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!

  • glizzyguzzler@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    0·
    3 days 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. (Wifi 7 ap cheapest has a fan in it avoid, it’s also like $200+)