Yet Another Router Recommendation Request

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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Cambridge
I'm interested in recommendations for a new router. I'm a software developer working from home, and my current Asus AC66 is increasingly flaky. Requirements:

- price up to £300, though I'd prefer to spend less
- good quality; I've dabbled with the usual home networking fare of Linksys / Netgear / D-Link etc. before and found them all pretty poor.
- PPPoE or VDSL support (I have 80/20 FTTC, currently with an Openreach modem)
- decent enough wifi support, but nothing too crazy as I only live in a small house. I have probably 4-5 wireless devices at most.
- good IPv6 support

I know my way around networking as my day job involves software architecture, AWS, Linux etc. but I kind of want something which is just going to work, and be really solid. Right now I have a Synology NAS, a couple of Raspberry Pis and a couple of extremely cheap and nasty TP-Link switches hanging off my router, so I'm not averse to replacing the whole network infrastructure I have, because I think it's pretty crap :p

I don't have lots of physical space (no server cabinet, alas!) so I'd prefer fairly neat / compact ideas. Never used any Ubiquiti stuff but a dev friend of mine has recommended it. I like CLI stuff and I'm interested in learning more about IPv6, with which I have little experience, so am not averse to some fairly low-level suggestions if it's worth considering.

Thanks for reading yet another router thread! :p
 
Man of Honour
Joined
20 Sep 2006
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33,887
This has been asked numerous times over the past few days. You're almost always going to be better off by running dedicated wireless devices in a central location, such as a Access Point mounted centrally on your landing upstairs.
 
Soldato
OP
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18 Oct 2002
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6,747
Location
Cambridge
Thanks for the various recommendations.

Draytek 2862ac (modem) or 2927ac (no built-in modem), will do everything you're after whilst being solid as a rock.

I remember setting up a couple of Drayteks in a small office years ago. They were extremely solid, though I found their web UI a bit clunky. In general they managed really well right up until we moved premises and scaled up, so I have fond memories of them and will seriously consider these. Thanks :)

Ive got a UDM and its massive improvement over my ISP supplied router

Wifi is good and it handles PoPPE

I was looking at the UDM, but reports of fan noise, flaky software and just general wonkiness put me off a bit, particularly as they're fairly pricey at £300+. Happy to be persuaded otherwise.

Back to the edgerouter x for me.
Been superb so far.

This is more the sort of thing I was after, but I would need a separate AP.

This has been asked numerous times over the past few days. You're almost always going to be better off by running dedicated wireless devices in a central location, such as a Access Point mounted centrally on your landing upstairs.

I'm not that concerned about wireless network performance, as I don't do anything important on it currently, but if I had some way of feeding a network (PoE) cable to the ceiling upstairs, I'd consider it. It probably isn't necessary for my little house, though :)

I will certainly look at all of the options mentioned so far, but I'm also curious about MikroTik. Does anyone have any opinions on these? Are their SOHO routers worth a look? I'd also be interested in knowing of any options for software routers; I know Raspberry Pis don't have enough network ports, but are there any similarly compact options I could look at in tandem with an AP?
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Jun 2005
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3,047
Location
The South
I remember setting up a couple of Drayteks in a small office years ago. They were extremely solid, though I found their web UI a bit clunky. In general they managed really well right up until we moved premises and scaled up, so I have fond memories of them and will seriously consider these. Thanks :)

I still deploy them to clients and for sure they aren't for everyone as the UI is still the same clunkyness and WiFi could still be improved upon (a lot better than products of old). But once setup, they're reliable and stable and Draytek don't hold you hostage with flaky and buggy firmware and treat you like a beta tester in disguise unlike some others.
 
Associate
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31 Aug 2017
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2,209
I have a draytec modem hooked up to the edgerouter x in pppoe mode, its improved my speed a small amount (as per the thread about modding your setup for vdsl) - think i get about 10% extra than the plusnet router on its own.

Not much but with 2 managed APs up, a proper halfdecent switch, pihole and at one point a proxy - things are flying along nicely.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Sep 2011
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106
I was looking at the UDM, but reports of fan noise, flaky software and just general wonkiness put me off a bit, particularly as they're fairly pricey at £300+. Happy to be persuaded otherwise.

Mine is sat in the hallway and is virtually silent

As for software issues, I've not had any whilst tweaking and setting up my network
 
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