Hey there. I'm not a network engineer by any means. I'm perhaps a slightly better-than-average home networking guy.

Back in summer 2018, my house burned down. Prior to that, I had a RB2011UiAS-IN. I used that (as opposed to the all-in-one thing my ISP provided) because I was sharing my Internet with my neighbor (beaming across the street using directional antennae) and wanted to keep our LAN separate, so I read up on VLAN and realized my equipment didn't handle that. 3 hours Googling later, I had ordered a Mikrotik. I remember being SUPER frustrated with it (way over my head) but eventually I worked it out and enjoyed the control.

Ok, so fast forward to 2021. My house is back, I'm no longer sharing Internet with my neighbor (who's wife wasn't too cool with their "ISP" suddenly disappearing!), and I don't have any particular "need" for anything beyond what my ISP provides (which is an Actiontec T3200M)

But every once in a while I'm frustrated by what my router can't do. From no QoS to no VPN client support, to just being a huge power hungry ugly box, to my wifi sucking because the all-in-one is buried in my basement where my fibre comes in.

So I'm keen on buying something better. Should I go Mikrotik again? Or for my purpose, am I better off with a consumer product? Or a mix?

I'm thinking a wired router with an SFP cage so I can plug the fiber directly in (ie. ditch the ISP router/modem/WAP beast) and then I can put a WAP or two (mesh maybe?) where it makes sense.

The Fibre (300/300 service now. Max offered is 940/940) comes into the basement and I have a panel there where 15 CAT6 cables go to various spots around the house. I don't use anywhere near that many. Currently 4, but I imagine 6-8 ports would be good. Nothing a switch can't handle though so I'm not too concerned with # of ports on the router itself.

Is that RB5009 thing supreme overkill? Is the RB750 underkill? Maybe I should stick with the ISP box and add a dedicated VPN appliance, since that's what precipitated this?

Thanks.

The RB5009 will definitely give you the best performance for the price I reckon. I'm very happy with mine. It doesn't have WiFi though.

What kind of Wireless-Performance do you want?
- How many Devices will be connecting to the Network ?

- What kind of Performance do you want from your Wireless-Network?
(Do you expect max Throughput and surf the Internet with full Bandwidth of your ISP's)

- Are you able to provide Wired Connectivity to all AP's or do you need Repeater /Mesh ?
(A house usually needs multiple AP's (Rule of thumb = 1 per Floor))

I suggest an RB4011 without WiFi.

RB4011 still runs RouterOS v6 which is very very stable, compared to v7 that RB5011 runs, which is nowhere near stable yet.
Performance wise, it will easily cover your bandwidth needs and even 1G up/down.
Regarding VPNs, I use a couple of those as VPN concentrators with almost 600 VPN accounts and they don't even break a sweat. (Granted they only have 20-30 concurrent users connected at the same time).
You can (probably*) directly connect the SFP to the RB4011 and use the rest of the 10Gbit ethernet ports as switch (make sure you take a look at the block diagram to see which ports are in what switch group so you can get the best out of it)

*Make sure to check SFP compatibility.

For WiFi, my opinion is to not use any MikroTik device. They are very much behind the competition and have many performance problems.

Personally I've recently replaced all MikroTik APs in my house with a single Ubiquiti UniFi U6-LR.
It's a completely different philosophy than MikroTik when it comes to configuring and troubleshooting, but for the most part, it just works without having to mess a lot with it.
I don't suggest you go and blindly buy a Ubiquiti AP. You first need to do proper planning to be able to choose the right AP(s) for the job. ie: consider ConnyMercier's questions.

Hi, thanks for the replies! I didn't get a notification so I figured people just ignored my question... oops.

What kind of Wireless-Performance do you want?
- How many Devices will be connecting to the Network ?

Hmm... good question, let me list them out:

Wired: 2 TVs, 1 PC, 1 NAS, 1 media server, plus whatever WAP.
Wireless 5ghz: 3 phones, 1 PC, 1 laptop, 1 robot vacuum, 3 smart speakers, any guests
Wireless 2.4ghz: 1 car, 1 garage door opener, 2 kitchen appliances, 7 smoke alarms (yes I bout $1500 work of smoke alarms following a fire!), maybe a dozen light switches, a printer... I'm probably forgetting some.

So that's roughly 6-8 wired devices and 30-35 wireless (most likely very low bandwidth)

- What kind of Performance do you want from your Wireless-Network?
(Do you expect max Throughput and surf the Internet with full Bandwidth of your ISP's)

It isn't so much about speed, as coverage. I currently have the single ISP modem/router/wap in a utility closet in the basement and it actually performs quite well given the non-ideal location. But there are corners of the house that have drop-outs and speeds of < 10Mbps. The garage (where my car and garage door opener need wifi) is practically no signal, so I bought a cheap AP for there but it recently failed. Generally speaking, every device that is performance critical is wired. Still, it would be NICE to have use of the full 300/300. FYI, I get that now in certain areas of the house.

- Are you able to provide Wired Connectivity to all AP's or do you need Repeater /Mesh ?
(A house usually needs multiple AP's (Rule of thumb = 1 per Floor))

It wouldn't be a problem hardwiring them all, but I assumed Mesh was the way to go. Why? Because I tried just adding more APs and that was a mess. I put one in the garage, one in the master bedroom and one in the far corner of the basement. If they were set to their own SSIDs everything worked OK, but then any wandering meant constant dropouts. If I went with the same SSID... well, maybe I just didn't have things setup right, but I had tons of phantom issues, particularly with the 2.4ghz-only items. I don't know a lot about wifi, and I've never before had a multi-WAP environment. "Mesh" just sounded like such a comforting word.

I suggest an RB4011 without WiFi.

RB4011 still runs RouterOS v6 which is very very stable, compared to v7 that RB5011 runs, which is nowhere near stable yet.

Interesting. And the RB5009 (I assume you meant that) can't be downgraded? I do hesitate to pay practically the same for older hardware. The price difference is only $30 and I'd rather get the new fancy, I'll admit

*Make sure to check SFP compatibility.

Are there different kinds?

For WiFi, my opinion is to not use any MikroTik device.

I wasn't going to. I came to that same conclusion the first time round. I did try Ubiquiti once and was really disappointed with the coverage, but I was asking an undersized device to do too much. Lots of mesh options in the last couple of years. But really, I think wifi can be left for a different discussion. I'm focused on the router at this point.

The RB5009 will definitely give you the best performance for the price I reckon. I'm very happy with mine. It doesn't have WiFi though.

Thank you. Have you noticed any issues with v7 vs v6 like Cha0s warned about? I admit I'm leaning to the 5009... it seems like a killer value.

I had a similar Home-Setup.....
I started with a CRS328-24P-4S+RM as a "All-in-One" Solution (Switch, Router, Firewall, Capsman-Manager, etc..)
- wAPac and cAPac for Wireless-Connectivity powered and Managed via the CRS328
- SPF+/10Gbps for NAS
- GPON SFP-Modules for ISP-Connectivity

It was a great Solution for the Money!


After a couple of months,
my network got bigger and got more complex (inter-VLAN routing, Inter-Network Firewall & QOS, etc..)
So i added a "Real" Router to handel the new Workload (in my case a RB4011 no WLAN)

It wouldn't be a problem hardwiring them all, but I assumed Mesh was the way to go.

I always recommend using Wired-Connection wherever possible.
Only use Mesh or Repeater-mode if hardwiring them is impossible.

NICE to have use of the full 300/300. FYI, I get that now in certain areas of the house.

With the actual Public Stable, you won't be able to get 300/300 speeds over Wireless.
A standard cAPac or wAPac will achive around 200mbits MAX

Someone did some Test last week and posted the results on the Forum
(viewtopic.php?t=180549)

I suggest an RB4011 without WiFi.

RB4011 still runs RouterOS v6 which is very very stable, compared to v7 that RB5011 runs, which is nowhere near stable yet.

Interesting. And the RB5009 (I assume you meant that) can't be downgraded? I do hesitate to pay practically the same for older hardware. The price difference is only $30 and I'd rather get the new fancy, I'll admit

RB5011 can only run v7.
RouterOS v7 is not at all stable. My suggestion is to avoid it at all cost since it will take months if not years to become as polished and stable as v6.
If you want something that just works, you must get something that runs v6. Otherwise you are in for many troubles.

*Make sure to check SFP compatibility.

Are there different kinds?

I personally haven't had any issues with MikroTik, FS and Cisco SFP modules with RB4011.
https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/MikroTik ... patibility

I would suggest the RB4011 as well, you can get the WiFi edition as well..

I'd offer: New house, new OS! I won't worry too much about v7 being "stable enough" for a home, and will only improve with time. It looks the same as v6, but they add little things here and there that make more "advanced home" use cases easier – specifically thinking of "Let's Encrypt" and "ZeroTier".

Either RB4011 or RB5009 be a fine "core router" & using separate APs almost always makes sense... Let's start there. Mikrotik is pretty fair: the higher CPU of the RB5009 costs more, and does have a "slicker" design. Do you need the better CPU? Probably not – unless, you want to blow your mind more by running Linux on your "core router" using the "containers" support (e.g. Docker, which virtualizes an OS to an image, that then can run on the RB5009) – there you'd want the additional CPU on the RB5009 over RB4011. What container means in practice, eventually, you'll be able to use containers to add "missing feature" by loading a container image. Mikrotik example of containers is PiHole linux image that runs on RouterOS that allows it to blocks ads. Kinda why I'm suggesting you may not want to look the status of v7 in the short term.

The downside of both of the RB4011 and RB5009 as "core router" is they have no PoE out. So you can't user ethernet to power downstream equipment like switches or, say, an eventual 1Gb 60Ghz AP for your neighbor. This isn't a huge issue, since you can use an PoE injectors; or, plug-in the device to AC downstream. I mention this, since apparently sh*t happens, so you'd want to think about how things get powered if the power goes out. Lots of approaches, but PoE allows the power to be more central. You can certainly get a normal office UPS, but some $30-80 24V batteries from Amazon/whatnot are good solution that last longer/cheaper (and smaller, so can be deployed at "downstream" switches and AP more easily more UPS). Anyway, wanted to highlight the need to think about backup power.

On the devices... Your goal should be that anything that has an ethernet port and can use it should. Copper has been around for centuries, "Mesh" is a buzzword. The issue is depending on where the device lives that's a lot of cables & certainly not everything does technically needs it – more a goal. Certainly wireless "mesh"/bridging works just fine, but it uses shared bandwidth so regardless of equipment, speeds are more variable than a wired cable. And, since you have two+ wireless links, that's twice the change of errors(interference+retransmits). So if you ask me, how you want to run cables in your house between the things that needs ethernet, is going to dictate the "best" equipment to use.

Lots of ways to skin the Wi-Fi. You're up against the fact Wi-Fi AP prefer to be high up/visable, but switches tend to have a mess of cables that best below/out-of-side at a house... For example, you could use 2 x hAP ac2 as both APs and switches, so you'd have both Wi-Fi and some ports in a couple other spots – which may not be a bad approach – but cable management is going to compete for best Wi-Fi coverage on any switch+wifi router. The Audience be another choices as a AP, since it has two ports, you can add a switch to the 2nd ports. It has the option to mesh between multiple ones, but still has the ports to avoid it.

Not using Mikrotik's Wi-Fi might be another option, since their Wi-Fi support is behind-the-times, even in v7. They are working on, search for "wifiwave2". But even that only get you you Wave2 (Wi-Fi 5), while you could go to any electronics store and get a Wi-Fi 6 AP today. That being said, once you're over the initial learning curve for RouterOS, their Wi-Fi is a manageable – and nice to have same mgmt interface on all. Once released, with Wi-Fi 5 , you'd be able to get >300Mb/s theoretically.

Just my two cents.

2c? That was at least a dollar's worth there, thank you.


I'll give it some thought. Probably get the 5009 or see if I can find a used 4011, etc.

Thanks everyone.

2c? That was at least a dollar's worth there, thank you.

Thankful my house didn't burn down – think you'd be happy with the RB5009. Nice heavy, heat sink too.

But on the Wi-Fi, do think you'd have you'd have to add some RF knowledge, to your newfound networking skills, to go down Mikrotik for the Wi-Fi APs. I'd say the consensus on the forum is avoiding Mikrotik's Wi-Fi is a good idea, with TP-Link on the low-cost and Ruckus on the high-end/overkill.