Most of routers are still in snapshots, the ones with stable OpenWRT are with less ROM. I would like to use a router with >=128 MB and has USB port for my future USB dongle to use 4G as my main WAN. I'm still considering between Xiaomi, Gl.inet (AX1800), and Belkin. Is there any AX router with >=128 MB ROM and stable with OpenWRT yet. Which one should I buy now?
I'm considering using a device that already supported the official OpenWRT firmware (not snapshot). It's difficult to choose between Raspberry Pi 4 and Xiaomi R3G to run OpenWrt. For R4, I need to buy an extra USB to LAN cable, and the price of R4 in my country is about $100. On the other hand, Xiaomi R3G is only $20, no extra USB to LAN cable of course. I know the flexibility of R4, but the price of the R3G is very affordable as well.
For AX your choices are still not good. Best to use a performant ARM or x64 OpenWrt supported box (like the NanoPie R4S or R5S) and plug-in wifi 6 APs like the U6-Lite-US. Anyway if you want a router then look at MediaTek or Qualcomm IPQ8074 based devices where support should get better once the project moves to kernel 5.15, maybe with the 23.0x release. Stay away from Broadcom which no longer supports open source for wireless.
I prefer the simplicity, that's why I want an all-in-one router and access point. Currently, I convert my ISP modem to a converter although it's bulky. I just don't want to add two other ones into my home network setup.
Currently, I'm using ASUS AX58U with ASUS-WRT Merlin firmware. It's enough for most of my needs. The disadvantage of my current setup is the ASUS router does not support Wire-guard yet and the instability of the router to reboot randomly. Therefore, I'm looking for another setup with OpenWRT. Before ASUS, I was trying AX1800 Flint from Gl.inet. Frankly, the official firmware of this router is not mature at the point I tested it. Recently, the devs released the beta which based on 21.02 OpenWRT. I'm not sure it's stable yet. Finding a AX router that supports OPENwrt is already limited, the one with stable functions is even more difficult.
I seperated out my wifi and routing to avoid crap like this. running an AC-Lite ubiquiti AP and its on their firmware. But i could switch to OpenWrt if they EOL it. Wifi6 standards still arent fully set and now they are talking about wifi7. Honestly just get a decent AP and hook it into your OpenWrt network. Then its separate and can be swapped in or out as required/upgraded.
The EA8450 and it's RT3200 sibling are very popular but installation isn't the easiest.
That being said, I have no issues with my 802.11ax EAP615-Wall. Drop-in replacement for my EAP235, easy peasy. Lots of people seem to be rather happy with MediaTek AX stuff. Me included, so far.
It isn't too bad as long as you follow the instructions. The github for it explains it really well. I have 2 RT3200 devices that I hammer every day with traffic with offloading enabled and I can't seem to make them crash or oops.
I am running snapshots from this week though, but I'm going to keep one of them on this week's build to make sure it can stay running without a reboot every week or so with a new build.
They seem to be hard to find now, and the signal reach isn't the best, but I've been impressed with the little router/AP that could.
The new Synology RT6600AX looks promising. Nice design and great SoC via the IPQ6018. Qualcomm based, so should someday have good OpenWrt support, although probably not until kernel 5.15 move happens and ath11k (their open source mac80211 wifi6 driver) matures. Maybe 1+ years away realistically.
No one has even started working on ipq60xx so far, while it will profit from the efforts going into ipq807x, it will also require more dedicated porting as well. 1 year is probably overly optimistic.
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