Spec me a new router...

[CapitalOne]

Hello experts

I currently have an Asus RT-AC3200 - it’s 3ish years old.

BT infininty into WAN, 24 port gb switch with around 35 wired connections (there are 3 other smaller gb switches). Wired into an Asus ac68u in ap mode to extend the wifi. There are about 50 wireless devices connected across both. Most connected wireless devices are home automation, smart tvs, tablets and phones. Main 2 tvs are wired and there are 3 wired pcs.

Bandwidth and wifi availability are not a problem.

I am wondering is there something better, specifically with

1 Better security (sorry don’t ask me to specify what!) I have the ai protection on and all the various consumer level “safety features”
2 In built 4g backup wan (the asus failover isn’t reliable either with a 4g modem or a dongle)
3 More reliable...maybe...the asus isn’t bad but needs a reboot every month or so
4 A better more modern hardware platform or a better OS

I used to run a homebrew smoothwall box and that was brilliant, but that was pre wifi!

I thought about pi-hole and the like, but I don’t have the time or patience (I have a turris omnia which i thought would scratch the itch but last time i looked BT broadband was not supported and I did try all weekend!

Perhaps Draytek?

Budget £400 and preferably no annual license like Zyxel.

I may be dreaming of course but any input appreciated. I lock down wifi as best I can, it’s all those pesky exploits in the asus firmware that bother me.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Avalon]

I remember smoothwall from the early days and adding my first AP for glorious 11mbit, it all fell apart after Dick left, then randomly popped up at my former employers a few years later, he had earned a reputation for rubbing people up the wrong way, usually because he was right

The zero cost option and one I presume you're already aware of is AsusMerlin, if you want more, then DDWRT/OpenWRT. If you genuinely want to replace what you have and liked smoothwall, pfsense is a decent bet, it's more layer 2/3 orientated like smoothwall, but you can add various filtering options, it has a steep initial learning curve, but a very large community and learning is fun If you prefer a slightly simpler option, you can go the other way and choose Untangle/SophosUTM which are layer 7 orientated and also offer some layer 3 features, they're easier, but still very powerful in terms of what you can do. All will run as a VM or on dedicated x64 hardware and are free to use, Untangle does offer a $50/yr add-on *if* you want to make use of the more advanced stuff.

Hardware wise nothing remotely recent will likely run any of the above, if you decided you wanted dedicated hardware the cool kids seem to like Qotom or Protectli based hardware, it's a NUC size PC with embedded intel CPU and intel NIC's, avoid anything that doesn't support AES-NI and if you want anything near line speed VPN with OpenVPN then high clock speed is important, personally i'd go with a recent i3 or i5 rather than an atom.