Looking for a wifi "router" recommendation

B

bakul

My old Asus RT-N66U router is dying. I already repaired it once a couple years ago but it needs to retire after 9 years of service! I am looking for something very recent that must be able to run open source router s/w. Recent so that open source support will be available for as long as possible. May need mesh support to cover the house & office (in the garage). This will be separated from the Internet by a FreeBSD firewall so other features are not very important. Reliability is #1. Ideally 802.11ax (wifi-6 / wifi-6e) but 802.11ac is probably good enough (I can live with slower downloads to my laptop!).

If any of you have gone through similar exercise in the last year or two, would love to hear what you recommend, what to avoid etc.

Thanks!

[Not sure which category to post under so chose off-topic]
 
For most open source router software in that price segment is equal with running OpenWRT, which is Linux based. So having a look at their hardware database will not hurt.

For example a nice little device for SOHO use is the EdgerouterX. It's tiny, quite affordable with 59$, can run OpenWRT and does its job. I just would not use it for VPN tunnels, because that's really slow.

What I've got in my home is the following setup:

1. Zyxel VMG1312-B30A, which is a router with builtin DSL modem. Can be used as modem only, I am using it strictly as modem only. There are tons of it on Ebay around 30-40 Euro, of course you should check if you can use this in your place.
2. Netgear WIFI 6 AX1800 Dual Band Wireless Access Point WAX202 - around 50 EUR, so far it does its job at my home
3. Zotac ZBOX CI329 as router hardware. This is a NUC with two builtin Gigabit ethernet ports and Intel ATOM CPU, it did cost around 150 bucks. It's equipped with an old 128 GB SSD, 8 GB of RAM and runs vanilla FreeBSD as open source router. It also would run PfSense or OPNSense.
 
untitled said:
Are there any BSD based wifi routers with fiber support out there for home use?
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The edgerouter pro/4/6/12 with Octeon CPU can run OpenBSD. I wouldn't suggest buying the puny X or lite edgerouters. Those have absolute lowest-end hardware and can't keep up even with sub-gbit connections!

I'm running an Edgerouter4 with OpenBSD here. Works like a charm, but don't expect wire-speed routing/NATing over multiple ports at once. That's why I do all general local routing directly on my switches, so only part of all traffic (and all egress traffic) hits the ER4.
 
sko said:
The edgerouter
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Is that wifi? Looks more like an ISP grade hardware.

What I am looking for is a wifi modem / router for home use, the kind your internet provider gives you when you buy an internet connection. With BSD pre-installed instead of outdated closed-sourced joke of an OpenWRT setup.
 
There is no BSD based "home router" out there, which combines modem, router and WIFI all in one case. You've got to build such a thing by yourself.

Either you can use OpenWRT on some routers and be happy, or you need to run a setup like I've outlined above.

The closest thing to such a thing would probably be the Turris Omnia Router from NIC.CZ, but this runs some fork based on OpenWRT or Debian.
 
untitled said:
Is that wifi? Looks more like an ISP grade hardware.
Click to expand...
No, no wifi. But all those all-in-one-plastic-thingies have bad wifi compared to a proper access point anyways, so I wouldn't bother using one of them. I was using old (non-802.11ac) cisco APs until I recently got a good deal on some Allied Telesis TQ-4600s. Haven't used any of those all-in-one-boxes for years and usually replace them completely or at least for wifi with proper APs at friends/family that ask me how they could get better wifi...

Especially the edgerouters are also not carrier-grade, but more like "prosumer" or "soho" at best.
 
The current router now only works if I have a fan on it full blast! In the end I picked Asus RT-AX3000 as there seem to be an open source image for it. We will see how it goes. Thanks for comments.
 
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