before buying expensive routers check OpenWRT’s table of hardware and buy one that is supported by the current OpenWRT release and has decent specs. There is a detailed installation guide for each supported device in the wiki too so there are no excuses it’s dead simple. Free yourself from stupid hardware manufacturers and their planed obsolescence products.
- Edit: also here is the new version of the table of hardware with more details They seem to have buyers guide too in the wiki.
- Edit2: seems like GL.iNet devices ship with OpenWRT out of the box with their GUI on top and you still have access to openwrt under the hood if you need it which sounds awesome so look into them if you’re interested. Thanks you guys who brought them up.
- Edit3: there is firewall sulotion called OPNSense which is not limited to commercial routers like OpenWRT and can be run on any x86 hardware of your choice (like N100 mini pcs) so look into it if you’re interested. Many thanks to the guys who contributed in the comments
- Edit4: Sorry for the multiple edits but some of you guys suggest some fantastic insights that I had to add. Anyways here is a list of good candidate devices for hassle free installation and yet powerful enough hardware from OpenWRT’s Forum
- I promise it’s gonna be the last Edit. OpenWRT has a official device they made themselves called OpenWRT ONE (I think the second one is also in the works). It hase good specs for home network and you support the project too. Here is the link to official Retailers
Any recs for a OpenWRT-supported router? The list is pretty deep
What I did when I was looking for a newer router to run OpenWRT was to look at their supported hardware list, narrow down to the ones with recent WiFi protocol support (in my case, WiFi 6), then compared prices. I was able to buy a used Belkin router for $20 on Ebay that did the trick.
Well, GL iNet 's router software is based on OpenWRT, so all of their’s. The UI of nicer, so I just leave their version on there; go through the “advanced settings” menu item to get the LuCI interface.
Gl.inet routers all come with openwrt installed out of the box
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I know openwrt actually realised a openwrt router.
I bought a flint 2 from glinet And it works pretty well
Yeah, my Flint 2 has been a workhorse for about a year and a half now. They just recently released the Flint 3, but I don’t feel any urgency to upgrade. And even when I do, I’ll probably repurpose my current Flint 2 to be an access point on the other side of the house.
My only real complaint is that since it only has 4 LAN ports, (3 if you switch the first one to be a second WAN port) you basically need to run a dedicated switch as well. Not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, (unmanaged switches are super cheap, after all), but I run a small Dante audio-over-IP system, which requires low latency. So I try to avoid having a bunch of switch hops in between my devices, as each switch hop adds some latency. I basically split each of those four LAN lines to a separate room, and each room has its own switch. So I’m never more than three switch hops (room 1 switch > router > room 2 switch) away from any other device.
https://forum.openwrt.org/t/best-newcomer-routers-2024/189050/2 this comes right from their forum and is a good list
Glinet is leading.
I am surprised considering they are china based. I guess with foss software it aint as much of an issue?
As long as there are no hardware backdoors openwrt should overwrite firmware/software ones.