[POLL] Who makes the best router in 2025?

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

This year we have a new poll for who makes the best router. 

There are a lot of manufacturers out there, so we will be focusing largely on home and SOHO manufacturers, although a few enterprise gear manufacturers whose products end up in home labs are included as well.

As this is our first year for this poll, it is possible we've missed your favorite brand:  If your choice is not listed, please choose "other" and reply below with the company name and model of your device.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky


 

[AndyMutz]

AVM FRITZ!Box (any model)

 

 -andy-

[jjbackes1]

Synology router

 

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Zimaboard with OpnSense, success! 😎

Use ASUS wireless router as AP for wireless.

[Groovedude]

I'm a bit of a Ubiquiti fan boy since switching all the home network setup

[Barney T. Administrators]

I have to go with Ubiquiti Dream Machine. Very stable, excellent range, and outstanding software.

[Circaflex]

dreammachine for me

[+Raze Subscriber²]

ASUS

RT-AX86U with Merlin firmware.

 

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

If you are somewhat tech savvy I think small, low powered x86-64 hardware running something like pfSense or OpnSense is the way to go. The hardware will essentially be supported for its usable life, not until the manufacturer decides its not worth the effort anymore.

I have a Lenovo M70q with an Intel I350-T4 V2 nic installed. What's nice about the M70q is I could replace the nic at a later date and have 2.5GbE or 10GbE with my existing hardware, so I see it as a futureproofed investment compared to an off the shelf router.

Although not user upgradable like a 1L mini PC with a PCIe expandability, Protectli make some good hardware with pfSense or OpnSense in mind.

[ThaCrip]

I did not vote as I am still using fairly ancient Wireless-G router tech... 'Linksys WRT54GS v1.1' with DD-WRT firmware from 2021 (I could update to something more recent though but I doubt much changed from when I last updated mine).

but since I got better internet not all that long ago, the router is now a bottleneck as it can't process any faster than 3.xxMB/s (maybe 4MB/s on the very high end) range at the WAN connection even though I know it's capable of at least twice that speed (given I got a laptop with a wireless connection which totally bypasses my wired setup on that old Linksys router).

still, I am in no rush to upgrade as even 3.xxMB/s range is MUCH better than what I had as before I was stuck at 0.42MB/s MAX. so I am 'at least' 7.5x faster now which made a significant difference as I can now watch say a YouTube video while downloading etc where as before watching any video was pretty much it as downloading a file while watching a YouTube video was simply not going to happen outright. so while I could get more speed if I ditched that router for something semi-modern, I am in no rush.

so while my router is fairly ancient, on the bright side, it's rock-stable. as they say... 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'

[i_was_here]

On 04/01/2025 at 01:41, InsaneNutter said:

Although not user upgradable like a 1L mini PC with a PCIe expandability, Protectli make some good hardware with pfSense or OpnSense in mind.

Actually they just recently released the VP3210 and VP3230 that include a single slot PCIe expansion (25W max). I hope they expand it to the higher-end solutions.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

On 05/01/2025 at 03:29, ThaCrip said:

I am still using fairly ancient Wireless-G router tech... 'Linksys WRT54GS v1.1' with DD-WRT firmware from 2021

I'm impressed your WRT54GS is still going in 2025! the WRT54G series we're the routers to have in the 2000's.

I had the WRT54G (1.1 I think it was, in late 2003), I eventually flashed DDWRT to that, then later the original Tomato firmware. I only ever upgraded as internet speeds eventually increased to the point it couldn't cope with the throughput, however it lived on as a wireless access point. With a third party firmware it was rock solid as you say, pretty sure mine had well over a years uptime at one point. Only generally getting rebooted when their was a power cut.

[grunger106]

Palo Alto / Fortigate would be my pick money no object.

I run a Sophos XG310 myself as the NFR licence is as good as you can get for free from a commercial company.

Never looked into pfsense, but would probably be my second pick if the XG failed to do something I need.

Not really strictly speaking routers though, sure they'll route traffic but they're also Firewall, and AntiX solutions - for PURE routing I wouldn't be using a NGFW which is what most of the stuff I've just described is!

Not a fan of consumer/SOHO kit.

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 04/01/2025 at 21:29, ThaCrip said:

I did not vote as I am still using fairly ancient Wireless-G router tech... 'Linksys WRT54GS v1.1' with DD-WRT firmware from 2021 (I could update to something more recent though but I doubt much changed from when I last updated mine).

but since I got better internet not all that long ago, the router is now a bottleneck as it can't process any faster than 3.xxMB/s (maybe 4MB/s on the very high end) range at the WAN connection even though I know it's capable of at least twice that speed (given I got a laptop with a wireless connection which totally bypasses my wired setup on that old Linksys router).

still, I am in no rush to upgrade as even 3.xxMB/s range is MUCH better than what I had as before I was stuck at 0.42MB/s MAX. so I am 'at least' 7.5x faster now which made a significant difference as I can now watch say a YouTube video while downloading etc where as before watching any video was pretty much it as downloading a file while watching a YouTube video was simply not going to happen outright. so while I could get more speed if I ditched that router for something semi-modern, I am in no rush.

so while my router is fairly ancient, on the bright side, it's rock-stable. as they say... 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn