Best firmware for Netgear R7000 ? Or good wired router under $150

[madbrain]

I have an old Netgear R7000 that I haven't been using and am considering repurposing as a wired router, in combination with Ubiquiti wireless access points.

(I bought the Ubiquiti USG wired router, but found it wanting in many ways and will likely return it)

Is there any firmware for the R7000 that has the following features :

1) supports local DNS through the GUI ? Ie. when I define a DHCP reservation, along with the IP address, I can specify a hostname, for those devices that don't automatically register one ?

2) It needs to play well with a horde of 16 wired Chromecasts . The current Netgear R7000 firmware unfortunately doesn't, making it completely useless to me. Devices are randomly not found by the smartphone, whether I'm using wifi radios from the R7000 itself, or from a separate WAP.

3) Built-in VPN server is a requirement also

4) Needs to keep up with Gigabit speed (I have Comcast 1 Gb cable) on the wired side . Stock firmware works fine for that.

5) Built-in support for WOL would be nice to have, but not a requirement since it can be done through VPN

The R7000 stock firmware fails at 1, 2 and 5 . I am open to considering other wired routers also, if they are not too pricey.

 

[ddaenen1]

I used to have an ASUS RT-AC88u as my main router but as my network expanded, i found it had issues keeping up and more and more glitches and connectivity issues started to pop up. From there i changed to a combination of an Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite 3 wired router combined with a Netgear managed switch which worked ok but i found the ERL3 difficult to manage and didn't like the fact that configuration is a combination of GUI and CLI. Also, it gave me headaches every time you made a config mistake, trying to undo it often resulted error log entries leading to a factory reset and setting it up from scratch again. By coincidence, i got my hands on a Mikrotik RB2011 router which has more features, fully configurable via the webGUI or winbox and in my personal view much more logical in setup, ran like a charm after the first basic configuration. In the mean time i changed over to an RB3011 UiAS and this has been running great ever since. I did go (and am still going) through a bit of learning curve tweaking and tuning the entire network setup but i am very happy with the current state of my network.

 

[Trip]

I can tell you're likely at "that point" where you'd realize the benefit from a discrete wired router with a good power plant to drive all the packet processing you may want to do (plus a quality switching fabric and solid wifi AP/mesh setup, but that's another conversation).

For $150 or less, I would start by considering a used Intel i3/i5/i7 SFF form-factor HP EliteDesk/ProDesk or Dell OptiPlex with a multi-port Intel NIC and a small SSD, running whatever *nix distro you prefer (pfSense/OPNsense, OpenWRT, Untangle Home, Sophos UTM Home, IPFire, etc.). That setup would give you basically unlimited packet-pushing power and the ability to switch software platforms to truly find the firmware for you.

With Mikrotik and Ubiquiti, their benefit is lower-wattage and ready-to-go embedded hardware. With software, although you could load other OS's onto them, I don't really recommend it, so you'll be committed to RouterOS or EdgeOS (with UBNT, I would only choose EdgeRouters, not Unifi, as the USG standalone are too dumbed-down, and don't make sense unless you're running an all-UniFi stack: gateway, switch(es) and AP(s) ). Both of those are perfectly fine OS's, especially RouterOS for routing customization. EdgeOS gives you the benefit of better shaping/queuing with HTB+fq_codel, and a bit more user-friendly web GUI, at least upon initial experience. With Mikrotik, an RB3011 would be the best bang for your buck. Right around $160 street price. With UBNT, I'd spend a bit more and spring for anything based on the newer 1Ghz Caviums, so an ER-4/6/6P/12. Typically in the $175-250 range.

 

[coxhaus]

I think you are going to find it hard to find a router with VPN at gig speeds for $150.

Running a quality layer 3 switching fabric is the best way to run a network. But if you only run 1 network then layer 2 is fine.