any new comers reading this :
in terms of difficulty [ define by me as, time taken to update, setup, wireless and with Adguard home ]
- Gl-iNet routers, especially the travel axt1800, any problems, a quick 15sec button hold does the trick,
setting up, is not hard , especially compared to [ firewalla/ asusmerlin/ Ubiquity ]
its the easiest and most fun i had, from start to finish to daily driving
the HK company really hit home run in terms of functionality and support, unlike Firewalla, with snobs all the time [ im better at coding, therefore this newbie ask stupid question SHOOT ! ]
- next one, is ironically, the Firewalla, purple, to be specific , as fairly difficult, to setup and run out of the box
because it has its own IPS/IDS with adblocking [ though limited] , its a mini-pro-sumer style sorts of all-in-one travel security
however, once dockers are in, and you start trying out and customizing, Firewalla's terminal [ im a macOS user ] , goes through the roof, if you're not use to [ Dockers ] , its even harder and takes LONGER setup, than having [ with mutiple experiences setup with pals, asusmerlin with custom adguard ]
- last, in terms of time and overall difficulty would be asus merlin,
though its rather straight forward,
the [ messy setup ] from the interwebs, made me , create the all in one thread here, which is still used as reference [ even for myself, when i have to update my buddies' home router ]
the difficulty lies in , pre-work configuration [ knowing which routers are supported and how well ]
getting used to cmd / terminal, ssh remote in, and to setup on the asus router's GUI page first ]
this with the need to run through script by script, asusmerlin customs, are really the uniquely difficult [ starter all in one router ]
as with
@TanKianW mentioned in his thread, [ Gl-iNet + OpenWRT , specifically LuCI ] makes it a breeze to " rebound back if a mistake is occured"
Asus merlin, isnt as forgiving, as the router needs to be manually factory reset, and the re-setting of wireless is chewing up 20mins, total, to optimize, + AMTM from the terminal / ssh of merlin, needs time , and total of 1hr plus mostly
again, users who are new, asus routers with support and supportedby merlin, are still great choices, if you're coming from wifi 4/.5
but one has a cheap china, xiaomi- wifi 6 as AP, the GL-slate x or their quad-core line of products would pretty much blow asus out of the water due to functionality with flexibility , including ease of setup
GLi-net certainly does a good job by customizing OpenWRT to make it easier to use by end users.
And they do have a model without WiFI (GL-MT2500 aka, Brume 2), which may be a better option if you intend to use it as the main router for home network. Slate AX and Beryl AX may be more suitable as travel router.
However, I am more interested to use official OpenWRT distribution myself. I tried to use my Raspberry Pi 400 (by adding a USB gigabit Ethernet adapter from Ugreen) and it worked pretty well. Then I switched to the Intel J4105 Mini PC as it can run more stuff than the Raspberry Pi 400.
Was looking at Qnap until the price-tag clothesline-and-pedigree my face into the floor mentally [ i short its pricy a.f for wifi6 with specific use case ]
i would avoid using non quad-core CPU, should flexibility comes , 02x slate axt-1800, [ one for home router, one for travel ] is still cheaper and more powerful than standalone setup
[ that was my original intend , for Firewalla purple, with its inbuilt IDS/IPS , but became obsolete due to pricing and the dockers not really that harmonious when setting up
Have been recommending it before COVID travel reopen leh, siew kor!
Show off? Definitely not showing off my messy cables in a hotel. Skill and knowledge...maybe a little.
Wait for you to try la. Recently not much time to tinker due to work. If good then post your haphazard review here to share with us.
lol
yea la , because i was so entrenched into the initial
[ Ubiquity is prosumer, therefore is great ! ]
to
[ Asus merlin with rog / high end routers are GREAT with adguard ! ]
to
[ Firewalla purple, all in one IDS/ IPS with docker and act as travel router, soon to be end all ]
to now, Openwrt and Gl-iNet,
learned really tons from you and Xiaofan [ thats whom, i got inspiration to built that asusmerlin guide ]
so far, from my previous post,
i can be quite confident and honest,
02 x Slate-axt1800 , can be future proof [ up to wifi 7, as 6e is gonna be looking at cheap AP (xiaomi ) ]
+ existing ISP given wifi routers,
given how much time ive spend, and burned, on dockers and asusmerlin router resets,
OpenWRT' LuCI IS a lazymen's god sent
