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Comment by samplatt | Hacker News Reader

What routers are compatible with opnsense? Or does it need a full-blown server/container?

Been happy with my pihole for a few years, and this thread is full of new information for me.

Opnsense is not like OpenWRT, it targets running on relatively powerful generic x86 hardware. Intel CPUs and networking hardware usually works best because of driver support on BSD, but it will work on others. I say "relatively" because even low power old embedded CPUs are more than enough to route at a gigabit or more with lots of firewall rules and services running. Opnsense's cousin Pfsense also has some support for ARM, but that version is only really available on their commercially supported hardware.

Most people either buy a generic box that can be had for ~$250, or recycle an old PC and stick in a network card. You can also buy commercially supported hardware for Opnsense or Pfsense's parent companies, though the value proposition isn't worth it for home users IMO as you will pay a steep premium versus loading up something yourself.

Thanks very much for that. Been thinking about converting an old server to a router + container host for a while.

Look on eBay for old 4 port Intel NICs, you can get em for very cheap and they work forever. Beware Opnsense and Pfsense are based on BSD and you're really not supposed to touch the underlying OS by design anyway, so you will need to virtualize if you also want to host containers alongside.

I bought my router from this site: https://teklager.se/en/products/routers/

They have some guides and stuff that explains the hardware requirements that might be helpful for you.

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