Hello everyone,

My current router from 2014 is starting to give up and I am searching for a new one to replace it. I have 3 criteria that I would like for my replacement to have:

  1. Be relatively new

  2. Less than a $150 USD

  3. Have enough power to run a network-wide VPN (my old router would max the CPU when running Wireguard and my speeds were very abysmal)

So far, I have found 3 routers that I am thinking of; Dynalink DL-WRX36, Linksys E8451, and Belkin RT3200. Truth be told, I am gravitating towards the Dynalink because it is the best overall for the price point it’s on.

I am hosting nextCloud, Lemmy, a plex_debrid serverc SearXNG, and so many more so I need hardware that is able to at least theoretically match my 1Gbps from my ISP over Wireguard with more computational power left over.

Your advice would be very appreciated.

Thank you.

  • A_Porcupine@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    9 months ago

    I ended up buying a “mini-PC” as my router. It’s quite a bit over your budget, and you’d need an AP of some kind for WiFi. I run proxmox on it, and pipe the NICs through to my OpenWRT VM. The performance is great, and given it has 2.5gbps NICs, it’s somewhat future proof. UK Amazon link to the one I bought: https://amzn.eu/d/1pqfQEk

    • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
      6·
      9 months ago

      I run a fanless mini PC with OPNsense and it’s by far the best router I’ve ever had at home. I can keep traffic separate in different VLANs, configure my own firewall rules, run a recursive DNS resolver and use Suricata for intrusion detection and blocking. It cost a bit more upfront but it has been worth it. Instead of attempting WiFi on the OPNsense box I added a consumer WiFi mesh router in access point mode, but any old router would do for this.

      • A_Porcupine@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        Nice, I went for Unifi for WiFi. I have two APs, and the controller runs on my Pi k8s cluster. They’re pretty great for gigabit speeds.

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.itEnglish
    81·
    9 months ago

    An alternative could be something like a thinkcentre tiny m700 with a sixth gen i5. It can be found at that price and it’s possible to replace the wifi card with a 2.5 gig Ethernet. Then use opnsense or openwrt x86. Mine with opnsense uses 6 watts of power.

    But it was such an hassle to properly configure it that if I had to do it again in the future I would just buy the basic Unifi dream machine (costs the same) and have everything done automatically by the easy gui

  • Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyzBEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

    Fewer Letters More Letters
    AP WiFi Access Point
    DNS Domain Name Service/System
    Git Popular version control system, primarily for code
    Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand
    VPN Virtual Private Network
    k8s Kubernetes container management package

    [Thread #346 for this sub, first seen 13th Dec 2023, 05:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

    • TheBiscuitLout@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      I have the Flint, I think I paid about $80 for an open box one, it’s easy for a pleb like me to set up. Running Mullvad on it is definitely quicker than on my devices

  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Checkout the Banana Pi BPI-R4 (WIFI not available yet) or the older BPI-R3.

  • Ananace@lemmy.ananace.devEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Probably not what you’re looking for, but I’m going to note that Turris make some great OpenWRT routers.
    Currently running theTurris Omnia, and using both Wireguard and Yggdrasil through it.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    01·
    9 months ago

    The good news is there a tons of devices that can run openwrt. It depends on what you want to accomplish