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’d say both opn/pf sense are fairly easy to get started with. Now for something small I’d suggest openwrt.
For a full setup you can’t beat xxsense as firewall and router and stand alone AP’s for WiFi.
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?
I haven’t used PFSense, I’m afraid. There’s a fairly recent comparison here:
https://homenetworkguy.com/review/detailed-comparison-between-opnsense-and-pfsense/
I use an Asus 86RU running Asus-Merlin. It ticks all of your boxes.
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 a TP Link Archer C7 that has been working great for me.
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?
Stock firmware 1.2.1. I set it to reboot every week and haven’t had any issues with it.
