Could somebody explain which of these three ASUS routers is "better", please?

32143422

32143422

32143422

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Joined
21 Oct 2022
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4
Location
North West
I am dipping my toe into home networking and wish to upgrade the router my ISP gave me. As I understand it, I can put my router into modem-only mode and connect a third-part router to do everything else. The advantages being that, unlike ISP-provided routers, these third-party routers have far more that can be configured (such as VPNs).
I am currently choosing between a set of Merlin-compatible ASUS routers. I am able to get all of these routers for about the same price. Given this, is any one of these routers any better than any of the others? Or are they all basically the same?
Also, are the 2nd and 3rd routers in my list actually the same router just in different cases? When comparing the tech specs, they seem to be identical.
 
I primarily want to upgrade my router to get conditional VPN routing based on source device, i.e. policy-based routing (to provide a subset of my devices that otherwise lack VPN clients access to my VPN subscription) - as far as I am aware, the simplest way to get this is to use a route compatible with OpenWRT, DD-WRT, or ASUSWRT-Merlin. Looking around, ASUSWRT-Merlin seems to be the most novice-friendly. I am familiar with Pis, but by the time I have purchased Pis, power supplies, and SD cards, I will have spent more than I would have on a wireless router and still potentially need additional hardware for my networking setup to have reasonable wireless support.

As for my ISP, I am using Vodafone FTTP. As far as I know, their all-in-one router supports modem-only mode.
 
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I didn't realise there was such hatred for ASUS products in the community.

In that case, what is my best option for my requirements:
  • VPN access for a subset of devices on my LAN which otherwise do not have VPN clients themselves
  • Compatible with an Vodafone FTTP broadband connection
  • Killswitch capability on the VPN connection
  • Beginner-friendly (High technical skill, but low networking-specific skill)
  • <£100 for all equipment (Happy to buy pre-owned)
  • Primarily wireless connectivity for devices
  • Bonus (Not essential): The ability for the VPN traffic and the non-VPN traffic to actually be exposed as different wireless networks (e.g. SSIDs of: "myNetwork" and "myNetworkVpn")
 
I know, haha.
Exactly why the suggestions that I got from other forums where people suggested getting a router with OpenWRT/DD-WRT/Merlin compatibility were very tempting.
 
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