I'm about to test some routers to replace the dozens of WHR-HP-G300N acting as StrongSWAN VPN router.
the most important thing for me is to be able to install OpenWrt easily. no need USB TTL , no need speicifed firmware (which is not easy to find in web) , and easily install breed. and of course , BIGGER ROM/RAM .
My budget range is between $100 and $200 . The first option that comes to my mind is ubiquiti edgerouter (maybe ER-X or some other higher models )
and I'm also considering about netgear R7800 (but it's not easy to find brand new machines)
Do you have any other recommended models ??
and I want to use WireGuard as my site-to-site VPN solution
I think the Edgerouter X can now be installed with a SSH session. It's not as easy as something with TFTP recovery, but since you're talking dozens of units not thousands it should be manageable.
The ER-Lite is an old model that is still in production but I don't think it has quite as much CPU power as the ER-X and also costs about twice as much.
Either of these are considerably faster than the WHR-HP-G300N, but not super fast. If you're also moving to higher ISP speeds you'd want an ARM CPU.
EdgeRouter Lite is Cavium as well, but yeah, they're rather pricey new. It's a 500 MHz Octeon Plus MIPS64 dualcore. The EdgeRouter X is an MT7621 MIPS dualcore at 880 MHz.
@changchichung The Gl.iNet MV1000 might be interesting, it's a 1 GHz Marvell ARM SoC, no wireless though (I wouldn't buy the wireless version of it either; it's just an old radio they added in). That should cover your StrongSWAN VPN needs though (unless you have really high WAN speeds). If you buy anything with a Marvell SoC, get a separate access point since the Marvell wireless drivers are dead in the water it seems.
Another option for an all-in-one device might be the Gl.iNet GL-S1300, IPQ4019 ARM SoC:
That being said, I don't know if either of those Gl.iNet devices have an easy bootloader recovery. They tend to be well supported though, GL.iNet sticks pretty close to OpenWrt mainline.
I think I'm impressed with the MV1000 , I don't really need wireless since this router should be a simple gwatey and vpn box.
and even better , mv1000 is preinstalled openwrt ? that's really cool ! save the trouble of installing openwrt from uboot / TFTP . and it's quite cheap !
BUT (yeah , there's always but ...)
it's not available in Taiwan. I will see if I can buy from amazon or taobao maybe.
It's not vanilla OpenWrt but like I said they stay pretty close to upstream OpenWrt. And they contribute support for their own newer hardware directly to OpenWrt often.
I can't recommend these highly enough
Wavlink WL-WN575A3
You can get them on Amazon for £27-£30
802.11ac - very simple to put openwrt on (power on with the wps button pressed, it will try and load firmware.bin from a tftp server on 192.168.10.x).
I bought one, so pleased with 19.07.05 running on it that I ordered another.