Cudy WR3000H or Linksys MR5500?

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I’m looking to replace my aging OpenWrt router which only supports WiFi 5 and has a rather weak CPU

I’ve looked for ease of installation of OpenWrt, the specifications of various routers within my budget, and I’ve narrowed it down to the two in the title, which of these is better? The Cudy missing one ethernet port would be slightly annoying but workable

Does the Qualcomm in the Linksys bring performance benefits due to being able to use HOF?

2

where are you located, there might be better options for you out there.

budget ?

3

I’m in the UK, top end of the budget is £65, those are both available used on eBay

4

if you don't mind getting your hands dirty (no easy flashing) - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/306903566330.
pretty rewarding though, great hw for the price asked.

5

Is it guaranteed to be flashable? If the e-fuse has gone so it wont pick up the uboot image, can you go back to stock at that point or is it toast?

6

AFAIK we've never had one of those, locked down boot loader and stuff, yes, unflashable, no.
we had people coming here after failed installs, but they seldom tell us what they've done (or don't know) to make it happen.

7

Someone bought it, hope it was you.

8

Cudy with Mediatek - get that one. The MR5500 has an IPQ5018 processor which is very wek and NSS does NOT work on either openwrt or DDWRT. Consider the MR5500 a broken router - I have one. the Linksys MR5500 your looking at wifi max maybe 280 or 290 download speeds max of 5 Ghz. Even the MR7350 with the IPQ6028 AX1800 is getting at least 480 to 500 download speeds without NSS.

So yes get the MediaTek Cudy

9

I went with the WR3000H as I want an easy life, thank you for the suggestion though, I did look into it quite thoroughly before deciding I just wanted to go down easy street