I've found the opposite. The TP-link router I had was frustratingly unreliable, even when setup to reboot every night. Their firmware updates were slow to arrive. I tossed both the router and the TP-link PoE devices I had into the dumpster. My dad bought some TP-link devices and also complained about reliability issues. We've both vowed not to buy that junk again. Switched to ASUS a couple of years ago running ASUSwrt-merlin and haven't looked back.
It seems a little unfair (and wasteful) that you didn't consider simply using decent third-party software on the TP-Link hardware you already owned, but rather bought new hardware and then started using third-party software. ASUS consumer networking hardware is no higher quality than TP-Link consumer networking hardware, and neither of them (nor anyone else operating in the consumer networking hardware market) provides high-quality software out of the box.
This is not my experience, but I use the AX73, which is not a completely bottom-of-the-barrel model.
I have to agree here. I've had multiple TP-Link routers and all of them had regular random dropouts that would require reboots. They may work if you have 5 devices connected, but they are simply unreliable with even a moderate amount of devices and traffic. TP-Link is on my list of, "Not worth it at any price."
The one I used for 4 or 5 years was very reliable with dd-wrt on it. I usually just reset once every few months when I updated dd-wrt or felt it seemed to be going a little slow. That said I am not a heavy user, typical videos a couple linux servers (1 is a NAS), a couple of laptops in the household. I've since moved over to another company
I thought this was true. However after buying and trying to use one of their mesh products, I gave up and got rid of it. I bit the bullet and went with Ubiquiti, and I'll never buy anything else again. Worth the extra cost imo.
Conversely, I find Ubiquiti to provide a better product