If you have cable, you need a modem. You might be able to put the ISP’s modem into passthrough mode. If not, get one of your own, from the ISP’s supported models list.

The Asus BT8 is a wifi 7 router supported by openWRT and there is quite a few of us running it. I think generally OpenWRT is a good way to go and the Table of Hardware on the OpenWRT site will give you a dizzying array of options for wifi 6 and 7 devices that are supported and you get to pick your spec and price from those available.

You might need the modem device if you are using cable, otherwise its FTTH or DSL then you wont.

If you search for OpenWRT tutorials on youtube you will find a McFly or something like that name and he has a bunch of tutorials on how to set up OpenWRT and a range of more advanced networking topics and how to use OpenWRT to utilise them.

Take a look at OPNsense which is open source or pfSense which is more commercial but still has a community version. Good documentation and will run on really old hardware as long as you have two Ethernet ports in the computer. Until last year my router was a 2007 dual core dell PC. I upgraded to a fifth generation I5.

I run the licensed version of pfSense on all the routers in my org. I have full tunnels between each location along with full blocking of malicious sites including all adult content. It may look complicated but if you want to learn how netowrking works you can do a lot worse.

YMMV but I managed to get a Netgear Nighthawk, one or two generations old, for $10 from a thrift store nearby when my router was starting to crap out. It might be my area but I found at least a couple dozen of those same routers over the years.

I nabbed it, flashed Fresh Tomato on it, and it has been performing excellent for two years.

I went the Flint 2 route, I do not currently need wifi 7 but I did flash it with vanilla Openwrt. With the clean vanilla OpenWRT I have added 2 VPNs, I am considering adding a third (one is personal, one is to show off to friends, and the third one will be for my off site back up). I have a poop load of vLANs (IoT stuff, home lab stuff, my personal stuff, guest stuff, child safe vLAN, Personal VPN vLAN, guest VPN vLAN). I have a bunch of wifi APs, (personal, guest, kiddo safe, IoT, and a few because I am an asshole and believe all them waves belongth to me!).

My plan was to host my own email server but this girl loves her hair and did not want to pull it all out, so I just continued on using a third party for that, this is why I got a firewall I controlled because I needed static IP addresses for email but I would recommend getting one if you are adding your own firewall just to by pass everything your ISP is doing, I have fibre but even when I had DSL my ISP had to keep their modem in there, port 1 is just a dumb switch that goes to my firewall.

Originally I had a VPN running on a pi zero 2 (do not do this it is not that great to do it), but now my Flint 2 takes care of it and I do not notice any slow downs when I am away from the LAN. As a Canadian my PM just recently said we are at war with the US, sure it is a trade war not a pew pew boom war but war non the less and as an ex-Apple fan girl I was already slowly moving my stuff away from Apple things and use a pi 4 for HA I have a pi 5 running a bunch of services including pihole, would highly recommend, I have another pi 5 running stuff, and a pi zero 2 running my secondary pihole. I would highly recommend pihole to anyone who is just starting home labbing or been at it for a while, there is some disagreement with people who use other ad blockers but I found pihole first and feel in love with it. You will be so glad to have a VPN with whatever ad blocker you choose (pihole). But getting a static IP is a good idea, sure there are hacks to get things working with things like duckdns.org, your own domain, or whatever else.

You mention hackers and bots, I have crowdsec running on my firewall with things going to all my other devices and a honey pot on my pi zero 2, but my suggestion is if you do not want to set up crowdsec and just rely on the firewall make sure you use strong passwords, I have vaultwarden for those, and change your ssh ports on your devices and while you are at it do not use anything in the 8080 port range.

That glinet 3e will never get openwrt due to the chip used on it, I’m being told, which makes it a no go imo

I have 2 x Flint 2, the second one is in “extender” mode for better coverage in our house. I’ve found it to be a great router.

I’ve tried to figure out setting up VLAN on the Flint 2 but as yet I’ve failed. I’ll try again at some point.

Flint 4 will support VLAN out of the box though I’m waiting to see more about OpenWRT implementation on it.

A Gl.inet router is easy to use with it’s stock firmware. I recommend getting one and keeping it stock at least for awhile. You can still use Luci to get more in-depth while also having a simple to understand interface as a backup. It has Adguard built in as well as other things like VPNs and Tailscale and packet inspection. Of course through Luci you can install all sorts of stuff. The Flint 2 has good hardware to be able to run lots of addons

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

[Thread #89 for this comm, first seen 27th Aug 2026, 15:50] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

I use the Flint 2 with openwrt (vanilla, not stock). I installed Unbound for a recursive DNS and dnscrypt (or whatever its called). The router has been amazing and handles the recursive DNS with no issues.

You mentioned you have VDSL. So you’ll still need your VDSL modem.

You will probably be able to configure it in pass-through mode or something similar so it will only do the modem functions and not the routing functions.

Then you can use anything you like as a router.

I use OpnSense on a dirt cheap ex-lease x86 SFF desktop. I also filled it with PCIe NIC’s. The only down side of that is it’s power-draw.

I also own a Flint 2. Been using OpenWRT for years, but when I got the flint I was so pleased with the stock interface I chose not to flash vanilla on it. 2 years later and it’s still doing great. Note that even though it’s stock, standard LuCi is still available - the “stock” part just seems to be a custom GL.iNet GUI you can choose not to use.

Get 2 devices, set them up the same and put 1 in a cupboard.

When you make a change / update and / or the hardware fails, then you can still recover.

Personally I have a Fritz router in bridge / pass through mode, then a pfSense firewall - basically a low-ish power microATX (I think) PC - which does all my adblocking and DNS as well as reverse proxy for home assistant, etc.

Works well. But I had a SSD failure once and that was difficult to live with…

My current router is an ancient laptop running NixOS. Ethernet in via the Ethernet port, and out via a USB converter. It probably could serve as a WiFi AP too, but currently I have a dumb OpenWRT in bridge mode for that.

The same laptop also selfhosts Prosody, coturn, LiveKit and stuff.

I don’t really see how a proper router would be better than that.

Unless you have fiber from your ISP you need a modem to translate from the TV or phone cable to Ethernet.

I’m not a fan of openWRT. I’d recommend you go look at NUC-style x86 mini PCs with multiple network ports instead and install OPNsense. I find the web interface much more intuitive than LuCI