Been running OpenWRT on routers for the better part of 5+ years now. I'm not crazy about some of the software being very minimal[0], and it sometimes takes a few tries[1], but it runs quite well on a Linksys 1900ac. Time for a weekend upgrade!
[0] Dropbear doesn't {didn't?} support ed25519 at the time I was using it for SSH, but it took me an afternoon of dead ends and "it's not DNS" feelings before I found that out.
[1] I know about the serial console, but I'd prefer a simple, direct access keyboard/mouse setup if I screw it up.