Hello, my first post.
Setup: A gateway (they do much more than just "route" so I do not call them "routers") enables my LAN which are all wired devices. It's connected through the WAN port to a FiOS modem/gateway where all my wireless devices reside (none of my serious computer hobby devices, just security, cell phones and company computers reside here). No wireless devices on my wired network. Upstream of the modem/gateway is a fast Verizon FiOS line and the Internet.
History: After over 10 years with my Linksys LRT214 as the LAN gateway, it started to require every day reboots as it forgot devices permanently binded to its LAN IP addresses. I got a N150 mini PC a year before but I could NOT make sense of OPNSense and pfSense. I had a Linksys WRT3200ACM and installed dd-wrt long ago but it was unpredictable in use. The code had not been recently updated as well.
I needed a VPN and wanted it in the LAN gateway so I added that to the list of the capabilities the new gateway had to do. While searching to learn and improve the use of the WRT3200ACM (I had given up on the mini PC and the two software apps that didn't make SENSE!) I came across OpenWRT.
After a couple months of learning and searching and trying OpenWRT, it has just worked. Did it all over again after I upgraded to a GL-MT6000 Flint 2 gateway. Everything continued to work as I learned earlier (good thing, I had to re-enter everything since the WRT3200ACM config would not work in the Flint 2). I wanted to say thank you to all OpenWRT supporters and developers.
As a moderator on the XigmaNAS forums, I also appreciate forum moderators and supporters.