Advice me please some device:
- Four or more LANs
- Performance like Raspberry Pi B3+ or greater
- With OpenWRT support, obviously
- WiFi not required.
Main purpose for: NAT routing several WAN connection to LAN, with traffic balancing.
"Performance like Raspberry Pi" is ambiguous. The Raspberry Pi has lots of CPU power but is terrible at networking.
I'd also suggest the Edgerouter X if ISP speed (total) is less than 150 Mbps. This is built around a MT7621 chip which is dual core MIPS. The Mikrotik RB750Gr3 is the same hardware as Edgerouter X for a similar price-- it adds a USB port as well but plastic case instead of metal.
If your really want / need high CPU performance look at the Banana Pi or x86 stuff but that will be considerably more expensive. In the middle is WRT3200 or 32X, those are dual core ARM. It also has wireless which you don't need, but the 32X is often found on sale for less than $100. It's a very solid performer for that price especially in a wired role, since the compatibility issues are about the 5 GHz wifi.
Of course you can add managed switches to expand your wired ports.
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https://openwrt.org/toh/start?dataflt[0]=LEDE%20supported%20current%20rel_%3D17.01.4
Take your pick.
How much do you pay for Internet ? Aka: How much do you really want to try to create pain for yourself buying a cheap router compared to the price you are paying for the link its operating on ?
I would give up on non-x86 routers just because one way or the other you'll have more limitations. On x86 OpenWrt, you can easily add non-OpenWrt software, such as network management tools, web-servers etc. pp. And you have enough CPU for all different encryptions at resonable rates (500 Mbps, maybe 1 Gbps). IPsec, OpenVPN, OpenConnect, HTTPs, whatever you want.
If you don't care for an attractive case, i would probably go for the ODroid H2. one WAN link, one LAN link to connect to an L2 switch. Why would a router need more ports if you can use VLANs ?
As i don't have experience with OpenWrt on x86 myself yet and i like good cases, i've went for a 4xGigE x86 router on aliexpress using J3160 CPU, 4GB mem/64GB SSD - $230. Thats two CPU generations and 30% slower than the J4105, but at least i could buy it now and have 3 local LANs in case the VLANs are too ugly to configure in OpenWrt on a single LAN port.
With a TDP of 6W, these newer x86 boxes do IMHO compete well with dedicated router HW, and by now, my 100Gbs switches supporting PoE probably are the worst energy hogs anyhow. So that just leaves price of the box and available nice HW packaging for x86 as the main points of contention.
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You will not be able to get an H2 before ~May, and I doubt that will happen.
Yes, Intel backlog on goldemont+ CPU, i know. But i wouldn't buy it anyhow unless someone came up with a nice case. More a recommendation for someone wanting to save $100 or who likes to drive a naked PCB.
In december i bought on amazon a Kodlix GL41 2xGigE MiniPC 8GB/64GB (mem/flash) N4100 for ca. $240. Vendor told me those should be available mid march again. Sounds as if Intel might hae started shipping again. Who knows.
I have 2 ISP both, connected at truly 100mbps, in Ukraine it very cheap, maybe you wouldn't believe me...
But first cost 5$/month, second 4$/month
Total 9$ per month 
Earlyer I used router with balancing TP-Link TL-ER5120
torrent download speed was 14-16 Megabyte/s
But internal CPU of this device was loaded at 100% and others task very lags.
As wifi AP used TP-Link Archer C-9(HW5), but on HW5 there is only stock firmware, it does not support OpenWRT nor DD-WRT.
OpenVPN I connected from my Ubuntu PC.
So, I bought 2 devices:
Ubiquti EdgeRouter X
Linksys WRT32X
Installed OpenWRT on both devices without any problems.
Settuped mwan3 for balancing.
EdgeRouter X - torrent dowload speed 21-22 Megabyte/sec, CPU useage 50%, others task runs smoothly.
It even more then I expeted!
Awesome device, for this cost, the best price-quality ratio.
WRT32X - torrent dowload speed is the same, 21-22 Megabyte/sec, CPU usage: first core(5-15%) second(15-25%).
Parallel web surfing is smooth, but it seems not so smooth like at EdgeRouter X
But I decided to keep Linksys WRT32X because in this case I can refuse from Archer C9(as access point).
And now will play with traffic control prioritization.
P.S. Never buy TP-Link TL-ER5120 - fully disappointed me.
P.P.S. In addition, I conducted testing OpenVPN connection.
Connections speed to ISP on both sides 100Mbps
On server side real PC server.
For testing used IPerf 2.10
On client side:
So performance of WRT32X is comparable with x86
Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion.
Maybe you have some additional to say.
3 Likes
Good results. I went with a WRT32X because it's $100 refurb on Amazon. Great value, and other than some minor bugs with wifi it's an incredible performing router. Runs a custom OpenWrt from Linksys, has dual boot, good OpenWrt from here, and good DD-WRT support too. The USB 3.0 storage read/writes at ~80MB/s too and WAN-LAN and WLAN is all very fast.
Unfortunately in Ukraine the price of WRT32X is 193$
EdgeRouter X normal price 50$
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