadcom doesn’t play fair, they have hacks that go behind the published WIFI standards and get it go a few megabytes/second faster and/or improve the range a bit. And to take advantage of those feature both your AP and client must be Broadcom.
Not saying that MediaTek isn’t good, because it is, I use a ton of MediaTek devices and they’re all great.
I personally like mikrotik routers. They have all the features you could wish for and then some and they’re relatively cheap for the things they can do. I have RB4011iGS+ (I don’t think that exaxt model is available anymore) and it’s been rock solid. As I have fiber I just pulled the SPF-module from ISP’s box and plugged it in on my own hardware, so the router ISP provided is just gathering dust right now.
But it depends on what you’re really after. If you just need basic firewall/NAT/DHCP functionality and your connection speed is below 1Gbit pretty much any router will do. If you have fast connection and/or need for totally separate networks/VLAN/something else it’s a whole another matter.
I have an hex s and it’s great, but it’s a pain in the ass to setup if you’re not an expert at this stuff.
I have an RB5009 and it’s great. I’d say they’re actually quite easy to get going with the default config. It’s when you get the itch to start messing with stuff that the learning ramps up.
I mean, if you don’t need to do anything but what the default config does, you can buy just any consumer router.
Also I use a wAP with the Hex S and the wifi defaults sucked hard.
Second the RB5009, I have been using it for some time now and love it. It was an upgrade from my old Mikrotik router, because I wanted more performance out of the tunneling. Performance is one thing the RB5009 has in abundance.
I am using an OPNsense Qotom MiniPC as a firewall/router. I have three Zyxel Wireless APs that I flashed with OpenWRT. I also have two Zyxel switches (8 and 24 port) that I also flashed with OpenWRT. And lastly, I have two Netgear R7000s, also with OpenWRT, that are glorified smart switches. I am very happy with my setup. It works like a champ!
My friend prepared me a router using OpnSense FOSS software on a APU board with 3 Ethernet ports and some other debug ports (usb and VGA) So my internet input is now like this -> coaxial cabel -> ISP modemRouter in modem mode -> Ethernet-> OpnSense APU -> Ethernet -> WiFi access point / Ethernet switch -> WiFi access point satellites
As wifi access point, I use a Orbi WiFi router in bridge mode. My tv streaming device is connected via Ethernet to Orbi and has the full 600mbit down that arrives at my home 😇
I use Asus routers, they have good hardware. But then I install Fresh Tomato on them to give them full professional routing capabilities. It’s amazing what’s included in that, including vlan support, dns masquerade support etc etc.
Get a somewhat recent Fritzbox and connect all your hardware to this device and then configure it to use your ISP-provided as uplink in the Fritzbox configuration. Since you already use an AVM repeater it should work well together with a Fritzbox.
This is definitively a solid and straight forward plan, i like.
Yep, it’s the easiest solution. You could also check if the provided hardware is necessary or if your ISP allows other devices to be connected. Then you could use the Fritzbox directly.
If you want a really good, capable firewall that’s easy to configure, go with OpnSense.
If you want granular control and [near] enterprise grade features for a low price, go with Mikrotik.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point NAT Network Address Translation Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 9 acronyms.
[Thread #487 for this sub, first seen 5th Feb 2024, 16:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Pretty much anything from protectli. Very flexible.
Thank you for your extensive answers, now i have more questions than before :-D Due to time and energy i tend to an out of the box, non OSS solution. I’ll keep you updated on my decision and how it went
This is a great community.
Due to time and energy i tend to an out of the box, non OSS solution.
Why not both? OPNsense and pfSense both sell official hardware.
Both are pretty easy to configure but have pretty much no limit on how deep you can go.
Unifi works great as well but you hit a ceiling fairly quickly if it needs to do anything advanced.
Personally I’ve had really good luck with the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 and R7800 models. They are supported by openWRT as well if you are into that. An issue might be that they are “only” WiFi 5 units. Some of the newer models in the Nighthawk series might be just as good, but i don’t have personal experience with those…
I’ve just bought a 7800 because it can replace my Sky Router apparently with a little tinkering. I have an Openwrt router running as an AP in my loft but was gonna leave this on stock firmware just because I tried to use the Openwrt as DHCP and it didn’t seem to want to work, maybe I just don’t understand it well enough.
All I really want to do is point at my Adaway servers, so I’ll be able to do that with the stock firmware.
Anything is better than what Sky have me locked down to.
Du you want a plastic box or a pc with your own os on it (like opnsense or Linux)? It anything in between? I would say the 2 ends are between a fritzbox and an AliExpress router PC.
Btw throw your repeater away in case you use it as a Wi-Fi extender. It cuts your wifi performance to 1/4. It only works if you use it with a cable as a separate access point.
If you also want to improve your wifi setup, I can recommend unifi. Aruba is also good but they went cloud only and who knows how long they will keep there old non cloud firmware updated.
Good Point, right now i prefer a plastik box for convenience. Unify and Fritzbox are already my shortlist.
Thank you
I’ve been using Openwrt for a while and its pretty solid and has a lot of useful features.
Do you want a WiFi 5 or 6 device? What’s your price range? What performance do you expect?
I recently switched from my ISP’s combo device to a GL-inet Flint 2 (https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-mt6000/);;) no complaints with it thus far, and I’ve enjoyed some of the quality of life features it’s got built into it.
I (not op) have a 100 mbps connection. That’s not very fast. Would i even benefit from such a router? I currently have 2 x asus RT-AC88U but the mesh functionality is not great. I have brig walls. The way i understand it, for my needs, wiring is the only way to go?
I’m admittedly not much of a networking expert, but you might be able to improve your existing network by running Ethernet backhaul for your mesh network (assuming your access points support it).
Regarding whether you would benefit from a router like that: I’ve only got a 25Mbps connection, so my main use case for it is using ZeroTier to access various services on my local network, more advanced firewall controls, and the dual 2.5G Ethernet ports for connection between my main PC and home server.
Unifi is simple to use but you can hit its limitation. A other brand I can highly recomend is Mikrotik. They have some small and cheap devices to some fairly high end gear 100gb gear. No licensing cost or anything.
