Asus-Merlin FW vs Tomato or DD-WRT for RT-AC66 or RTAC68 Routers

[connorm]

hmm, im pretty nooby but i found dd-wrt and tomato very easy to get lots of info on especially for rt-ac66u

 

[KGB7]

Ddwrt forums don't spoon feed people. If you want use their firmware, you have sit your butt down and spend few hours researching and reading.

They are not mean or rude, they don't want to keep answering same questions that have been answered a thousand times. So use search function or Google it.

 

[DrTeeth]

Ddwrt forums don't spoon feed people. If you want use their firmware, you have sit your butt down and spend few hours researching and reading.

They are not mean or rude, they don't want to keep answering same questions that have been answered a thousand times. So use search function or Google it.

Understood. However, the site is such a hotchpotch of contradictory and outdated information. It is a nightmare to navigate too. The more I read, the deeper into the mess I got. Finding Merlin's firmware to be perfection, I bailed out.

No way I wish to risk bricking my router. I am no stranger in having to absorb and apply information either BTW .

 

[Mordred]

DD-WRT - site very confusing. Many places say different things about the same topic. Sooo many diffent versions/builds .
Tomato - dearth of documentation .
Merlin - tons of advice here; up to date information; no confusion; active, healful and polite programmer .

Guess which choice I made!

Merlin only concentrates on a handful asus routers, thus it is definitely easier to find info for these units

DD-WRT not only has tons of infos, their forum is full of extremely knowledgeable people, you don't find this kind of expertise anywhere else.

I have been using dd-wrt on the AC66U and now on the AC68U and have had zero problems, the two bugs I reported were fixed within a few days. Flashing was always easy and never gave any trouble.

While tomato has been a good choice for older units it really falls behind now. DD-WRT on dual arms has been stable for month and they have added so many new features lately that are easy to use such as guest wireless, adblocking, personal cloud storage etc.

 

[bodean]

Own a AC66U here. I choose to run Merlin (Over ASUS STOCK) due to the fact that he seems to put out great FW's, and they are updated very often which I like. I found ASUS stock to be not updated as frequently, and I now see ASUS incorporating Merlins tweaks in their firmware, so I'm a firm believer in what Merlin puts out. I have found most if not all of his firmwares to be stable. Running the latest of his now on my AC66U

 

[chtse53]

I am using AC68U. With my limited experience of DD-WRT and ASUSWRT Merlin on this router, Merlin's build offers much better performance on the USB storage. I consistently got more than 40MB/s transfer rates on Merlin's while <25MB/s on DD-WRT (wired connection). Wireless transfer (to/from USB storage) is also comparatively slower on DD-WRT. My ISP link is about 50Mb/s and I don't see much difference between DD-WRT and Merlin's on wired or wireless clients regarding internet speed. QoS is a bit shaky on both for me. The feature set of Merlin's is good enough for me and personally opt for Merlin's build for my AC68U.

 

[RMerlin]

I am using AC68U. With my limited experience of DD-WRT and ASUSWRT Merlin on this router, Merlin's build offers much better performance on the USB storage. I consistently got more than 40MB/s transfer rates on Merlin's while <25MB/s on DD-WRT (wired connection). Wireless transfer (to/from USB storage) is also comparatively slower on DD-WRT. My ISP link is about 50Mb/s and I don't see much difference between DD-WRT and Merlin's on wired or wireless clients regarding internet speed. QoS is a bit shaky on both for me. The feature set of Merlin's is good enough for me and personally opt for Merlin's build for my AC68U.

One big difference there is that Asuswrt uses a proprietary NTFS driver from Paragon, while DD-WRT uses the open-source driver, which is much slower. If you use ext3 on your USB HDD then the disk performance should be much closer between both firmwares.

 

[pirx73]

RT-N66U user here. Moved over to Merlin's build and i love it.
Especially those small scripts using which i can turn off router LEDs at 10PM until 8AM next morning
I picked this router for stability and speed of an internal network and good WiFi coverage.
Just like with Merlin, this router is a cornerstone of my home net and i want it to be rock stable.

Not concerned about WAN performance at all because i only have 10Mbps ADSL line with astounding 0.8Mbps upstream.
No need for any of those advanced features DD-WRT offers.

 

[KGB7]

I do not agree that the Broadcom drivers are the determining factor in LAN speeds. If it were only the drivers that affected wireless and LAN transfer speeds then all routers with the same chipset would have no performance difference and Tim Higgins would only have to test one router per chipset.

My direct experience indicates that there are many hardware and firmware factors that affect actual wireless radio performance. Depending on your definition of LAN, hardware and firmware also can have a significant role in the real world performance of the router.

Do you honestly think that a firmware can force a router perform faster beyond its hardware limitations?? I would love to see that.



Not all routers use same chipset. There is more to a router then just a chipset that makes up a router and dictates how a router will function and perform.

 

[Just Checking]

Do you honestly think that a firmware can force a router perform faster beyond its hardware limitations?? I would love to see that.



Not all routers use same chipset. There is more to a router then just a chipset that makes up a router and dictates how a router will function and perform.

KGB7,
I'm not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with my statements that disagreed with your post.

No, I do not believe that firmware can make hardware perform beyond its fundamental design capacity. I believe that the previous post which I quoted (by you, I believe) stated that the broadcom drivers were the determining factor in router performance for a given chipset. I disagreed with that and still do. The drivers do make a significant difference in terms of performance of a given chipset but, not the only factor. I stated that too.

I am aware that different routers use different chipsets. It is obvious that a router with a dual core 1GHz CPU has the capability to perform better than a router with a single core 800MHz CPU. Like any other computer, peripheral hardware such as ram and bus design can enhance or cripple the performance. Good drivers and firmware can allow the hardware to perform better but only to the limitations of all the component hardware combined. That is why I disagree with the post I was replying to which stated that Broadcom drivers were the determining factor of router performance.

From reading other posts in this string, it is apparent that some other open-source firmwares use different drivers than Broadcom; or, a combination of Broadcom drivers with others for different components of the router. This makes it even more true that the Broadcom drivers are not the sole determining factor in router performance.

 

[DrTeeth]

One big difference there is that Asuswrt uses a proprietary NTFS driver from Paragon, while DD-WRT uses the open-source driver, which is much slower. If you use ext3 on your USB HDD then the disk performance should be much closer between both firmwares.

I am using ext2 on my USB Flash drive having been advised that the journal writes were a Bad Thing®.
Would ext3 be faster using your firmware? Would there be any better performance using a USB3 drive?
Thanks
DrT

 

[KGB7]

KGB7,
I'm not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with my statements that disagreed with your post.

No, I do not believe that firmware can make hardware perform beyond its fundamental design capacity. I believe that the previous post which I quoted (by you, I believe) stated that the broadcom drivers were the determining factor in router performance for a given chipset. I disagreed with that and still do. The drivers do make a significant difference in terms of performance of a given chipset but, not the only factor. I stated that too.

I am aware that different routers use different chipsets. It is obvious that a router with a dual core 1GHz CPU has the capability to perform better than a router with a single core 800MHz CPU. Like any other computer, peripheral hardware such as ram and bus design can enhance or cripple the performance. Good drivers and firmware can allow the hardware to perform better but only to the limitations of all the component hardware combined. That is why I disagree with the post I was replying to which stated that Broadcom drivers were the determining factor of router performance.

From reading other posts in this string, it is apparent that some other open-source firmwares use different drivers than Broadcom; or, a combination of Broadcom drivers with others for different components of the router. This makes it even more true that the Broadcom drivers are not the sole determining factor in router performance.

Genuine drivers are being used by firmware makers, they even stated so in the forums; Kong, Merlin, BrainSlayer, Vitctek.


The code and various packages are open source that are being shared between all of them. So at the end of the day, the only difference is the look and various options.

This is why you see nothing but bug fixes with each firmware. The router has hit the ceiling until Broadcom comes out with better drivers. It doesnt matter whos firmware you use, you still get same performance.


And if you disagree with me, then go right ahead, load each firmware one at a time and document it in detail. Many of us would love to see the difference. Just be sure they all use same exact driver.

 

[RMerlin]

I am using ext2 on my USB Flash drive having been advised that the journal writes were a Bad Thing®.
Would ext3 be faster using your firmware? Would there be any better performance using a USB3 drive?
Thanks
DrT

I doubt ext3 would be any faster in this case, at least not in a measurable way in the best case scenario.

 

[ApK]

I've been using DD-WRT on routers for years.
Yesterday I switched to Merlin's fw for my new N66U, for two reasons.

1. Speed and stability are my top concerns. I have need of very few features that aren't typical in stock consumer firmware.
I don't know (and it ain't for lack of looking, see 2 below) what Kong's build might do differently than Brainslayer's K3.X build, but as far as I can tell, 2.4GHz band speed caps out at a link speed of 65Mbps. I bought a fast router, and I stream files around my house, and I want the performance I paid for. ASUS/Merlin fw seems to give me that. My tests show that it certainly out paces 100Mbps Ethernet and any storage device I have in my system, and that's good enough for me for now.

2. I'm tired of making home router configuration a research project, or even a time-sucking hobby. I just want it to work now. As mentioned earlier in the thread, DD-WRTs forum and wiki are filled with outdated and often contradictory information.
Some one said above "they're not rude, the just don't spoon-feed you." Well, fact is, some of them are rude, too. That's typical on most hobbyist tech forums. Here's a tip: When you've been told you are rude so much you feel compelled to put "I'm not rude" in your signature...you're rude.

I have never tried Tomato, and likely won't bother at this point, unless I run into a pressing feature need that Merlin or stock just doesn't do. Right now everything works to my satisfaction, and for the two features I use that DD-WRT supported more easily (static routing and zoneedit DDNS) I found adequate workarounds on this forum.

Thank you, Merlin, for your work!

ApK

 

[connorm]

One big difference there is that Asuswrt uses a proprietary NTFS driver from Paragon, while DD-WRT uses the open-source driver, which is much slower. If you use ext3 on your USB HDD then the disk performance should be much closer between both firmwares.

shibby uses the paragon NTFS driver too i use it on rt-ac66u and i get faster transfers then with any other FW, about 14MB/s up/down

tried tomato RAF (which doesnt use paragon drivers), usb performance was terrible, i will not use any FW without the paragon drivers, so basically my only options are

Tomato Shibby
Asus Merlin
Asus Stock

 

[connorm]

Do you honestly think that a firmware can force a router perform faster beyond its hardware limitations?? I would love to see that.



Not all routers use same chipset. There is more to a router then just a chipset that makes up a router and dictates how a router will function and perform.

FW can be like OS, a big bulky one like asus wrt ruins everything, just like how windows vista did

comparing tomato to asus stock firmware is like comparing xubuntu to windows 7, i could have said its like comaring it to vista but i think thats a bit overkill, vista was beyond terrible

 

[cyph]

Well, I experiemented with DD-WRT and Tomato USB on the AC68U and AC56U thinking that the VPN client would work on it (it doesn't as well so it may be an issue with Tomato builds) and here are my findings:

DD-WRT on Asus: Unstable. Client Bridge DOES NOT work with Asus Ac56U, even when connecting to the same build on the AC68U. Did not try it on AC68U but suspect it's the same issue since the builds are the same. Borked my NVRAM when performing erase NVRAM command from DD-WRT. Waiting on USB to SERIAL connector to fix my corrupted NVRAM issue.

Tomato USB on AC68U: Using Captive Client crashes and reboots Tomato. Traffic Monitor is borked, doesn't work at all. IPV6 does not work with client bridge with either TOmato or DD-WRT but works with ASUS/MERLIN.

Merlin: Stable, and it works. Stability trumps features. So at least for Asus products, Merlin is the way to go.

 

[pimpolho]

weak range

I bought yesterday an AC66U...but i have to return it as the range was worse than the stock cable tb router/modem (Hitron CVE 30360)....

Is this due to a firmware issue or may be due to a faulty device?

 

[Magnus33]

I bought yesterday an AC66U...but i have to return it as the range was worse than the stock cable tb router/modem (Hitron CVE 30360)....

Is this due to a firmware issue or may be due to a faulty device?

Could be either.

Every router seems to have a bad firmware or two and no matter who you buy from you can always get a dud.

The Asus routers themselves with Merlin firmware have a fantastic rep and i love mine.

 

[DallasFlier]

I've used all three.

DDWRT by Brainslayer is great and stable and is now provided commercially on select Buffalo routers. It has been at least a year since I used DDWRT but I really like the firmware and may buy a Buffalo just to have DDWRT on it.

Tomato is the best of the lot in terms of capability, features and performance primarily because of its robust QOS features which work great with their default settings and easy to configure.

Merlin is the best for a stable and very conservative firmware. For me the big letdown is the reluctance to upgrade the primitive QOS Asus supplies.

Merlin also has a big advantage in the way the firmware is provided with a logical and well-laid out download service. Everything is well organized, labeled, commented and the gentleman is busy in the forums. In short, very professional.

Tomato I just cannot grasp what is what and where in the download services and the slew of varying versions by different people make it attractive only to hobbyists with a lot of time on their hands.

So Merlin rules overall in my book!

DD-WRT - site very confusing. Many places say different things about the same topic. Sooo many diffent versions/builds .
Tomato - dearth of documentation .
Merlin - tons of advice here; up to date information; no confusion; active, healful and polite programmer .

Guess which choice I made!

I had been a long-time user of old WRT54GS router(s), and used a succession of 3rd party firmware on them for many years, using TomatoUSB for the last couple years. Just upgraded my home internet to 75 mb service, and that overran the capability of the trusty WRT54GS, so after a bit of research I purchased a new ASUS RT-AC68U.

One of the reasons I chose it over the R7000 was specifically because of Merlin's software. I tend to agree with the messages I quoted, and just don't have time to wade through all the online information, and in the case of DD-WRT, the myriad of router configuration screens mostly for things I won't ever be using.

The only thing really missing from ASUS-Merlin releases that I've been used to having before, is the more sophisticated QoS that I'd had with Tomato. And after pondering that briefly, once you have 75mb down and 10mb up, QoS just isn't that big a deal at this point!

Thanks, Merlin...