Agreed, but its plenty large enough to match up with a capable used item for sale in short order. Perhaps add the NBG6817 and C2600 to that list too.
There are some newer options among mediatek and ramips (MT7621) targets as well, but few choices among the former and the latter's CPU might soon be outgrown. There are some real bargains to be had with used ipq401x targets; however, having experimented with those myself, I can now recommend with hindsight skipping over their slower CPU and wonky switch and going straight to faster ipq806x targets that have good OpenWrt switch support.
I think one or two of these (WDS or wired together) would be the easiest solution. It'll just work.
Can shape around 350Mbit/s if you need CAKE and I see WiFi transfer rates in excess of 800Mbit/s between nodes in my house.
They are so cheap that you can easily get full house strong WiFi coverage with fast transition by wirelessly connecting them together over WDS. I have three in my house to cover large three floor house with metre thick walls and garden.
PC or RPi4 may seem fun but I think life might be easier with fully integrated solution that has big user base and active development. With RPi4 you need so many little parts and external WiFi access point for decent WiFi.
Although no official release yet 22.03 is just around the corner and things are at a pretty mature state with the 22.03 snapshot branch.
I highly recommend reviewing the Netgear Nighthawk X45 R7800-100NAS.
It's a fast, stable, dual-core router. I have over a dozen of them running and I don't have any problems with them.
I have several (family) sites I manage. Each site is configured with a primary router plus one or more dumb APs for coverage (we live on farms). All of these devices are R7800s running OpenWrt 21.02.3 with zero issues. The primary routers also run WireGuard VPN, BanIP, VnStat, and Netlink Bandwidth Monitor. They also use USB thumb drives for storing data (VnStat, BW Monitor, etc) and to keep a local backup copy of the config files. Some are configured to use Cable Modem while others use Cellular. Mine has Cable Modem as a primary device with a Cellular backup. WiFi support is rock solid. It's not uncommon for our routers to run 6-8 months before they are rebooted (which is typically caused by extended power outages).
As for speed, I can stably achieve speeds of 350 Mb/s via Cable Modem. That's the max I can test because I'm capped at that download speed.
If you are patient enough you can pick up R7800-100NAS's used on eBay for around USD $50-60 each. They typically sell for around USD $80 each. Don't be fooled with getting the odd models that appear similar. The R7800-100NAS model is the top of the line router in its model class. The others have (like R7600, R7400, etc) are cheaper variants that have reduced capability.
Pros:
Stable
Well supported by OpenWRT
Solid Wifi support
Robust
Fast
Cons:
No WiFi 6
Older router
I don't care about WiFi 6 right now because it's too new. Few things support it right now. Like you, we require compatibility and stability.
That does look like a good choice.
I'm still looking through the many suggestions.
i do like the "stripped" down x86 + AP solution. I don't think the power consumption is too bad. My zyxel router (included with DSL service and terrible) is about 30W. I think an SBC of some sort could easily be kept < 30W. The AP would then add a little, but overall if i choose carefully i figure i could break even.
Right now my thought is to go with the Netgear, or the Belkin, and see how well that works standalone.
The other thing that i forgot about because i had an idiot moment, is that i have a synology. it may be i can use the synology as my router. I'm thinking that's probably not a good idea, but since i have it and it's on most of the time i should probably look into it.
my preference is to use x86 systems (compact) with low power consumption and additional ethernet cards. i got a embedded devices with 3 ethernet ports and 2 usb ports from PC ENGINES. Really good and stable, but pricey.
Also i got from ebay a Fujitsu Q920 for ~25€ and i am waiting the quadport ethernet card.
Depending on your requirements, there are also quite a few used (small) enterprise firewall and UTM x86_64 based devices with 4+ ethernet ports. While the cheap ones are better avoided (ancient VIA CPUs), the more interesting ones come with baytrail-d (j1900) or c25xx/ c35xx SOCs, e.g. from Sophos, Barracuda or gateprotect and are quite capable with OpenWrt.
This is the age old question, I think current the right answer is an older device like R7800, WRT3200ACM, WRT32X, or newer (but slower cpu) RT3200. I'll throw in a couple ideas in ---
I use the WRT32X (same hardware as WRT3200ACM), I got for $120 off Amazon Renewed like 4 years ago. Currently it has a 220 day uptime working flawless on OpenWrt 21.02 w/kernel 5.10 added. In a more central area in my house I added a U6-Lite-US ($100 wifi 6 ap) plugged into the router via Cat6. It works perfect together. I also have a 2TB USB 3.0 external drive plugged into the router for a Kodi movie storage that gets 100 MB/s read-write, and SQM cake enabled with my 500/35 Mbit cable modem, zero bufferbloat, along with adblock. The CPU is still quite fast in this device, it's a fast and stable setup.
Another idea is the new NanoPi R5S (has 2x 2.5Gbe ports), 5-port 2.5Gbe switch, and a U6-Lite-US access point, and PoE injector (4 items, $250 total). Using distro called FriendlyWrt is based off of OpenWrt 22.03-rc, eventually it should be supported here natively. This would be a faster solution that is still very low power.
I wouldn't do x64 at this point unless maybe a ~$350 J4125 Celeron / 4x Intel I225-V based mini PC (there are many on Amazon). Those can run OpenWrt. Otherwise no, because new ARM chips have gotten fast enough to run SQM at 1Gbit and are way lower power consumption.
i think FASTER was the correct word to use.
what i wanted to say is : if it's about buying a NEW x86 device, better go for the faster one for a few extra $$$, and we can even find N5105 device for the price of those J4125.
Yes they are faster, but my point with x64 (aka x86-64) is power consumption at idle/low loads is more than needed to do routing compared to ARM, save for the Intel J4125.
See that review, they recommend the N5105 but not the new higher CPUs because of power consumption. You can be using 5-10W with ARM, 10-15W with a J4125, but these higher chips are using 30W. Too much when my WRT32X stays under 10W and does Routing, Firewall, Samba at 100 MB/s, SQM cake at 500 Mb/s, Adblock, etc. ARM devices like that or the NanoPi R5S is plenty for OpenWrt.
For x64 boxes, Intel seems to be ignoring power consumption the last few years, these new 'low power' chips draw more, (all the way up to their 12th gen Alder Lake which draws 20% more power than the latest Ryzen 5800X or 5900X). For x64 the J4125 is still the way to go. A nice mini PC box with Intel J4125, 4x I225-V (2.5Gbe, kmod-igc driver), and USB3 ports at $300 is also a great buy no doubt.
