Another vote for the RT-AX88U, though I'd say in terms of Value for money it's not worth the 2x cost of something like the RT-AC86U. However it's a little more future proof and the guy who writes the merlin firmware is using the RT-AX88U himself as his daily driver.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InsaneNutter
To be honest i'd spend a bit more and get a setup that's much more future proofed.
I'd get a UniFi Security Gateway (£105) for your router / firewall. People are running gigabit connections on this perfectly fine.
Add a Ubiquiti UniFi PoE Switch (£108) for your wired devices, this will also power your access points over Ethernet.
You can then add a couple of Ubiquiti UniFi AC Access Points (£60+) where required, maybe one at each side of the house? (depending on size) for great coverage.
You can run the Ubiquiti UniFi Controller (Free to £75 depending on what you use) on your own hardware to manage the above hardware, however buying their cloud key would keep it all very simple.
Sure this would cost a bit more than a new high end router, but when you think you can pay £300+ for a good Asus router these days, you might as well buy some kit which is both future proofed and expandable as your requirements change.
Like you I've had various Linksys / Asus routers over the last 10+ years with custom firmware and always outgrown them as internet speeds have increased.
I'm actually using pfSense for my router / firewall in a Virtual Machine on my home server, however both that and the UniFi Security Gateway are great solutions.
You'll never go back to consumer grade routers once having something better. |
Unifi stuff is great if you're particularly techy and are happy managing it yourself. I can definitely vouch for and recommend it, but I wouldn't suggest consumers go anywhere near it. It's business grade stuff so it works a treat and if you can run ethernet cables around your house then there's no better way to ensure perfect coverage, but it's significantly more work than something like an Asus router.