I am looking for suggestions of cheap, OpenWrt compatible routers that may have Wifi 6, for future proofing. My idea was to use it as a main router, but also as a travel router so I can plug it whenever I travel somewhere else.
I also want to learn how to use OpenWrt (I have an old router at home to test it out, but it’s not ideal for everyday use since it’s 100Mbps and doesn’t have gigabit ports).
It’d be nice to have:
- Wifi 6
- OpenVPN or WireGuard support
- Compatibility with OpenWrt
- Ideally less than 60 EUR
A small form factor is also appreciated but not a requirement.
I checked the device tables and lists on the OpenWrt wiki, but it’s hard to decide. A beginner’s guide to the operating system recommended some routers but most of them are too expensive for my use case.
Currently, I’m leaning towards the GL iNet Opal (1200) but it doesn’t support OpenWrt, the other option is the BananaPi BPI-WIfi 6. What would be your suggestions?
The 60 EUR price limit may be your limiting factor. Everything else can be covered by the GL.iNet devices available on Amazon. I’ve got a couple of the older ‘n’ travel models, and they work pretty great. I flashed vanilla OpenWRT over top of their customized one, but the original OpenWRT-based software works fine too.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=GL.iNET
I usually separate my router functions from my AP to make finding hardware easier, so I’m not well versed in router+AP combos these days, but those seem to be well-reviewed and my experience with an older model is also good.
ASUS RT-AX53U
I have Dynalink DL-WRX36, running openwrt since day 0. Iirc it was 60 euro year ago. Everything works, wireguard too. No complaints. I believe there is openwrt stable build for it already, though I an still running snapshot as I am too lazy to update.
Do you need 6Ghz as well? Because I don’t think there are any that OpenWRT supports yet.
The Flint 2 suggestion is reasonable, although the firmware situation is currently a bit problematic with the stock version using an out of date Openwrt version due to issues with the open source drivers. But it should get resolved in the long run.
The BPI-WIFI6 is currently half price and good value for what you get imo. Not sure on true performance yet as I need to rewire my house but it’s way more reliable than any of my other routers at least.
