Hi Everyone
Can you recommend a product or service which allows us to
1. Enter a command into the mikrotik device command prompt to set a controller address and download the necessary scripts etc
2. From that controller, set the device as an access point and make remote changes to the device config that gets pushed out
- SSID, Channel, Security Key, Device Name
3. See the client device list and last known signal level of each device attached to an AP

We effectively want to recreate the Unifi controller for basic residential access points. You simply set the host of the controller and it downloads all its settings from there / sends back statistics. The key being that the device pulls from the controller, rather than the controller pushing settings into the device - so we dont need to do port forwards for vpns etc.
We looked at capsman but it appears to be designed as a central controller for different sites, it seems to want a controller at each customer site rather than a centrally hosted one.
Everything else seems to have a monthly cost which gets quite expensive when we are managing 1000+ devices. We are happy to self-host the controller.

Every (a bit slightly more capable) RouterOS device can be CAPsMAN ... and CAPsMAN protocol works best inside same LAN (read: auto discovery). Indeed CAP devices can be (manually) configured to connect to remote (as in: routed via IP networks) CAPsMAN, but automatic configuration (achieved by pressing reset button for certain amount of time) expects CAPsMAN on same LAN. A short part in this manual section describes both connection methods. Beware that CAP device needs quite reliable connection to CAPsMAN ... if connection gets broken, CAP device disables CAPsMAN provisioned wireless interfaces until connection re-establishes.

Detailed explanation and configuration examples are in CAPsMAN manual.

Thank you but I am looking for solutions other than capsman