Ask HN: What router do you recommend? (UniFi/AmpliFi/OpenWrt/other?)

14 points

6 years ago

I'm in the market for a new home network setup and I thought I'd ask here. My house can be covered by a single base station but the speeds fall off in parts so I'd like to be able to expand to a mesh in the future (for either this house or the next).

I've looked at UniFi (Cloud Key, Security Gateway, PoE Switch, nano AP = ~$700), UniFi Dream Machine [0] ($300), and AmpliFi Alien [1] ($380).

I'm leaning towards the full UniFi setup so I can extend it in the future. The UDM is neat but if you want more coverage you have to buy another $300 node. The Alien is cool as well and the only Ubiquiti product with WiFi 6 however going down to the AmpliFi line loses a number of things I want (vlans, extendable, etc).

All that said I've heard some concerning things about UniFi recently so I'm wondering if someone has a better suggestion. I'm looking for minimal maintenance work but the power to be there if I need it (multiple vlans to hide IoTs from rest of network, block internet access by MAC, some minor QoS, support gigabit WAN all full speeds, etc). I'll also admit that some of this will be for fun and to play with some more powerful networking equipment.

For reference I currently have this [2] router running OpenWRT but I am unable to hit my full gigabit WAN speeds (I can if I'm plugged directly into the modem) which is part of my reason I want to upgrade (along with iffy wifi in places).

[0] https://store.ui.com/products/unifi-dream-machine

[1] https://amplifi.com/alien

[2] https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UVN21DK

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