I can recommend the Netgear R6220 which is supported since 18.06. It is MT7621 based and has 128MB RAM, 128MB flash (newer versions only 64MB), 802.11ac (up to 867MBps), 802.11n (up to 300MBps), 4 GBps LAN ports, 1 GBps WAN port. Available for ~40-50 EUR. It is worth the price.
OpenWrt is missing flash layouts for newer versions in the 18.06.1 release. The issue has been analysed already and the new flash layouts are available for creating new images:
It is possible to build your own images based on the required changes but I hope that those changes will find their way into future images provided on the OpenWrt website.
B) The Edgerouter X is £50 but lacks wireless, and the Zyxel NBG6617 is £75 and has 2x2 AC1300 radios.
Well, from my point of view, I always look to have dedicated APs inside my network (usually they are CPE routers with bridged WiFi) and dedicated routers with no wifi at the edge.
That way a fatal mistake playing with a wifi box config when drunk at 3am doesn't leave you disconnected for the internet, and a mistake in a routing or firewall config doesn't leave you unable to access your local resources over wifi while you work out what you did wrong.
Often I use identical devices for both roles if I don't need top performance, so in a pinch I can reconfigure one box to do routing OR wifi OR both. (there's a certain re-assurance that comes from having several identical devices to flash up in case you make a mistake or bad config decision - my main reason for using cheaper CPE whenever possible)
I find most cheap CPE (sorry - CPE is customer premises equipment - the free routers the ISPs provide) to be fine for Wifi AP use so cost isn't really an issue if you use common ones bought on Ebay.
For 50 quid I looked at the Edgerouter X myself - my use case is needing relatively fast site-site OpenVPN links, though I obtained a few BT HomeHub 5's instead at a good price so didn't buy a ER-X.
Here's my main point - the lack of wifi on the ER-X wouldn't be a big deal for me - like I say I have plenty of cheaper wifi boxes to spread around.
Also, VPN servers are much less of a problem when there's no NAT or even double-NAT to fight against, so it makes sense for a VPN endpoint (and a fast one at that) to be on the edge of your network. From a security management point of view I also prefer my edge routers to be only running the minimal needed to perform their role, so things like NAS, TFTP, SSH gateways etc I prefer to do inside my network on other boxes.
Just because you can add every service including kitchensinkd to your main router doesn't mean to say it is a good idea. I used to make a lot of errors going mad like that in my early days.
Sorry for slow reply but that's my own philosphy in a nutshell a when it comes to wifi-less devices - FWIW
Using here TPlink 1043 N v5
Works very stable with Lede / OpenWRT 18.06
Except for 1 thing. OPENVPN doesn't give more than 16Mbit (vpn service can go up to 300Mbit)
Are there other cheap routers that supply up to 100Mbit in OPENWRT / OPENVPN / NordVPN ?
For 100 MBit/s of encrypted VPN traffic (and OpenVPN is particularly slow/ demanding for hardware ressources), you need a very beefy router CPU, ideally x86_64 or highend ARM; neither of those are cheap (~200 EUR and more).
https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/globalscale/globalscale_espressobin_v5_0_1
Marvell Armada 3700LP (88F3720) dual core ARM Cortex A53 processor up to 1.2GHz
50 $ (1Go) 80 $ (2Go)
3 LAN GB
SATA
1xUSB2
1xUSB3
1xuSD
1xTTL (console) uUSB
GPIO
mPCIe (optional WiFi)
All maintained in Open Source way by Marvell
I have three TP-Link TL-WR810N units. I think they're ace. The built-in mains plug and power supply means no messing about with USB power cables; just plug it into the wall socket, and go.
I have two which travel with me: one which connects to hotel wireless networks and provides an Ethernet connection and a 5V USB socket so I can power an Edimax 8-port switch, and a second one which connects to it and offers a wireless hotspot to my hotel room. The third one stays at home and acts as an inbound VPN server for out-of-band access to my network in case my main WAN connection drops and I need to interrogate the devices while away from home to find out why.
The 8MB flash is easy to fill up if you're enthusastic with packages, but setting up extroot with a tiny USB stick is trivially easy to do.
I have a GL-MT300N as well as its successor, the imaginatively-named GL-MT300N-V2. I'm eagerly awaiting the release version of the latest OpenWRT for the V2 device. They're slightly more powerful than the TP-Link devices, but have to be powered with a standard micro USB cable, so they're not quite as convenient.
I also, inevitably, have a VoCore2, just because.
They're all good, and all meet different needs, but my favourite is the TP-Link, solely because of the integrated plug and PSU.
Among other "tweaks", the AR750S provides GigE, in contrast to the AR750 with 100BASE-T
They may have pushed me over the edge to buy another router than I don't really need
(Bah, getting through checkout there's a US $10 shipping charge at this time.)
If anyone owns one of these already, would you PM me?
I assume your seemingly out-of-context post is a follow-on to your previous question
Answered at that point in the thread, it continues to be pretty much "no" -- nothing I have seen in this category of wireless routers in late 2018 has enough CPU power to encrypt more than a couple dozen Mbps with the AES ciphers, or something in the 50-100 Mbps range for the ChaCha20 cipher (such as WireGuard uses). Transport cost of the encrypted packets is minimal by comparison to encryption.
Here's an internet speed test taken earlier this evening. This is from a computer connected via Cat6 to a gigabit switch which is connected to a LAN port on the router. Wifi is slower, averaging under 300mbps. But I'm happy with this ethernet performance at the moment, from a router that didn't set me back much.
I need a dual band accespoint for a satellite receiver, which doesn't have wifi. Wifi reception is very bad there, but I would like to use videostreaming.
Even if you're just looking for an AP, I'd rather suggest an ipq40xx device (e.g. AVM Fritz!Box 4040 or ZyXEL nbg6617) for just about the same price instead, quad-core ARMv7 CPU and newer (wave2) wireless chipsets.
I ordered an AVM Fritz! Powerline 1220E Set, but I fear it doesn't work in my old house. I chose AVM because I read TP-Link don't work with ipv6, although delivery time is 1-3 months for AVM. I think I am coming back to this discussion.
It looks like that AVM 4040 is not so easy to flash with openwrt, read something about soldering. ZyXEL nbg6617 looks better for me, but is a lot more expensive here. Maybe the price falls in the next time, when the new Armor 2 is more available. 1-3 NBG6817 I will choose in a next step. when I exchange old TP-Link TL- WR1043ND which do not have dualband.
Installing should be possible without soldering or using a serial console, by using the bootloader's recovery mechanism (a ftpd like implementation), which takes the EVA image.
Great discussion.
I was looking for a cheap travel router compatible with OpenWRT, which is the only firmware allowing the following combination
cheap router
small router, easy to pack into travel bag
VPN split tunneling
strong cpu for VPN split tunneling for media streaming
good sensitivity to capture hotel wifi on 2.4 GHz via travelmate (captive portal)
optional: broadcast on 5 GHz (or alternatively use virtual 2.4 GHz AP or USB 2.4 GHz)
The best turned out to be AVM Fritz 4040 and with the help of chunkeey (ath10k-firmware, 18.06.1) it runs perfectly , unfortunately it was not cheap
30 MBit/s down/upload as repeater with openvpn aes-128-cbc turned on
Initially I bought a Youhua WR1200JS with Mediatek MT7621AT, MT7603 (2.4GHz), MT7612 (5GHz) for 30 bucks, with MT7621AT suggesting fast aes-xxx-cbc
BUT as wireless repeater the 2.4 GHz doesn't work as wifi client (STA) with broadcom wifi as wifi source to connect to,
and 2.4GHz drops sometimes and restarts (tested as AP to verify whats going on)
-> i.e. I cannot rely on it as travel router
it works with atheros wifi as wifi source (no idea for how long)
openvpn aes-128-cbc as repeater with atheros wifi source (2.4GHz as wifi client, 5Ghz as AP) is around 20 MBit/s (fast enough for media streaming !)
-> so I don't know if one day MT7603 will be able to connect as wifi client to broadcom wifi source or if this will be forever due to broadcom ?
Maybe my experience helps, depending on your requirements.
, unfortunately it was not cheap 