Router recommendations UK

Hardware Questions and Recommendations
1

Hi folks,
I'm moving into a new place soon and looking to overhaul my current router setup. ISP is providing FTTP at 150Mb and are offering a cheaper plan if I bring my own router rather than renting theirs.

My network already has a 24 port gigabit switch and a pretty decent second hand server running a NAS, adblock/DHCP, a VPN, etc, so all I really need from the router is for it to:

  • Act as a dual band WAP,
  • set firewall rules,
  • set up VLANs
  • forward ports
  • other basic router stuff.

Would also be nice to have CLI and web access too.

Budget is £60 or so, but willing to go higher if needs be. It would also be nice if I don't have to spend weeks hunting down a specific hardware revision or flashing firmware!

Any reccomendations are greatly appreciated, thank you :slight_smile:

2

How are the import tolls to UK from EU ?

3

Not ideal unfortunately, best I could find was something like triple MSRP without shipping costs.

4

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi
go to local electronics store, check for one.

5

Zyxel NWA50AX currently £69.99

6

Openwrt/ pfsense/ opnsense/ tomato64 as vm? Zero costs.

1 Like
7

Ended up going with a TP-Link Archer C7 AC1750 v5 off Ebay - looks like it hits all the points I need it to.

8

That one would not have been a recommendation to buy in 2025 anymore…
150 MBit/s WAN speed is also pretty close to its maximum.

The device (and its OpenWrt support) is solid, no reason to replace if you already own it (with adapted expectations to its maximum performance), but there are much better (wifi6) options on the market these days.

9

depends on what you paid for it, obviously, at 5£ it might have been a decent deal, at 20, not so much.

10

Obviously, but even the new/ delivered prices for ax3000t (with a lot of caveats concerning the new h/w revisions) and your example/ go-to device reduce the acceptable price range for an archer c7 quite significantly… It would have to be extremely cheap to remain worthwhile (and even then, the margins for 150 MBit/s would imho be too close for comfort, because you will hit the limit with the next tier wan speed upgrade).

11

I mean, I really don't need ridiculously fast local wireless or internet speeds or anything, so I reckon it'll probably do the job just fine. Might even end up keeping it stock and seeing how it fares like that for a bit.

Also, for future reference, this thread seems like a much better, more up-to-date list of the sort of thing I was looking for; go figure I find this after I buy the one from Ebay. Maybe this should be added to the "which router should I buy" wiki page?

12

As you noticed, bargains are usually pretty regional - and varies over time (a decade ago, the archer c7 was the king of the road), so it is hard to give advice.