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Comment by grahamburger | Hacker News Reader

I would go with MikroTik. Or just one if the cheaper Ubiquiti devices, like the EdgeRouter series.

MikroTik feels like rolling your own linux router box, a bit overkill and high maintenance.

It's definitely overkill, but what is a homelab if not overkill? It's not really high maintenance, though. Once it's in and running you'll never have to touch it.

Until you do and then you’ve forgotten how and what to do.

Not to mention software updates to ensure your credentials aren't leaked in plaintext...

Isn't this true for any advanced technology?

With Ubiquity, it wasn't, and you get a nice mobile app to see the status of everything.

The MSP I work at maintain some 500 MikroTik devices, I wouldn't call it particularly high maintenance. Once they're set up they'll just keep working. I've been auto upgrading my stuff at home with beta software for the last 4 years without encountering any issues. (ROS6, 7 is another story).

I have come across several situations where professional network engineers have accidentally left a Mikrotik in a dangerously insecure state by misunderstanding the UI. I like Watchguard or Draytek in the small business space. They are a bit more expensive than Mikrotik though

Oh my... so the Draytek UI is better than Mikrotik?

I had been considering trying out some of their gear, but perhaps I might not bother now!

The MikroTik UI is... an acquired taste. Honestly I don't think it's bad, I would argue that it's among the best GUIs out there for routers. I would be surprised if it's more common for MikroTik routers to be left in an insecure state that any other router, unless it's only because people who work on routers tend to have been trained on Cisco or Juniper and that training just doesn't translate very well to MikroTik. But I'm also not going to die on a hill of defending MikroTik's configuration design choices, there's a lot to be desired.

It probably depends on the environment one is in.

I replaced my ISP-provided all-in-one box (Orange in France) with an EdgeRouter 4 and it is many, many times more stable. The crap you get from the ISP does not compare.

The management is horrible and how they designed it is horrible as well (from the OS perspective) but once it works, it works.

I've had good luck with MikroTik hardware, but I really didn't like their OS and just went with OpenWRT.

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