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.

    • aprehendedmerlin@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      6·
      4 days ago

      It comes down to specs and your needs but these are a must in my opinion:

      1. having atleast 128 mb of storage or some way to expand it.
      2. 256 mb of memory or more
      3. suppot WiFi 6 or better 6E or 7
      4. Support for mesh protocols if you need it
      5. Decent multi core chipset if you gonna run intensive tasks on it (like VPNs or DNS filtering) etc… the list goes on but like I said It really comes down to your needs ( on a side note consider read the details and installation guide page before buying some brands and models are easier than others to tinker with for sure)
      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        22·
        4 days ago

        Glinet is leading.

        I am surprised considering they are china based. I guess with foss software it aint as much of an issue?

    • turtle [he/him]@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      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.

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        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.

    • sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.todayEnglish
      1·
      3 days ago

      One that supports the latest standards, though I’d suggest a Gl.iNet router if you don’t know much about networking as OpenWRT is quite confusing.

    • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
      11·
      3 days ago

      tp-link archer c7 is commonly recommended as the cheapest one that runs it well. you aint running a lot of services and it only has gigabit lan and wifi5 but its dirt cheap.

      • utjebe@reddthat.comEnglish
        2·
        1 day ago

        Running 3 C7s V5 at home. First one I bought initially not intended for OpenWrt, however once I realized it works really well I got 2 more. Dirt cheap on local marketplace.

        Archer C7 is perfectly good and fast router for vast majority of people.