Server/Client routers for OpenVPN/Wireguard. R7000 or RT-AX86U?

Hello everybody,

Unfortunately, my work currently requires me to live in 2 houses, so I'm having trouble with streaming services and I want to solve on my own.

I'm thinking of installing a server router with OpenVPN or Wireguard in my main house, and the other client router in my second home.

I’m looking for buying a cheap second-hand one, as it is only going to be used for streaming services traffic. For now it will only be used by 1 client, but I would like it to be capable of managing at least 2-3 clients simultaneously. Not special Wi-Fi range/speed capabilities needed.

What do you think of the Netgear R7000 or the Asus RT-AX86U? Will they have enough power? Any other recommendations? I appreciate cheap and small routers.

Thanks in advance for an answer.

Being Broadcom devices, both are equally bad, from an Openwrt point of view,

Did you check the ToH, it will tell you all the details?

As frollic implied, support for the former is very basic (wireless limited to 54 MBit/s and crap in all capital letters), the later won't ever get (wireless-) support (and isn't right now at all, nor likely to be).

As already mentioned, strike anything Broadcom based from your search.

Sorry, I didn't know about the low support in Broadcom chips. I've been getting a much better look at the OpenWRT ToH and wiki.

Routers based on Qualcomm IPQ8064 / IPQ8065 CPU (like Linksys EA7500 or Netgear R7800) would be a good choice? Or would you recommend routers based on other CPU?

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_ax-wifi

I'd stay away from everything < 128MB flash.

1 Like

ipq806x was a high-end target with good OpenWrt support, if you have a supported device or can get one cheap in the used markets, it will do you good service. But if you're buying new, for the full price, there more modern 802.11ax based devices already (mt7622bv, filogic 830, ipq807x) - depends on your requirements, expectations budget and rough location (availability and pricing differs between countries, a lot)

1 Like

Go for wired x86 router plus nice ceiling accesspoint , with pfsense/opnsense You can do site to site wireguard with ease.

I was looking for something budget on second-hand market, x86 and 802ax routers are out of my budget.

Discarded those routers, the best option remaining seems to be ipq806x, so I think I’ll probably go with Linksys EA7500 v1, which is the cheapest I can find in Europe. Plus, it’s a bit smaller and cheaper than Netgear R7800.

If you can think of a better alternative, it's always appreciated.

Thank you all very much.