OpenWRT compatible Router for 2024 in India

rr9

rr9

Forerunner
Is this the cheapest OpenWRT compatible Router with some remaining support down this line? Please advice!
I have never used OpenWRT.
My target is to have a ad-block at the router level

[OpenWrt Wiki] Table of Hardware

openwrt.org openwrt.org
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Netgear R6850 AC2000 Mbps


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Why do you need openwrt for just an adblock?
The RAM on this router is too low for adblock lists to run successfully.

You could have that by using any SBC like raspberry Pi or even an old spare laptop if you have one.
 
enthusiast29 said:
You could have that by using any SBC like raspberry Pi or even an old spare laptop if you have one.
Click to expand...
I have a old raspberry Pi from 2014 (I think B), but I am not sure how to use it for this purpose. Also being 10Y+ old, I doubt it will do.
My reason for a OpenWrt router was to configure and forget it exists. (I might be mistaken about this assumption)
I do not have a spare laptop. The last one I sold to cashify at 9k back in 2018. (hp pavilion dv6 with a AMD gpu.....)

enthusiast29 said:
Why do you need openwrt for just an adblock? The RAM on this router is too low for adblock lists to run successfully.
Click to expand...
I would appreciate if you point me in the right direction. Thanks
 
The old Pi from 2014 if it has an Ethernet port or Wifi will do far better job than the router.
You can download dietpi on an SD card as low as 8GB and install AdguardHome or Pi-hole (your choice but I prefer Adguard).
Then after the setup, which is fairly easy, you can go to your router settings and in the LAN settings change DNS server to the IP address of your Raspberry Pi.

Make Raspberry pi use a static IP address so that it doesn't change the IP if restarted ever. That's it.
 
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rr9 said:
I have a old raspberry Pi from 2014 (I think B), but I am not sure how to use it for this purpose. Also being 10Y+ old, I doubt it will do.
My reason for a OpenWrt router was to configure and forget it exists. (I might be mistaken about this assumption)
I do not have a spare laptop. The last one I sold to cashify at 9k back in 2018. (hp pavilion dv6 with a AMD gpu.....)


I would appreciate if you point me in the right direction. Thanks
Click to expand...
I am using a Raspberry Pi 2 for PiHole and it is working flawlessly. Infact, I installed DietPi on it, and installed PiHole from that. Put its IP as the ONLY DNS in the router. That is it. The add list is really large and still not an issue.
 
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I will be definitely trying out PiHole for adblock.

But...
I still want to update my router because it does not have gigabit support.
Also the WAN port plug retention clip is missing. I bought it pre-owned from a fellow TE Member who did not disclose this and it was my first ever deal on TE.

So I did not raise it). I have a ~ 125mbps internet connection, but my router caps out at around ~94. When I connect the ONU directly I can get speeds up to 120 (not always, but it was when I tested).

So please do recommend a good router with a good wifi coverage. Budget is sub 5K (but I want VFM. Would prefer to stay around 3K if possible)
 
That Netgear R6850 is interesting. I missed it while I was looking to buy an openwrt-compatible router yesterday.

I ended up buying this TP-LINK AX23 instead for 4.3k. It also supports the latest version of openwrt and has a slightly different revision of the same mediatek soc that the netgear has.

[OpenWrt Wiki] TP-Link Archer AX23

openwrt.org openwrt.org

Now I'm wondering if I should cancel it and get the netgear instead. Because for Rs 200 extra, you get:
  • 128 mb of nand flash vs only 16 on the tp-link
  • a usb 2 port for ftp and storage
On the other hand, the AX23 is WIFI 6 and 4x4 mu-mimo. Which should make it a no-brainer but 6 only results in marginal/situational perfomance improvements over 5 according to this. And the vast majority of devices only support 2x2 mimo anyway, with some benefits in range and signal quality from the 4x4 configuration. Hmm.
 
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Very less routers available in India compared to US. What should I get for access point alone? I already have a dedicated router running openwrt.

Main points for access point is Wifi range with possiblity for mesh and fast roaming.
PS: I have heard OpenWRT doesn't perform good in Wifi compared to stock firmware.
 
Get any cheap gigabit router for the sole purpose of upgrading to gigabit.
Don't look for frills like USB for NAS storage etc.
Samba share is slow as fck on routers. You'll get speeds like 10-15MBps only even when using USB3 on openwrt (drivers installed).

If you want NAS, buy or build a dedicated one. Samba works best with Windows machines otherwise use NFS (untested by me).

From personal experience, I am using a mini PC for openwrt router and installed Samba on it for utilizing the USB3 ports as NAS.
It was painfully slow. Before this on an Asus AC-58U (openwrt) and even on Netgear R7000 (freshtomato). Slow as fck no matter what I did.
Finally moved to a dedicated Windows Server old laptop just for file server and since then full speeds over network. I've made that machine as my torrent box as well. Could also work as plex server and what not...
 
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A usb port on the router is always useful. Way too slow to be your NAS, of course. But stick a pen drive in there and you can use it as redundant storage for smaller files, available even when your main server is down. I can think of a lot of uses for something like that.

Nevertheless, I decided to stick with the AX23 over the netgear. 16 mb of flash storage is less than ideal, but as I'm not doing any adblocking dns or anything intensive on my router, it should be fine. I already have a x86 server for that. The main reason I want openwrt is for the security. I want to put my ISP's existing ont+router in bridge mode because their firmware is most probably dogshit in terms of security and use this as my router instead. Getting better wifi along with that is just a plus.
 
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Tp-link c6u(2200).Adblock works fine. You can also mount a pendrive & extend the tiny 16mb flash. I used this setup for 3 years then moved to x86 based setup since there's not much you can do on a router. My advice would be to buy a used pi4 & use it as a router or buy a pi zero 2w & use it as a dns server with any router.
 
An update for the AX23 v1.2. It flashed the latest version of Openwrt without any issues and has been running well. Wifi speed as tested with iperf on my pixel 6a from about 10 feet away from the router went up from ~360 mbit/s with my ISP's genexis wifi 5 router, to 500-700 mbit/s with the AX. It's at least twice as fast, usually more, at all the ranges that I tested. I did turn on beamforming in the config files, not sure if that affected anything.

One caveat is that all MT7621 routers seem to use a suboptimal wireless driver in openwrt because the proprietary one is faster but buggy. Another caveat is that ethernet performance with the SQM package tops out at ~150 mbit/s if you wanted to turn that on for some reason. But as a general purpose router and AP, and for the price, this is great.
 
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variablevector said:
Another caveat is that ethernet performance with the SQM package tops out at ~150 mbit/s if you wanted to turn that on for some reason. But as a general purpose router and AP, and for the price, this is great.
Click to expand...
This is the exact reason why I shifted to x86 router.
Those consumer grade routers can't do SQM beyond 100-150Mbps. The CPU power ain't enough.
And SQM is helpful in load scenarios where your ping shoots up and causes bufferbloat.
 
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