Hi all, I'm looking to upgrade my router from the default one that came from my ISP.
I don't need anything super fancy, just something with 4+ lan ports (1gbps is ok, 2.5gbps would be nicer), 1 WAN Port, Wifi-6 (802.11ax), and the ability to have an isolated IoT network (using a vlan for this would be nice).
Any suggestions? I'd like to keep the price down if possible. This is just for my home network.
You're in selfhosted, so most people here are going to suggest you self host something like pfsense or opnsense, which would give you everything you need, but you know being self hosted you're going to have a steep learning curve.
Otherwise go pick up any router at best buy, they're all assorted levels of garbage.
I would actually suggest buying one of Netgate's prebuilt routers. They're pricey, but it brings the peace of mind knowing that device is handling it exclusively, and with appropriate hardware. It doesn't come with a Switch or AP though.
I use OPNsense on a reasonably cheap mini-PC with 6 ethernet ports that I bought from AliExpress. You can do a lot with OPNsense. For wifi I could have added a wireless card, but to avoid any potential driver issues instead I just plug in a wireless router set to Access Point mode.
How much this kind of setup costs depends on what kind of hardware you buy. If you stick to the minimum spec for OPNsense and buy a cheap wifi card or a used wifi router from eBay, you won't need to spend too much.
Have you ever used PFSense? How do you find it compares to Opnsense, and - for anyone with experience - how hard would it be to migrate from one to the other these days?
MikroTik hAP ax3 seems to fit the requirements and is what I’m currently running. They add their enterprise features into the “consumer” packages, allowing you to set up VLANs, meshes, etc
I'm surprised more people in the selfhosting community aren't recommending Mikrotik.
Their cheapest routers have all the same software features as their enterprise gear. They're also one of the only companies who makes most of their routers and switches capable of being powered with POE in and redundant DC power.
All of their newer ARM based routers support running docker containers natively on the routers extra features. You can run PiHole/AdGuard, nginx, tailscale, etc. directly on your routers hardware.
I've been running a hexS for 3 years without any issues. I run multiple VLANs and wireguard directly on it, and it has an SFP port that I can use for an ONT module to get a fiber connection directly to my router from my ISP. I think it cost me $60 when I bought it.
I have the same, but just as another data point: mine regularly locks up and needs to be reset.. Maybe made worse by big data transfers. Are you running stock firmware or OpenWRT or something?
I don't know what electricity costs in your region, but I consider that as part of my decisions. You can soon spend more on power than the device costs.
A router will be on 24/7 with a fairly consistent load (sure there's peaks, more in the day, etc...)
Personally, I'd recommend you try a few different options - an old x86 PC is terrible for power, but great to try out pfSense / OPNSense / DD-Wrt / OpenWrt / Tomato first... then from that pick your real hardware.
Personally, I've tried a few things over the years and the *WRTs in a single re-imaged old wifi-router is probably everyone's Step 1.
I’d replace Debian with openbsd. That’s my go to solution for labs at work.
At home I use a ubiquity thingy (the round box) as I used ubiquity at my previous work. It’s utter shit and the UI goes dead a few days after each hard reset. But it works and I use Tailscale for connecting to stuff at home, so no need to replace it yet
I had very similar wishes, but settled on a Velica (GL-B2200). It comes with OpenWRT out of the box, and can be flashed to the newest version. It has great WiFi coverage, which is nicer than top speed imho.
Downside is only 1 wan and 1 lan, but with a VLAN and a separate switch it might be ok for you.
FYI the glinet routers come with a version of openwrt that contains unknown closed-source components. That said they have nicer, easier to use interface that has no learning curve. So less of a project than many of the other options discussed here. It'll work out of the box.
I had a Netgear nighthawk r7800 with ddwrt, which finally crapped out. I went with the TP-link Deco Mesh router as a replacement, and so far it's working better than the ddwrt router. There are versions with Wi-Fi 6, but i went with the "3 stations for ~$120" and haven't had any problems with speed, since tht bottlenecks are usually external/cable modem related anyway.
My biggest selling point for the tp-link, it's much easier to set a local dns, with a fallback to 1.1.1.1, something i could never get to work on ddwrt. So whenever my Jellyfin transcodes bring the Pihole to a screeching halt, it will at least fallback to external dns and not take the whole network with it.
I can also have a base module Ethernet connected to my pc in the office, another hooked up to the cable modem and zimaboard in the livingroom, and eventually, a raspi with a couple of low resource containers (pihole, home assistant, nginx). My goal is to hardwire as many things as i can for speed/signal noise purposes.
I absolutely love my Synology router and access points. You can start with one and then if needed just add others for a mesh network. The RT6600ax has all of the features that you're looking for. My .02.
I’ve run Synology since they got into the router game and I unfortunately I cannot recommend them. I adore their NASes and they are rock solid but the routers aren’t tested properly in my opinion. I live in a VERY Wi-Fi contested area and it really affects their hand-off between nodes in their mesh, which means a device often stays connected to the wrong node up to a point where there’s simply no connection. I thought it was a 1st gen problem but after upgrading to their 2nd gen systems it hasn’t solved the problem.
I’m moving to another router/mesh system now, which I’ve tested and it works considerably better.