Ask HN: Ubiquiti vs. Mikrotik vs. PC Engines for Home Network? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Ubiquiti vs. Mikrotik vs. PC Engines for Home Network?

5 pointsjohnnycarcin5 comments

I am looking to upgrade/refactor the networking in my home, primarily the wifi setup. Currently I have a Netgear R6400 that just doesn't seem to be cutting it (even with dd-wrt or the other options installed). I'm in a ~3200 sqft home, no brick or anything, just wood and drywall. The "demarc" location for our cable modem is in the basement which is also where the patch panel is. I have cat5 ran to most of the rooms, although the jack in each room is sometimes in a not-so-helpful location.

I have seen a lot of people complimenting the three brands in the title but they all seem to have their own issues...

The Ubiquiti stuff looks really cool, I'm just not sure how interested I am in essentially being locked into their offerings once I start. They are also the priciest it appears.

With the Mikrotik and PC Engines stuff it seems like you typically get the router part, but still need to provide the wifi APs which doesn't get me very far and potentially has me back to using Ubiquiti APs.

Having a router with something like pfSense running on it is awesome, but not really a requirement. I also don't want to have to tinker with the setup every week. I'm looking for something that is solid and stable, without vendor lock-in and price does matter (no enterprise type stuff).

Any ideas or suggestions from the HN folks?

I've used them all by the hundred.

Mikrotik is very "opinionated" on how you configure and use them. Some people love this. I've come to loath them whenever and wherever I see them. Professional grade price and hassle for amateur grade performance. (on the bright side, they've been pretty stout physically... I had one unknowingly working underwater)

Ubiquiti is what I use everywhere I need commercial grade "stuff" I can hand off to a customer. Also very picky about using their software to configure and use the parts, but all free, can self-host and very easy for novices to get the hang of.

At home, I've been using PC Engines since "WRAP" with addon Atheros cards for wifi and my own custom spin of read-only debian. Its a full on server in a router box. It can do anything. The best for hacking by far.

Great info, thank you! How do you like the wifi performance with the PC Engines option? My only concern with that option is that the wifi AP will be in our basement and will lead to some of the wifi "blips" I see today.

Do you run any other APs with with it?

You can choose your wifi card and antenna setup so I have a big card (500mw) with a large antenna that covers my house easily. Before I got the bigger card and antenna, I had a TP link in bridge mode in a bedroom for extra coverage. That also worked fine.

Thanks again. Mind sharing your wifi card and antenna setup? :)

> Having a router with something like pfSense running on it is awesome, but not really a requirement. I also don't want to have to tinker with the setup every week.

I barely 'tinker' with mine.

If you have the skills, an 'embedded' PC with linux, freebsd or openbsd on it is all you really need. If you want 802.11 (WiFi), it's best to stick with linux. (OpenWRT runs on x86 if that's what you're used to.)

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