Submitted 5 months ago by Dust0741@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world
I am looking for a router, and OpenWRT came up. I was looking at their table of hardware and the ASUS RT-AC3100 seemed like a good option, as its cheap used, (~$40 USD) and supported by the latest OpenWRT version.
Thing is, its EOL, per Asus. Does this mean that it won’t be supported on OpenWRT for much longer?
Is there a way to see or estimate when a router will no longer work on OpenWRT?
Maybe the OpenWRT One?
I’ve considered this but only 1 Ethernet port requires a switch, so I’m not really sure
Unmanaged switches are cheap and useful. Managed are better but not everyone has the need for them
OpenWrt usually supports a device until it’s infeasible or has no maintainers I believe. Beware of small flash!
Personally I recommend getting either a MediaTek Filogic device or one of those x86 boxes. They have the best FOSS support right now. Don’t expect good Wi-Fi if you went with devboards like OpenWrt One.
Don’t expect good Wi-Fi if you went with devboards like OpenWrt One.
why is that?
One vote for mini pc router with poe wifi ap. When I first set it up I had a tp omada wifi 5 and switched to a yuncore/kuwfi wifi 6 ap flashed with openwrt and I didn’t even have to touch the router config, although I did so the new ap would get the same ip as the old one.
As a path to ease in I was also considering keeping whichever of my older tomato and openwrt routers was more powerful processor wise with the wifi off and using the standalone APs as an upgrade to wifi5/6, but the used pc with 2.5gbe and 10gbit sfp+ came into my possession cheaply so I went for it.
ki9@lemmy.gf4.pw 5 months ago Just because Asus has EoL’d doesn’t mean openwrt will drop support. In fact, you can get these routers for cheap now and breathe new life into them.
With openwrt your router will outlive you. You might have to take it out with a shotgun. I have a 20-year-old dsl router that the isp gave us for free and it will not die.
There are probably people reading this who are younger than this router, and don’t remember DSL… and yet this beast can absolutely run openwrt 23.xx.
openwrt.org/toh/actiontec/gt784wnv
I say “can” because I retired mine to the box a few years ago, running 19.xx and working like new. (Just that 100Mbps is too slow.)
Man it doesn’t even feel like that long ago that my mind was blown by 100mbps. Also blown over how I just made a bunch of cat5 (not e) patches for my brother’s brother printer and other non gigabit devices and he mixed it up with the 6a and connected the computer and it seemed to actually work at 2.5gbit. Still put the proper one in though as I can’t trust that and wpnt always be around to babysit it.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| AP | WiFi Access Point |
| PoE | Power over Ethernet |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
[Thread #984 for this comm, first seen 6th Jan 2026, 02:15] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I’m going to be a little pedantic, for the sake of completeness, because I very much appreciate and value what Decronym bit did here and want it to cover any gaps that may arise (especially for newcomers).
AP doesn’t necessarily have to be wifi or wireless; I’ve used many hardwired APs. WAP stands for wireless access point, though it’s almost always shorthanded to AP (more so now, maybe, because of a dumbass song with the same name).
I have a 12 year old Asus router that I use as a managed switch and its still getting openwrt updates
Check out GL.iNet products. They’re all based on OpenWrt with a more beginner-friendly GUI on top. (LuCi can be installed via a few clicks.) And very affordable. Some can be flashed to vanilla OpenWrt as well.
GL.Inet products that use Mediatek chipsets are great since you can usually flash standard OpenWRT on them. I would avoid routers with different chipsets since they are unlikely to get proper support.
(Though I can’t say that my MT-6000 is cheap, but it is an extremely capable router. That is top of the line though, they have cheaper stuff.)
Looking at you Flint 3 DOWNGRADE!!!
This. I looked at a bunch of options and these are the best for OpenWrt and are very reasonably priced. Mine did torrenting, VPN, and a few other small services before I got my proper served up and running and now it is less loaded and more relaxed without that workload. Absolutely awesome, very high quality for low price, and it comes with a very slightly modified OpenWrt firmware which is unlocked by default.
Hardware routers can be killed for many reasons. Age and an inability to upgrade them to suit current needs is the biggest one. OEM’s do the fairly quickly as they build devices auth the resources to work for today and maybe tomorrow. After their product is no longer made they want it to be obsolete not long after so they can claim they can support is no longer viable.
OpenWRT tries to augment and support devices for as long as possible but at the same time the hardware limitations still exist and often the storage will no longer support the latest version due to the size of the new version.
As far as when that will happen depends on multiple factors that have the ability to change at any time. There viable be a massive flaw in a portion of the software that requires a huge rewrite and the addition of code that will make the software too large to fit.
Sometimes someone will create a version with less used features available so that it can still be used but it’s a losing battle
If you want true longevity repurpose an old computer into a router. OpnSense is what I use and recommend. Add in something like a TP-Link EAP650 or two and you have a rock solid platform that can handle a lot more and last much longer. Add Power Over Ethernet (POE) along with an Omada controller and you can position the AP in a place where it will work the best for your use. You can have enough access points to have a full signal anywhere even if your place is the size of the Louvre. When new technology comes out you can upgrade the AP’s as needed when needed and upgrade the router as well in a similar fashion.
jrgd@lemmy.zip 5 months ago Looking up the router, it was allegedly produced in 2024, according to the OpenWRT wiki. Barring any outliers, OpenWRT generally only sunsets hardware when a new version has higher hardware requirements than is provided by a device. The supported devices page lists out the hard requirements as well as recommendations. Currently 8 MiB flash storage is the minimum, with 16+ MiB recommended (for additional functions, user addons, etc.). 64 MiB is the minimum RAM target, with 128+ MiB recommended. According to the router’s wiki page, your chosen router exceeds both recommended requirements. Overall, the router should be suitable for a good while not barring any severe hardware or bootloader-level exploitable vulnerabilities are discovered with the device.
Depending on what you want to do with the router, getting something with more RAM and a stronger CPU could be beneficial for various tasks (e.g. adblock-fast, cake sqm, etc.). Definitely do research on what you want your router to do though before choosing to go with higher specs or not.
FWIW I bought an N100 mini pc with 2 nics for ~100eur and use it as an openwrt router. It’s so easy and simple IDK why more people don’t recommend it.
How is x86 openwrt? I’ve been on opnsense but my APs are openwrt and maybe I’m remembering wrong after a long time of not touching the management page but I could have sworn it used to detail what rate cables connect at and it doesn’t seem to any more without unrememberable shell commands, and at some point my lan domains stopped working, among other minor annoyances I could also swear are new since my absence.
jrgd@lemmy.zip 5 months ago I mean, the mini PCs don’t come with a managed switch, and often without good wireless connectivity that most home routers will come equipped with. So in total with Wi-Fi APs and a decent switch, definitely more than €100 in total.
Also unrelated, but if you’re running a x86 system with gigabytes of RAM, why not run Opnsense at that point?
rimu@piefed.social@piefed.social 5 months ago Does this mean that it won’t be supported on OpenWRT for much longer?
No, they’re really good about supporting old routers for as long as possible. For many years the best router to use with OpenWRT was this one from 2002 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linksys_WRT54G_series
Andres4NY@social.ridetrans.it 5 months ago @rimu @Dust0741 Also, even if openwrt stops supporting it.. If you have a router or firewall or something in front of your access point, then running an old version of openwrt isn't really that much of a risk if we're talking about residential wifi w/out a lot of coverage.
And that's assuming you'd want to stick with a model that openwrt has dropped support for. If they do drop support in a few years, you could buy a newer (better supported) older model again for $40.
As an alternative to openwrt rather than getting consumer based hardware and flashing. Take a look at mikrotik I’ve been running a $40 wired router for years and it has tons of advanced features that are commercial grade.
They still push out firmware updates for devices first releases decades ago (eg rb433 from 2008. Wireless performance has improved but it’s still not quite there yet, mostly in the area of signal strength. Personally I don’t mind that with the ability to configure things in minute detail (if you want to). Superb hardware reliability and just all round great.
I’ve got an Asus router and it’s good, however I believe there have been some security concerns around Asus routers being used in botnets afaik. If I were to buy a new router today I would go for a gl.inet router
dbtng@eviltoast.org 5 months ago I own two GLi.net routers. I liked my Flint so much that I bought an Opal for my office and on the road. These machines are well provisioned. The OpenWRT reviews of them say to just leave the stock bootloader installed. I’ve installed all sorts of packages, multiple subnets, VPN, adblock, etc. GLi.net gear is good stuff.
Dojan@pawb.social 5 months ago I bought a Flint 2 last year. I’m very happy with it.
I’m the past the issue has been limited storage for newer versions and possibly ram. It should list those specs on the open wrt site.
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
I used OpenWRT and Tomato and a bunch of other forks. I settled on pfsense on a mini PC x86 box because of the community support and great YouTube tutorials.