What are good wireless routers in April 2024? What criteria would you use to choose one? What about mesh routers?

What is your budget?

In general try to go for Asus, they can mesh and are usually reliable.

If you want something more advanced, look into Ubiquiti, though they will be more expensive, also read the reviews for the different components, some POE switches can get quite hot, so if you don't need it try and avoid it.

I am on Asus, and have had very little issues related to my router the last few years, but have been eyeing Ubiquiti lately...

I bought an Asus RT-AX53U, it was the cheapest WiFi 6 router with openwrt support

Any WiFi 6 or 7 router in which you can install openwrt and set as a dumb AP connected to an x86 machine running OPNSense or openwrt itself. The redundancy and enhanced control are 10/10 worth it, along with security and stability.

Don’t get a combined AP and router. Make sure they’re separate. That will get you a lot of quality just by doing that.

My recommendation falls squarely on the Omada series from TP-Link. It's their SMB (small-medium business) offering and its very wallet friendly for what it is. Though WiFi 7 stuff is of course not cheap if you want the bleeding edge. I suggest going with the EAP6 series with WiFi 6E. No need to buy the physical controller, instead DIY a router with opnsense or pfsense and the Omada software for managing the APs is what I recommend. You of course need a switch with PoE like TL-SG2008P. PoE is a game changer for making wiring up the APs easy, and I do recommend wiring them because then you don't need to think about having a strong signal between the APs.

Criteria being stability mainly, all consumer stuff is much more prone to the occasional drop and just plain wonky ness. Another criteria being upgrade path, the Omada stuff can easily be sold when you upgrade because they retain value pretty well (and you can find them used to start with as well). They also don't ship with the bloat consumer devices come with. With features you don't need and router+AP combo is fine if you're in a single room apartment but it doesn't scale to a multiroom setup well. I've used Asus "AI-mesh" and you really waste more money than you save in my experience.

I had many wifi issues due to the layout and structure of my dwelling, and Unifi was the only setup that solved them. I started with my original Orbi (Voxel firmware) mesh setup from my previous home, but performance wasn't where I wanted it due to the age of the devices. Then I tried the TP-Link w7200 sets from Walmart, but it didn't meet my needs connecting a remote building on the property.

Unifi are expensive, but I have no regrets. Even added their security cameras to my network when the old system needed replaced.

I'm personally a fan of microtik products. It's nice as they have a lot of built in management features. However, the downside is that there is a learning curve to their products which can feel like a vertical wall some times.

I got a dd-wrt router last week. Plenty of options to configure how you like.

This article covers some recommended router hardware for dd-wrt.

If you are in Germany, a Fritzbox is probably your best option

How big is your place? What speeds does your ISP offer?

Got 2 Unifi u6+ a while ago and they work pretty well

It depends on your use case. I live in a decent sized one bedroom apartment with heavy Internet usage, so I got a 500Mbps unlimited Internet service (remember, the hardware isn't the only part of the equation) and the wifi 6 capable tp-link AX1500.

Before buying, look for secondhand ones, many people move to a different house where their previous system becomes obsolete, or they upgraded to a different beast.

I have a gl.inet router and it’s great. Super easy to setup and supports wireguard out of the box. It has some cool travel features as well.

I run Asus with dd-wrt.

Unifi Gateway Ultra and the Unifi AP Pro 7 is my current setup and I have nothing but praise for it. I definitely don't recommend consumer mesh systems as I've had poor performance with those.

I had a heckuva time making the signal reach the living room. Went through WPS and range extenders. The only thing that has worked was a set of four mesh routers.

No problems since.

i literally clicked on this discussion right when my eero died again.

do you find you need range extenders for 5 GHz? if so, you want mesh. I live in a relatively small apartment, and I'm perfectly happy with my Belkin AC1900. it maxes out at 1.3 gbps on the 5ghz but I'm only paying for 1.2 so no need to upgrade yet