Looking for a new router recommendation

philip2009 said:
So I'm back to Mikrotik and Router OS which has far less extensibility and user friendliness than OPNsense but just works. Open source is great when it works, but it's somewhat of a gamble regarding updates and possible crashing.
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I wouldn't have said Mikrotik were known for their reliability, but if it's working for you that's all that matters :)
 
Rilot said:
Thanks for tips. Gonna roll my own as suggested.
I've bagged a little Dell Optiplex with an i5 4000 series, 4GB RAM and an HP 4-port Intel-based NIC.
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You won't regret it - but you will look back in a year and marvel at how much you've learned, and wonder how you ever did without one. :D

Edit: What are you thinking of putting on it? OPNSense? IPFire? OpenWrt? Untangle? Something else? Let us know how you get on.
 
Rilot said:
I was actually going to try pfsense but will look at the OPNSense fork.
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I'd avoid pfSense. Personal opinion. The devs are mired in one controversy after another, the updates sporadically break the whole OS, last year's WireGuard code push was a joke; and, honestly, they're *****. The way they act and treat people is nothing short of unreal, up to and including international criminal convictions. Honestly, if you want BSD go OPNSense. I wouldn't touch pfSense with your bargepole.
 
Righto. Good advice. Thanks.
I'm not wedded to BSD. I'll have a play with a few different softwares. I can stick it on a routable subnet dealing with a test environment for a while and see what's what.
 
Rilot said:
Righto. Good advice. Thanks.
I'm not wedded to BSD. I'll have a play with a few different softwares. I can stick it on a routable subnet dealing with a test environment for a while and see what's what.
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Good idea. I can highly recommend from experience:

IPFire
OpenWrt
OPNSense
Vanilla Linux or BSD (Debian, RHEL aka RockyLinux aka AlmaLinux - or OpenBSD)

Other router distros are available. :p Have fun playing around, it's half the experience. Anything from the above list will 'just work' and let you get started quickly (DIY from scratch aside, obviously).
 
If you want no drama and reliable routing from a project in good standing, run by adults who understand trolling other projects and repeatedly trying to blame others for problems they created is beneath them, then you don't want PFSense. The project took an unfortunate turn some years ago, the core developers since then have been on a constant downward spiral, the trolling of OPN was poor, the crap they pulled with the website/reddit was beneath anything i'd expect from a third rate developer, the AES-NI u-turn was a shambles, the Wireguard fiasco was utterly shameful and at every possible opportunity they have found new and imaginative ways to undermine the trust required from the community. If you have a NFC list, this is a worthy contender for it.
 
I'm thinking to roll my own as well. When it comes to NICs to do I need a NIC for each network boundary or can I get a quad port NIC and allocate port 1 and 2 to WAN, port 3 to WAP and port 4 to my switch?
 
uvarvu said:
I'm thinking to roll my own as well. When it comes to NICs to do I need a NIC for each network boundary or can I get a quad port NIC and allocate port 1 and 2 to WAN, port 3 to WAP and port 4 to my switch?
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I run a T4 and T2 NIC set-up without issue, generally you can allocate the interfaces as you please.
 
Armageus said:
I wouldn't have said Mikrotik were known for their reliability, but if it's working for you that's all that matters :)
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Think(?) I've fixed my OPNsense box and it's back to normal(?). New install, followed by installing all updates, reloading a backup config from when it was running fine, then re-installing missing(from the new install) packages. It didn't take that long so I'm back using OPNsense for the time being.

EDIT:

Turns out my dual port network card failed(was failing) causing sporadic lockups and CPU overheating, all issues solved after replacing it. So I can't blame OPNsense in this instance.
 
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To update this:

I tried pfSense, OPNSense, and OpenWRT over the last few months. OPNSense ended up getting moved in to my main network, replacing my Asus router (which is now a lowly AP).
Got it set up as an OpenVPN server and Adguard.
It's been rock solid since I set it up and barely breaks a sweat - probably due to the massively overkill i5 4-series CPU and 8GB RAM it has to play with.
 
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