Best router with OpenWrt Firmware for OpenVPN VPN (2021)

[Hotelk]

Hello, can anyone advise me on a router (preferably from the Linksys brand) for a stable connection to the OpenVPN protocol. The speed that my provider provides me (100 Mbit/s download and 100 Mbit / s upload). My budget is 150-180 euros. Thanks in advance.

P.S Wifi 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz support is also important to me

[la3y]

I'm think you need Brume gl-mv1000 ARM, OpenVPV 97 mbps, Wireguard 280 mbps without wifi!!!
Or Brume gl-mv1000w but he is have bad wifi chip rtl8192eu for OpenWrt

If you need wifi you can buy gl-mv1000 + wifi dongle 2.4 and 5 ghz's

LINK

[maurer]

Linksys wrt3200 should handle 100mbps openvpn traffic but its wireless driver development is EOL so not recommended unless you don't need wifi.
Netgear r7800 should also handle 100mbps openvpn and has better (supported) wifi radios and should be in the same price range as Linksys.
If you want spare cycles - in case you need more openvpn bandwidth you should go for something like Friedlyelec's R4s (only 2 gbit ports - no wifi) as it should handle more than 500mbps openvpn traffic.
The SOC (~ cpu) for openvpn is still x86_64 Intel/AMD boxes but I can't recommend anything here

[Hotelk]

Thanks for the advice, I forgot to add that wifi 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz is important to me. Looking at the Linksys WRT3200ACM variant

[Hotelk]

Thanks, I will add gl-mv1000 + wifi dongle 2.4 and 5 ghzs as one of the options

[Hotelk]

Found another router from the WRT line. Linksys WRT32X. Has anyone had any experience with this router? If yes, you can share your experience here.

[slh]

wrt3200acm and wrt32x are identical, aside from colour and flash partitioning (and therefore the OEM firmware), all of these have the EOLed mwlwifi in common, which you really don't want to be cursed with.

[Hotelk]

@slh

EOLed mwlwifi

Sorry, but I'm new to this. Mwlwifi is bad?

Just as far as I understood, this is an old problem that has been fixed with an update long ago. Do I understand everything correctly?

[slh]

There are plenty of long-standing and open issues with mwlwifi, which aren't going to be fixed - Marvell didn't care enough, neither does NXP; among others:

• interoperability issues, most prominent with IoT devices (Espressif esp8266/ esp32), but not limited to 'just' these
• IEEE 802.11w, broken
• WPA3, broken
• DFS and regulatory domain functionality is… iffy… at best
• plenty of more fun
• chances for any of this getting fixed, zero
  (courtesy of the big and EOLed proprietary firmware and the out-of-tree driver which didn't want to stand mainline scrutiny)
• security is questionable, it's EOL and not going (and hasn't been for at least two years now) to be fixed for newly found issues (fragattacks?)

IF all of your client devices can interoperate with mwlwifi, this can work well and fast - but that 'if' is spelled in capital letters (and only holds true until you, your family or visitors bring home a device mwlwifi doesn't like).

[Hotelk]

Okay, thank you very much for the information, now it's clearer.

So Netgear r7800 is much better than Linksys wrt3200? with the absence of all the problems from above, with the same processor power

[slh]

In terms of AES encryption/ decryption performance, wrt3200acm/ wrt32x and r7800/ nbg6817 are roughly on par, tiny advantage to r7800/ nbg6817, but minimal. I can't guarantee that either will sustain 100 MBit/s OpenVPN traffic, but r7800/ nbg6817 are well supported and pretty solid.

Linksys e8450/ Belkin rt3200 (same device, same manufacturer, just different product labels) might be worth looking at as well, but its OpenWrt support is still very new and not quite as mature and settled as for the ipq806x devices mentioned before.

[Hotelk]

Thanks for the advice, now I am leaning towards buying the Zyxel Armor Z2 Router (NBG6817-EU0101F) as it is in my city and it suits me. The question is, does OpenWrt work well on it? Is this firmware stable for him?

[Hotelk]

Zyxel Armor Z2 Router (NBG6817- EU0101F)