Router suggestions for a complete noob

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

I’m gonna be moving into a new place soon and I’ll be setting up the Internet there. I want to experiment with setting up a local network with static IPs just for learning and fun, so I want my own router. I don’t want something hard to use because other people will be using the internet from it too. I don’t really know what the router market looks like, and I don’t want to support Reddit, so I’m asking here.

Ideally, this router would:

Be under $150 (but I might be willing to go a bit higher)
Be easily purchasable (no AliExpress specials)
Not sell data to corporations
Have a long life, ideally through easily set-up open source firmware but reputable proprietary is fine
Have good enough antennas to propagate signal across a small house
Support up to 500Mb/s sustained speeds

What do you think? Thank you for your help!

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Comments

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poVoq@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
GL-inet devices are usually available on Amazon and similar places: www.gl-inet.com/compare/?series=home-router

They come with a customized version of OpenWRT, but usually you can also flash vanilla OpenWRT on them, check the status of the exact device here: toh.openwrt.org/?view=normal

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moseschrute@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I know this isn’t gonna be super popular with the lemmy crowd, but if you’re looking for something really robust, customizable, but also pretty easy to use, Ubiquiti has been great. The cloud gateway max specifically.

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- chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  +1 for Ubiquiti, but I’d suggest one of the cheaper models with built in WiFi unless you plan on having an intricate network.
  
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  - JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Or if your internet enters the house in a dead zone.
    
    I have a brick house and our internet comes inside literally in one far corner with the most walls around it, so if the access point in there. Half of our house gets no internet.
    
    I went for a cloud gateway ultra and then one access point centrally in the house where everything can reach.
    
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- Bronzie@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I don’t know why it wouldn’t be, as they are great products out of the box.
  A bit pricy, but worth it. I’d give the same recommendation as you for anyone wanting to dabble a little and have room to grow and play with VLAN’s, ACL’s and expandability in the future.
  
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bigpEE@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
If you want a wealth of information on what makes a good router/WAP, read www.wiisfi.com. Or skip to the Recommendations section for hardware picks. I do recommend cross referencing for an OpenWRT compatible router

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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What an excellent resource! I can spend hours on that page.
  
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KarnaSubarna@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
OpenWRT One router : openwrt.org/toh/openwrt/one

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pirat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
So far I’m satisfied with our GL.INET Flint 2 (GL-MT6000). The price is within your range, and you can buy it directly from the manufacturer. It comes with OpenWRT and they’ve made it pretty easy to e.g. run your own wireguard VPN and AdGuard Home (like PiHole) for all your connected devices. The coverage is decent, and upgrading gave me WiFi in the second bathroom where the old router (10+ years old) could never reach. According to their own specs it has Wi-Fi speeds of 1148Mbps (2.4GHz) and 4804Mbps (5GHz), though I haven’t made my own measurings to verify those, and VPN speeds are lower at 190Mbps wired for OpenVPN and 900Mbps wired for Wireguard. At least this router has been very stable for the half year we’ve had it, and I haven’t experienced any bottlenecks from our modest usage.

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- ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’m looking for a new router and some APs as well, and this one seems to offer what I want at a somewhat decent price point…but good lord that thing is seriously ugly, everything about it is just terrible.
  
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Chulk@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I bought a Flint 2 GL-MT6000 and I’ve been pretty happy with the choice.

its currently on sale for $125

it comes with a custom version of open-wrt, but it can be flashed to a different firmware

easily purchaseable through their site

I have not had signal issues in my place, but YMMV

sustained speeds are at least 500Mb/s

supports features like VLAN, which is part of why I bought it

Side note: Flint 3 just came out, but I’m not familiar enough with it to recommend.
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Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
OpenWRT One

They have their own router.

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Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Not sure about the availability in your region, however I have good experiences with AVM Fritz!Box routers. They are proprietary but extremely easy and reliable without sacrifycing security or features. They’re from a german company and basically the go-to router vendor here by both ISPs and in retail.

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- littleomid@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Same. I got a FRITZ!Box and it can do 90% of things I need. You can’t set VLANs to my knowledge. Worth knowing.
  
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  - philpo@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Yeah. It basically can only do guest and non guest, sadly. There used to be a hack allowing proper VLANs,but that’s long gone.
    
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cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Any old hardware and run opnsense or pfsense (the former preferred)

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- exu@feditown.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  OP mentions antennas, presumably for Widi, so forget about OPNsense, PFsense or most other BSDs.
  
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  - cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    True, the answer to that is more hardware unfortunately. I guess there are Linux options, I forget what they are though.
    
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Blaster_M@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Let me go out on a limb and rec a cheap mini computer with 2 mini gigabit (or more) ethernets, and either pfsense or opnsense. Those two run on anything that has an x86_64 cpu and easily update. Not any harder to learn to setup than mikrotik, and has lots more capability.

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artyom@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Glinet

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signalsayge@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I know there are a lot of recommendations here, but I can provide some insight as someone who has been looking into this heavily for the past several months.

I will start by saying that the GL.iNet Flint 2 running OpenWrt is probably going to be your best option. It meets your price point and concerns. The Flint 3 is an upgrade that just came out that could also be considered, but is currently at $190. I currently have the Flint 2 running at my mom’s house providing her network coverage. It’s a nice all in one device and I believe she’s running a 500Mbps service.

Some of the other responses here mention OPNSense. That’s what I’m running right now as a virtual machine. I’m using TP-Link Omada access points for Wi-Fi coverage. OPNSense or PFSense might be a bit much to start. They are good options, but can get rather advanced quickly and still require a method to provide Wi-Fi. I’d been looking at replacements heavily lately, but decided to stick with OPNSense (I just have to migrate it from running on VMware ESXi to Proxmox now).

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- StopSpazzing@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Emerging botnet exploits TP-Link router flaw posing risk to US organizations
  
  Ballista’s attacks on TP-Link devices comes as U.S. lawmakers consider banning the company’s products over suspected links to China.
  
  www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/…/742319/
  
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- jhdeval@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Just a thought if you are interested. VMware let’s you export the data and then proxmox will read that exported data to a qcow file
  
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  - signalsayge@infosec.pub ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I know the process. There’s also the option of attaching an ESXi datastore to a Proxmox system and importing it that way. The PCIe passthrough makes it a little more complex but not insurmountable. I’ve built the Proxmox server on another host with 10Gbe ports and am going to rebuild that way. Export the config, modify what I need to, import the sections I need and swap cables.
    
    Once I’ve swapped hardware, I’m putting Proxmox on the current VMware host and I’ll have a backup system just in case of hardware failure.
    
    I’m also doing some other stuff, replacing HAProxy with Caddy, maybe deploy a grafana dashboard so I can start monitoring all 60+ services on my network, and configure my network for IPv6.
    
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supervent@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Look into MikroTik

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- walden@sub.wetshaving.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I love MikroTik, but I don’t think it meets OP’s needs. RouterOS isn’t beginner friendly.
  
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  - jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Yep. Very powerful and cost effective routers. Way too easy to screw something up if you don’t know what you’re doing.
    
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  - terminal@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Also i dont believe its open source as requested. Although openwrt can be flashed on some models
    
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  - non_burglar@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I second this.
    
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metaStatic@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Check routers at a pawn shops and see which ones can run openwrt.

I have a 10GbE switch and haven't hit 500mb/s. Network capacity likely won't be your bottleneck.

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- SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  No, I mean 500Mb/s, as my Internet will be 300Mb/s. My needs are not great.
  
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  - maxprime@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Almost all routers can handle gigabit, which is almost certainly what you want if you plan on doing local networking. A typical hard drive has speeds of about a gigabit. There is no reason to get anything slower. You can also get some gigabit switches (or even faster if you are using nvme on both machines) and connect two machines that need fast speeds between them to it. Most switches will be able to send packets to each other without going through the router.
    
    If you really want to do some learning you could try to set up an opnsense box on an old PC and connect that to a switch. It’s feature rich and completely modular and upgradable. This is probably the best thing you could do if you want to learn something but also the worst thing to do if you want consistent uptime since you can pretty easily break stuff if you don’t read the docs.
    
    That said, as others have mentioned openwrt on a used router is probably the best of both worlds - feature rich but less breakable.
    
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  - forrgott@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I generally overshoot when it comes to the hardware specs, if I can. That way you’re prepared in advance if you end up having the option to upgrade your Internet connection.
    
    Otherwise, you may find yourself locked in to the slower plan due to the cost of upgrading your hardware.
    
    But, sometimes you have to choose realistic over optimal, of course. So in other words, I do not think I know what’s best for you! Just offering a perspective that has worked for me, in case it helps you in some way as you evaluate the choice that’s best for you.
    
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  - metaStatic@kbin.earth ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    didn't know you could still get a dial up plan.
    
    j/k, but damn I'm so sorry, it should be illegal to call VDSL broadband.
    
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- bulwark@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Did you know openwrt makes their own router now. It’s called the openwrt one. They’re not had for the price, mines been pretty solid. And they have a bunch upgrade options.
  
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BaroqueInMind@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Build your own using a mini PC with multiple ethernet adapters, or any old laptop or PC that has multiple ethernet ports or multiple wifi modems, and install OPNsense or pfSense as the primary OS and essentially own your own network.

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LemmyNubs@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’ve been very happy with the Glinet Flint2. I think it checks most (if not all) your boxes.

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Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
You’ll probably need 2 devices: one actually connected to the external line (ie the modem part) and then your actual router / wifi access point(s).

Personally, I have a Fritzbox router configured into bridge mode so it just deals with the line signal and passes all the PPPoE / internet comms to a pfSense box I built (ie anything… an old thin client, new microATX, etc…)

I then have separate POE WAPs for wifi around the house, but pfSense can deal with radio drivers too if separate WAPs are too much today.

This way, if something goes wrong I can always go back to a single domestic router, keep the family happy, download anything I need to fix my setup and then move forwards again.

I like having separate components with an up/downgrade path

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- ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  What WAPs are you using?
  
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  - Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Ruckus … R500 I think (can’t check atm) from ebay.
    
    MIMO, multiple SSIDs, etc, so work really well with the load of 2.4Ghz wifi home automation gadgets I have around the house, with 2 of us working from home on Zoom / Teams calls.
    
    Reflash them with the “unleashed” firmware and you don’t need their controller.
    
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glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I’d recc either the Unifi dream router (wifi 6 version for $200, just put a watch on the Unifi page to get it, they come back on the reg) for a one stop shop

or

A Dell Wyze 5070 Extended (make sure you get the power brick, needs to be the 130W one for a PCIe device) + some 2 port 1Gbps intel nic and you install opnsense on it directly or in a VM on top of incus/proxmox + external wifi like a Unifi AP + external switch with PoE++ or whatever the AP needs

Both options are gonna exceed $150 (unless you get fire deals on a super small PC that can hold a PCIe card), but they’ll be great and last. The opnsense box will be here forever, I’ve had mine for a long time now and it’s never given me trouble. External Unifi ap is solid as well, mesh out if needed easily too. Friend has the dream router and it’s also giving no trouble - but at some point Unifi will ditch the security updates and such, but that’s a long ways away for such a solid all in one (plus future mesh as needed)

I never could get openwrt devices to update how I’d like (automatically, not clear all settings), but opnsense does that no problem. I’ve heard from many people that you need proprietary wifi - the openwrt wifi is meh at best F tier at worst. So you bring your super router with an external wifi (or just the Unifi all-in-one).

You can flip out Unifi ap or Tp link Omada ap (spelling might be off), but I liked the look of the Unifi controller software better and trust them a smidge more than tp link for local controller software that’s always on

You can get away with an older cheaper wifi 5 Unifi ap easily also.

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_core@sh.itjust.works ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I just got a wavlink. This model isn’t available, which I got to replace a previous wavlink that I’ve had for years. The OS has all the things you’re asking for.

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spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
As others have said, get something that works with OpenWRT. It’s unbelievably flexible and the OpenWRT forum can be really helpful, both for finding ways to implement things and solving problems.

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biotin7@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Turris Omnia

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- sobchak@programming.dev ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I had a Mox and it was the most stable router I’ve ever had. Never had to power cycle it, and I even have to power cycle my fancy Asus somewhat often.
  
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frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Pretty much any router will handle that.

If you want do open source, you can do something like opnwrt on hardware they support. Or, build the whole thing yourself with opnsense on any device that can run FreeBSD.

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- cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Most routers don’t support open source firmware. If you want privacy and firmware updates, it needs to be supported by OpenWRT.
  
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- SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  What are good brands that don’t sell your data? Is TP-link okay?
  
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  - AbidanYre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    FWIW their Kasa line of smart switches started getting pretty shitty about needing an account and internet access to work.
    
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  - AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I’m happy with my TP-Link Omada router. Very capable, super easy to use, feature packed. More than capable for your needs and gives you room to grow to setup more advanced networking
    
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majora31@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
You want the gl inet brume 2 and the gli inet beryl ax.

The router is the brume. Access point is the beryl ax (which can also be a router in its own right if you wanted).

Both dont share data. Both are 100% open source. You can replace the access point with the wifj 7 version at a later date without changing router settings. Should be able to get them both for 140 total. Available on amazon. Mine have been going for 3 years solid. Easily meets your speed requirements.

This is the open source and much cheaper equivalent to Unifi, and its fantastic

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AnIntenseMoist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I use AT&T as my ISP and their router software is workable at least. It can assign static IPs and do port forwarding; enough for a basic home lab and some self hosting. If you absolutely need to be in full control of your network, most off-the-shelf name-brand router/APs will do. At that point in your journey, I’d recommend a Mikrotik hax3. You don’t need to dive into the advanced stuff in Router OS, they have a quick setup that’s good enough but you can go deeper if you need. Though I will say there’s a learning cliff.

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- WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  To add to this users data, I used my supplied att router for Homelab stuff for like a year and it worked very well. I did go back to openwrt but didn’t really need to, just for familiarity’s sake. My networking needs at the time were headscale/wireguard and adguard home. All my other services were unaffected by switching routers.
  
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