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Comment by cyberax | Hacker News Reader

Mikrotik is really a sweet spot for routers. It's feature-rich and it has a nice Web UI (or WinBox that is now cross-platform). And Mikrotik as a company is just amazing; they still support hardware that is almost 15 years old.

Other routers:

1. OpenWRT is a bit too basic, and updates are hit-and-miss.

2. Ubiquity is a bit too Apple-like, with its reliance on apps and integration.

3. Cisco is WAY too expensive, and too complicated to set up without having Cisco experience.

I'm now eagerly waiting for them to release the next generation of their routers. hEX Pro looks perfect to replace my aging CCR2004.

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In which way is OpenWRT basic?

I was thinking the same thing. I switched from Mikrotik to OWRT because I wanted actual Linux, not a nerfed version of it that made scripting miserable.

For things like multiple DHCP/PD servers for multiple networks, subnetting (with dynamic prefixes), firewall rules, etc.

You can actually ditch the GUI and go to the command line with OpenWrt and do custom/weird/power-user stuff to your heart's content.

Well, yes. But I can do that with a nice UI in Mikrotik.

Other things: switch port management and bridging, proxy ARP, and so on.

What about switch port management? I can't remember the last time I couldn't do something with switching on it.

Not sure what you mean about bridging either.

I've never had a use for proxy ARP so wouldn't know, but I do know it's possible to enable it. If not on the GUI, at least on the CLI.

MAC-based VLANs and port-based VLANs primarily.

Where would Netgate pfSense+ fit on that list?

I tried Mikrotik and the UI was wasting so much of my time, it was worth switching to Netgate, for me.

on the other hand i got a mikrotik a while back and while setting it up it was silently phoning home.

I installed openwrt and then installed it on many mikrotik routers over the years. to be honest, not so much traditional routers (wifi+4-5 ports) but on ~10 port mikrotik switches for my infra.

i've since been switching to zyxel gs1900-* switches (up to 48 ports with openwrt)

> i've since been switching to zyxel gs1900-* switches (up to 48 ports with openwrt)

I’m sorry what? You can run openwrt on that line of switches?

I just have a 24-port one at home running stock firmware…

they have all kinds of stuff that runs openwrt

like:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0978TF8K3/

https://openwrt.org/toh/zyxel/gs1900-24hp_a1

or:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TC3VJ61

https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/zyxel/zyxel_xgs1250-12_b1

lovely, thank you!

> on the other hand i got a mikrotik a while back and while setting it up it was silently phoning home

Yes, I think it connects to the mikrotik cloud automatically to setup a usable external DNS to your device, but I believe access to it is turned off by default unless you turn it on.

https://manual.mikrotik.com/docs/network-management/cloud/

https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/spaces/ROS/pages/197984280/Ba...

The other reason is for updates, it can check periodically for firmware updates.

But outside of that it's not like streaming network telemetry or anything like that.

Check out Glinet.

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