Modern, cheap, reliable, and easy to flash low power 4 port device to use as a smart switch

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

I need to small smart switch. What is a good choice that is modern, cheap, reliable, and easy to flash (native flash no serial port)? Only requirements are 4 G-LAN ports and one uplink. I don't need wireless at all.

2

Hmm, if low cost is an overriding factor, then maybe consider a commodity all-in-one and just never turn on the radios? Something like a Netgear WAX206 gets you a nice switch with 1x 2.5GbE WAN and 4x 1GbE for the LAN side in a not-too horrible package. Getting a managed/smart switch without radios will probably cost as much or more, and almost certainly will be harder to set up.

3

Archer A6 can be had for $40 on amazon and less on ebay. It has 4xGbit LAN + WAN. Just be sure you get the right version/the shiny one is not the right version.

4

Speed is no requirement? No gigabit VPN ambitions?

5

I don't think we're quite on the same page, as

vs

are opening this up for discussion...

Do you need a managed switch (incapable of routing) or a wired-only, cheap router?

For the former, there are pretty nice rtl838x based devices found rather cheap on the used markets.

For the later, any of the supported semi-contemporary devices will do, however if those actually meet your requirements remain unknown, as your listed requirements are way to vague to give any kind of meaningful advice (among other things, we really need to know the expected WAN speed and -type the router needs to provide, as well as any additional services you want it to cover).

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6

Just a managed switch. I need a few extra ports that will use VLANs is all.

7

8- to 52 port 1 GBit/s switches are supported by the realtek/ rtl838x target, e.g. ZyXEL gs1900-8 (limited flash size, but easily and cheaply available second hand; there are more options). You will find further information about target and devices in here and the wiki, rtl838x is well supported, rtl839x should be fine as well - rtl93xx (multi-gig switches) would be very experimental though.

8

(probably) a somewhat complete list of supported switches.

9

Some are easier to flash than others, so check the details for each potential candidate in detail before.

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10

Netgear GS308t, GS108v3 and ZyXEL GS1900-8 are my small OpenWrt-powered switches.

As an alternative about any used OpenWrt capable router can be used as a simple managed switch - I'm sure you can find one for (nearly) free on the used market.