Hacker News Reader

Comment by fredsted | Hacker News Reader

I think there's a huge startup opportunity somewhere in building reliable, stable router software with a slick webinterface built in Bootstrap (without framesets).

Of course, there's the Apple Airports that have excellent stability and UI, and while I have one and far better than any router I've owned, it doesn't do stuff like VPN.

View on HN

Depends on which Apple Airport you're utilising. In my experience the Airport Express line (wall socket mounted range extender/WiFi AP) is pretty bad. Seems to get quite hot under medium loads and needs to be reset a lot. Seems like a design trade-off in the sense that Apple went with something small and easy to conceal, but in doing so kind of ignored the heat dissipation.

The Airport Extreme base stations seem pretty solid. But are 100% more expensive than a comparable Asus offering. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if they offer 100% more value to you.

I would also like to say that in this day and age having to use an app/application to configure your router just feels wrong to me. Every router on the market has had a web-server/webUI since the Linksys WRT54G became popular. It is obvious Apple does it as an ecosystem lock-in technique, just to stop Windows/Linux/etc clients from trivially configuring the devices.

AirPort Express is not in wall-socket format anymore. I own the latest one - I only use it for AirPlay streaming/WiFi bridge, but it has been 100% stable (as long as you connect it to another AirPort - other routers will cause random disconnects). Yes it gets hot - any fanless device gets hot - but hot enough to damage anything. Only bad thing is it doesn't have 802.11ac.

Also, sure, you're probably right about the vendor-lock in thing. But I also think Apple wants to make sure the user gets a good experience. With a Web app it's harder to do that. But the apps are really nice and simple to use, and after I set up a device I don't mess with it besides opening up ports. That's just the tradeoffs you live with when you get Apple devices.

That's why I think there's a huge opportunity in creating well designed, good-looking, user friendly network equipment.

I have a MikroTik router (http://www.mikrotik.com/) and it's amazing. They expose configuration knobs through three almost-equal interfaces: a custom shell over SSH, a web interface and a Windows application.

That thing never stops, once it's set up you forget its there and only have to reboot it to update the software (which happens around once a month and it's an event you can skip if it contains no security patches).

I love my MikroTik also but quick word of warning: MikroTik devices are NOT consumer devices, RouterOS doesn't hide anything from you so the interfaces can seem quite complicated to the uninitiated.

It is super powerful and I've never had to reset mine due to a lockup (although plenty of times due to misconfiguration on my part), but they're really competing with SMB network equipment at less than 1/4th the price (and require technical knowledge to really take advantage/utilise of).

If you're a network admin or have a lot of time to play (and are willing to read up on stuff you don't understand) then by all means grab a MikroTik router for your home or small business. If you're just some consumer who wants it to "just work" I definitely don't think RouterOS is for you, maybe grab an Asus and install DD-WRT.

Ubiquity's EdgeMax is a reliable, stable, and inexpensive router that I have started to roll out all customers. EdgeOS is a fork and port of Vyatta 6.3 (think Junos) and is under constant development with a great beta program. Their devs are active on their corporate forum and are open to suggestions and support.

Some features that I have used and like: - Solid hardware - Debian based base OS - Nice Web Admin for common tasks like port forwarding, FW, routes, etc. - Stable VPN - Advanced VLAN configs - Class-based QoS with shaping - DHCP snooping - Port mirroring

EdgeOS looks awesome. A thousand times better than most of the consumer devices I've owned. A shame their routers are not available here in Denmark.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com