I have this pc engines apu2 openbsd setup. Upgrading openbsd is kind of a pain, but other than that, it has been trouble free:

https://github.com/elad/openbsd-apu2

In the last 5 years, it has crashed zero times.

Once, after a power loss, fsck blocked until I pressed y over and over again.

FreeNAS on an X11SBA-LN4F. Its an awesome board for a home router. With a 100W 80+ Gold PSU this thing pulls like 3-5W from the wall most of the time. I'm tempted to just get a 12V brick as it can run off just a DC power supply instead of a full ATX but hey if it works it works why mess with it.

https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SBA-LN...

I use a pcengines APU2C4 (AMC x86 cpu SBC with integrated network switch) with VyOS as my external router.

https://routersecurity.org/ brought me to https://www.peplink.com/products/soho-series/

But I would love to understand my router better and why/how to trust it, or that I've configured it the best way, to protect from threats both inside and outside my LAN.

When I tried to research this last time I heard that dd-wrt were more on top of CVEs than OpenWRT, so I picked them. No idea if that's correct though

I use a Unifi USG despite the anti-ubnt security hype. I also use pcengines apu2 with ubuntu focal as VPN routers.

At work I use fortigate equipment and keep it updated.

At home I have sold my soul to Bezos and just use an Eero.

personally I have something like this: ISP modem ---> Netgear (for guests) ---> pfSsense ---> My network with the VPN server for dialling in.

I would of added a second pfSense for the NAS and cloud but I thought it would be an overkill.

openwrt on a wrt1200ac