{"slug": "openwrt", "name": "OpenWrt", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "Open-source Linux-based firmware for routers, access points and other embedded network devices.", "recommenders": 21, "commenters": 37, "warners": 2, "score": 21.304, "rising": 2.42, "first": "2025-11-03", "latest": "2026-10-16", "why": "Liked as a flexible, real-Linux router OS with straightforward WireGuard, VLAN and IPv6 support, often flashed in place of vendor firmware on inexpensive hardware.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 21, "neutral": 14, "compare": 0, "warn": 2}, "spark": [1, 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 8, 0, 1, 6], "listed": true, "loved": ["Flexibility", "Replaces vendor firmware"], "caveat": "Multi-step config", "short_quote": "it presents a very usable GUI straight away these days and it has a ton of flexibility for getting creative later.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/openwrt/openwrt", "official_url": "https://openwrt.org", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["OpenWrt", "OpenWRT"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked as a flexible, real-Linux router OS", "cites": [{"id": 783580304, "item_id": 48973769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48973769", "by": "briHass", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched from Mikrotik to OWRT because I wanted actual Linux, not a nerfed version of it that made scripting miserable.", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "MikroTik RouterOS", "story": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router"}, {"id": 800797248, "item_id": 50049828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049828", "by": "ssl-3", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it presents a very usable GUI straight away these days and it has a ton of flexibility for getting creative later.", "excerpt": "I used to use DD-WRT, and Tomato, and Shibby's mod of Tomato, and Advanced Tomato, and other stuff. Somewhere, I'm sure I still have a WRT54GS that I hacked ~20 years ago to accept SD cards. It was a fun time in using inexpensive hardware in unintended ways. At one point, and I don't remember exactly when, I just started using OpenWRT instead. It wasn't always the case, but it presents a very usable GUI straight away", "context": "home networking hobbyist", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "DD-WRT", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 781040032, "item_id": 48815002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815002", "by": "Abishek_Muthian", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware)", "excerpt": "OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware) to prevent ISPs selling your browsing data to the advertisers. Although by now most ISPs are probably doing packet inspection. It's easy to customize, I have a script to notify me when a new device connects to my router[1] and I also have a script to notify me when someone logins into my router[2]. Earlier I used to connect my openwrt router directly to the ISP's switch ", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware, privacy and alerts", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}, {"text": " with straightforward WireGuard, VLAN and IPv6 support,", "cites": [{"id": 797224992, "item_id": 49826562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826562", "by": "fitblipper", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have an openwrt router running wireguard.", "excerpt": "I have an openwrt router running wireguard. I use it to provision the peer keys and routes. I also use openwrts cloudflare ddns which is super simple to setup. Any new client I want to add I jump into the wireguard interface in the GUI, go to the peer tab, and it does everything for me there.", "context": "self-hosts WireGuard", "use_case": "router firmware with WireGuard", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Tailscale Faster"}, {"id": 737309216, "item_id": 46081826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081826", "by": "oliwarner", "date": "2025-11-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is quite easy with OpenWRT.", "excerpt": "This is quite easy with OpenWRT. Install the Wireguard packages, create a connection to your VPN of choice in a nearby country (I chose Sweden). Then I used the \"vpn-policy-routing\" package to route Imgur IPs (199.232.196.193 199.232.192.193) through the VPN. Works for websites that keep nagging you for age verification too. But seriously, it's been more emotional than I'd expected to get my cat memes back.", "context": "", "use_case": "router VPN routing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network"}, {"id": 757187168, "item_id": 47324198, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324198", "by": "lpcvoid", "date": "2026-03-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenWRT, which has great support for this", "excerpt": "Sure, first you check if your TV is rootable: https://cani.rootmy.tv/ If not, you can try and find one on Ebay or local classifieds that is. That's the hardest part. Then you setup a VLAN (I use OpenWRT, which has great support for this) and some firewall rules that forbid all traffic that isn't port 80 or 443. Then you create a dnsmasq blacklist for all the LG domains (good list is [1]). Then you install this: https", "context": "", "use_case": "VLAN and firewall for TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hisense TVs add unskippable startup ads before live TV"}, {"id": 763071664, "item_id": 47691979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47691979", "by": "ebiederm", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box.", "excerpt": "For everyone getting into the details about how all of this should work please look at RFC7084: Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7084 It describes in detail what a home router needs to be doing to make all of this work seamlessly. Things work so well that half the world has working IPv6 already. Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box. If you are st", "context": "", "use_case": "home router IPv6", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why IPv6 is the only way forward"}, {"id": 780946048, "item_id": 48809128, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48809128", "by": "magicalhippo", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense.", "excerpt": "I agree on the upgrade story, though supposedly the recent move to apk will help in that regard. I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense. I don't use the AP capability either. How are things in OPNSense these days? Particular pain points from pfSense was that it published global IP as DNS address to LAN clients and no way around it, so connectivity broke every time prefix change", "context": "", "use_case": "home router with IPv6", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}, {"text": " often flashed in place of vendor firmware on inexpensive hardware.", "cites": [{"id": 800907632, "item_id": 50056727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056727", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT", "excerpt": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT or maaaaaaybe one of the nicer Tomato forks. There's a Hong Kong company called GL-iNet which makes routers whose OEM firmware is just OpenWRT plus their own web interface, but they actually also have the stock one from upstream pre-installed as well. I've bought routers from them for years. I usually make sure that they're fully supported in a stable upstream release of OpenWRT, th", "context": "has bought GL-iNet routers for years and replaces the firmware", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800864736, "item_id": 50054046, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50054046", "by": "wl", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "cURL was broken in this application with some inscrutable error that went away when I used stock openwrt.", "excerpt": "I was running a shell script that invoked cURL on a GL.iNet router at $DAYJOB. cURL was broken in this application with some inscrutable error that went away when I used stock openwrt.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "GL.iNet firmware", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 781027664, "item_id": 48814229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814229", "by": "VorpalWay", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend you flash stock openwrt instead, I did on mine", "excerpt": "That is interesting (and I recommend you flash stock openwrt instead, I did on mine). But no, the parent comment I replied to claimed Israeli / IDF connections.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 738686785, "item_id": 46167924, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167924", "by": "drnick1", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "TP-Link boxes flashed with OpenWrt are also considerably better value", "excerpt": "Why are people paying what seems obscene prices for UniFi stuff? You probably all have spare hardware lying around that can be repurposed as a router; it does not need to be modern. I use a Ryzen 5 as a general purpose home server/router/firewall running Linux and no ISP plastic box or expensive \"prosumer\" gear can't touch its performance. I can push 25Gbps through it (saturating my SFP28 LAN), or north of 4Gbps thro", "context": "runs a Ryzen 5 Linux home server/router", "use_case": "access points", "switched_from": "", "story": "UniFi 5G"}, {"id": 781002576, "item_id": 48812661, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48812661", "by": "alaudet", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just excellent, some pretty smart people in the Openwrt forum as well if you have problems.", "excerpt": "Been using Openwrt for years, router and access points. Any new AP I buy has to has to be supported by Openwrt. I have probably bought 7 or 8 old AP's at yard sales over the years for $5/$10 and turned them into decent wifi access points back to an Openwrt router running vlans, bandwidth monitoring, QoS, tcpdump for ssh dump with wireshark. Just excellent, some pretty smart people in the Openwrt forum as well if you ", "context": "", "use_case": "router and access point firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}, {"text": " Caveats include multi-step setup for things like VLANs and hairpin port forwards,", "cites": [{"id": 783656113, "item_id": 48978507, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48978507", "by": "Saris", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "One thing that frustrates me about MikroTik and OpenWRT too, is a lot of things require multiple steps to set up", "excerpt": "One thing that frustrates me about MikroTik and OpenWRT too, is a lot of things require multiple steps to set up, like adding a port forward with hairpin isn't just one click, adding a VLAN requires adding stuff in like 5+ different places. I really liked using Opnsense before I switched to Openwrt and I always want to go back, because it was just so much more streamlined and easy to configure from a 'geek but not a ", "context": "", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router"}]}, {"text": " and a default .lan domain that one commenter calls non-compliant.", "cites": [{"id": 800495632, "item_id": 50030977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030977", "by": "ButlerianJihad", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "OpenWRT isn't supposed to be using \".lan\". That's a ridiculous non-compliant behavior.", "excerpt": "I used to do consulting for companies that weren't connected to the Internet yet. This was the early-mid-1990s and \"Private IP Network\" assignments literally did not exist until 1996. Therefore, people who weren't on the Internet yet, or didn't expect to be connected to any particular WAN, or even had their own intranet WAN without public access, they improvised like crazy. Like, whatever IP address ranges worked for", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "New gTLD Application for .lan"}, {"id": 800117680, "item_id": 50007355, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50007355", "by": "mzajc", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "OpenWRT, possibly others as well, assign .lan names to devices on the LAN by default.", "excerpt": "Posting because OpenWRT, possibly others as well, assign .lan names to devices on the LAN by default. People who make use of this might want to follow the application, and, if it goes through, either change the name or make sure queries can't get incorrectly get sent to upstream resolvers. Regarding that last point, I've had issues with dnsmasq in the past where it was remotely resolving domains even when they were c", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "New gTLD Application for .lan"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Flexibility", "summary": "Commenters value it as full Linux that is easy to customize and script.", "quotes": [{"id": 783580304, "item_id": 48973769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48973769", "by": "briHass", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched from Mikrotik to OWRT because I wanted actual Linux, not a nerfed version of it that made scripting miserable.", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "MikroTik RouterOS", "story": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router"}, {"id": 800797248, "item_id": 50049828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049828", "by": "ssl-3", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it presents a very usable GUI straight away these days and it has a ton of flexibility for getting creative later.", "excerpt": "I used to use DD-WRT, and Tomato, and Shibby's mod of Tomato, and Advanced Tomato, and other stuff. Somewhere, I'm sure I still have a WRT54GS that I hacked ~20 years ago to accept SD cards. It was a fun time in using inexpensive hardware in unintended ways. At one point, and I don't remember exactly when, I just started using OpenWRT instead. It wasn't always the case, but it presents a very usable GUI straight away", "context": "home networking hobbyist", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "DD-WRT", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 781040032, "item_id": 48815002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815002", "by": "Abishek_Muthian", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware)", "excerpt": "OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware) to prevent ISPs selling your browsing data to the advertisers. Although by now most ISPs are probably doing packet inspection. It's easy to customize, I have a script to notify me when a new device connects to my router[1] and I also have a script to notify me when someone logins into my router[2]. Earlier I used to connect my openwrt router directly to the ISP's switch ", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware, privacy and alerts", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}, {"label": "Replaces vendor firmware", "summary": "Users flash stock OpenWrt over OEM firmware for fixes and years of updates.", "quotes": [{"id": 800907632, "item_id": 50056727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056727", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT", "excerpt": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT or maaaaaaybe one of the nicer Tomato forks. There's a Hong Kong company called GL-iNet which makes routers whose OEM firmware is just OpenWRT plus their own web interface, but they actually also have the stock one from upstream pre-installed as well. I've bought routers from them for years. I usually make sure that they're fully supported in a stable upstream release of OpenWRT, th", "context": "has bought GL-iNet routers for years and replaces the firmware", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800864736, "item_id": 50054046, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50054046", "by": "wl", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "cURL was broken in this application with some inscrutable error that went away when I used stock openwrt.", "excerpt": "I was running a shell script that invoked cURL on a GL.iNet router at $DAYJOB. cURL was broken in this application with some inscrutable error that went away when I used stock openwrt.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "GL.iNet firmware", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 781027664, "item_id": 48814229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814229", "by": "VorpalWay", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend you flash stock openwrt instead, I did on mine", "excerpt": "That is interesting (and I recommend you flash stock openwrt instead, I did on mine). But no, the parent comment I replied to claimed Israeli / IDF connections.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}, {"label": "Cheap hardware reuse", "summary": "Inexpensive or secondhand routers become capable access points with OpenWrt.", "quotes": [{"id": 781002576, "item_id": 48812661, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48812661", "by": "alaudet", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just excellent, some pretty smart people in the Openwrt forum as well if you have problems.", "excerpt": "Been using Openwrt for years, router and access points. Any new AP I buy has to has to be supported by Openwrt. I have probably bought 7 or 8 old AP's at yard sales over the years for $5/$10 and turned them into decent wifi access points back to an Openwrt router running vlans, bandwidth monitoring, QoS, tcpdump for ssh dump with wireshark. Just excellent, some pretty smart people in the Openwrt forum as well if you ", "context": "", "use_case": "router and access point firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 738686785, "item_id": 46167924, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167924", "by": "drnick1", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "TP-Link boxes flashed with OpenWrt are also considerably better value", "excerpt": "Why are people paying what seems obscene prices for UniFi stuff? You probably all have spare hardware lying around that can be repurposed as a router; it does not need to be modern. I use a Ryzen 5 as a general purpose home server/router/firewall running Linux and no ISP plastic box or expensive \"prosumer\" gear can't touch its performance. I can push 25Gbps through it (saturating my SFP28 LAN), or north of 4Gbps thro", "context": "runs a Ryzen 5 Linux home server/router", "use_case": "access points", "switched_from": "", "story": "UniFi 5G"}, {"id": 800835808, "item_id": 50052238, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50052238", "by": "Leonard_of_Q", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is built around OpenWRT", "excerpt": "While it is good to have choice in commercial routers I haven't used one for a long time, instead running a virtual router on the same machine (an ex-lease DL380 G7, these have 4 ethernet ports) which hosts all services. I use a number of commercial Wifi-equipped routers as access points, these all have OpenWRT installed and all routing functionality is disabled. There's a managed 24-port switch in between the DL380 ", "context": "Runs a home setup on an ex-lease DL380 G7", "use_case": "virtual router and access points", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}]}, {"label": "VPN and VLANs", "summary": "WireGuard peers, VPN policy routing and VLANs are described as easy to set up.", "quotes": [{"id": 797224992, "item_id": 49826562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826562", "by": "fitblipper", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have an openwrt router running wireguard.", "excerpt": "I have an openwrt router running wireguard. I use it to provision the peer keys and routes. I also use openwrts cloudflare ddns which is super simple to setup. Any new client I want to add I jump into the wireguard interface in the GUI, go to the peer tab, and it does everything for me there.", "context": "self-hosts WireGuard", "use_case": "router firmware with WireGuard", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Tailscale Faster"}, {"id": 737309216, "item_id": 46081826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081826", "by": "oliwarner", "date": "2025-11-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is quite easy with OpenWRT.", "excerpt": "This is quite easy with OpenWRT. Install the Wireguard packages, create a connection to your VPN of choice in a nearby country (I chose Sweden). Then I used the \"vpn-policy-routing\" package to route Imgur IPs (199.232.196.193 199.232.192.193) through the VPN. Works for websites that keep nagging you for age verification too. But seriously, it's been more emotional than I'd expected to get my cat memes back.", "context": "", "use_case": "router VPN routing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network"}, {"id": 757187168, "item_id": 47324198, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324198", "by": "lpcvoid", "date": "2026-03-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenWRT, which has great support for this", "excerpt": "Sure, first you check if your TV is rootable: https://cani.rootmy.tv/ If not, you can try and find one on Ebay or local classifieds that is. That's the hardest part. Then you setup a VLAN (I use OpenWRT, which has great support for this) and some firewall rules that forbid all traffic that isn't port 80 or 443. Then you create a dnsmasq blacklist for all the LG domains (good list is [1]). Then you install this: https", "context": "", "use_case": "VLAN and firewall for TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hisense TVs add unskippable startup ads before live TV"}]}, {"label": "IPv6 support", "summary": "Its IPv6 handling is praised, including as a reason to leave pfSense.", "quotes": [{"id": 763071664, "item_id": 47691979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47691979", "by": "ebiederm", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box.", "excerpt": "For everyone getting into the details about how all of this should work please look at RFC7084: Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7084 It describes in detail what a home router needs to be doing to make all of this work seamlessly. Things work so well that half the world has working IPv6 already. Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box. If you are st", "context": "", "use_case": "home router IPv6", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why IPv6 is the only way forward"}, {"id": 780946048, "item_id": 48809128, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48809128", "by": "magicalhippo", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense.", "excerpt": "I agree on the upgrade story, though supposedly the recent move to apk will help in that regard. I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense. I don't use the AP capability either. How are things in OPNSense these days? Particular pain points from pfSense was that it published global IP as DNS address to LAN clients and no way around it, so connectivity broke every time prefix change", "context": "", "use_case": "home router with IPv6", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}, {"label": "Accessibility", "summary": "A screen reader user says the web interface works well and issues get fixed quickly.", "quotes": [{"id": 780974849, "item_id": 48810928, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48810928", "by": "tapper", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWRT has bin good with a screen reader since the start", "excerpt": "Hi I tried with OPNSense, but I use a screen reader they made a big song and dance about fixing 11y on there web interface. In the end they did fuck all. OpenWRT has bin good with a screen reader since the start and the few times I have pointed out things to be fixed they have bin fixed with in days. So yeah go OpenWRT.", "context": "screen reader user", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Multi-step config", "summary": "Some tasks, like adding a VLAN or hairpin port forward, need changes in many places.", "quotes": [{"id": 783656113, "item_id": 48978507, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48978507", "by": "Saris", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "One thing that frustrates me about MikroTik and OpenWRT too, is a lot of things require multiple steps to set up", "excerpt": "One thing that frustrates me about MikroTik and OpenWRT too, is a lot of things require multiple steps to set up, like adding a port forward with hairpin isn't just one click, adding a VLAN requires adding stuff in like 5+ different places. I really liked using Opnsense before I switched to Openwrt and I always want to go back, because it was just so much more streamlined and easy to configure from a 'geek but not a ", "context": "", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router"}]}, {"label": ".lan default", "summary": "It assigns .lan names by default, which one commenter calls non-compliant.", "quotes": [{"id": 800495632, "item_id": 50030977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030977", "by": "ButlerianJihad", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "OpenWRT isn't supposed to be using \".lan\". That's a ridiculous non-compliant behavior.", "excerpt": "I used to do consulting for companies that weren't connected to the Internet yet. This was the early-mid-1990s and \"Private IP Network\" assignments literally did not exist until 1996. Therefore, people who weren't on the Internet yet, or didn't expect to be connected to any particular WAN, or even had their own intranet WAN without public access, they improvised like crazy. Like, whatever IP address ranges worked for", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "New gTLD Application for .lan"}, {"id": 800117680, "item_id": 50007355, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50007355", "by": "mzajc", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "OpenWRT, possibly others as well, assign .lan names to devices on the LAN by default.", "excerpt": "Posting because OpenWRT, possibly others as well, assign .lan names to devices on the LAN by default. People who make use of this might want to follow the application, and, if it goes through, either change the name or make sure queries can't get incorrectly get sent to upstream resolvers. Regarding that last point, I've had issues with dnsmasq in the past where it was remotely resolving domains even when they were c", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "New gTLD Application for .lan"}]}, {"label": "Hardware support", "summary": "Users stick to devices that are supported by stable upstream releases.", "quotes": [{"id": 801627488, "item_id": 50101718, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50101718", "by": "mrlonglong", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I use openwrt where supported.", "excerpt": "This is why I use openwrt where supported.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wanted to download an ISO, ended up writing a kernel exploit"}, {"id": 800907632, "item_id": 50056727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056727", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT", "excerpt": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT or maaaaaaybe one of the nicer Tomato forks. There's a Hong Kong company called GL-iNet which makes routers whose OEM firmware is just OpenWRT plus their own web interface, but they actually also have the stock one from upstream pre-installed as well. I've bought routers from them for years. I usually make sure that they're fully supported in a stable upstream release of OpenWRT, th", "context": "has bought GL-iNet routers for years and replaces the firmware", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}]}, {"label": "Multi-WAN IPv6", "summary": "One commenter could not get a clean multi-prefix IPv6 failover working.", "quotes": [{"id": 764788784, "item_id": 47799299, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47799299", "by": "cyberax", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I really was not able to make it work cleanly with either Mikrotik or OpenWRT routers.", "excerpt": "> Announce the Prefix of the currently active connection, invalidate the other one And this doesn't actually work. Prefix deprecation is a best-effort feature that is not implemented correctly in tons of devices, including such rarely used niche operating systems as macOS. It even technically violates RFC4862 (section 5.5.3). As usual, IETF only recently woke up to that reality: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/", "context": "", "use_case": "IPv6 prefix handling on routers", "switched_from": "", "story": "IPv6 Traffic Crosses the 50% Mark for the First Time"}]}, {"label": "Vendor builds lag", "summary": "Vendor firmware based on OpenWrt can ship a relatively old version.", "quotes": [{"id": 800903153, "item_id": 50056447, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056447", "by": "jonhohle", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The OpenWRT version is relatively old", "excerpt": "I use a GL.inet travel router and their UI on top of OpenWRT is actually pretty good and makes connecting to strange hotel and other captive portal networks pretty straightforward. Luci is still available, or SSH. The OpenWRT version is relatively old, and unfortunately the latest firmware requires reconfiguring family permissions, but I\u2019ve otherwise been happy with the device. I use it for all kind of strange things", "context": "travels with family devices", "use_case": "travel router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "isityettime", "context": "has bought GL-iNet routers for years and replaces the firmware", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056727", "date": "2026-10-12"}, {"by": "jonhohle", "context": "travels with family devices", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056447", "date": "2026-10-12"}, {"by": "Leonard_of_Q", "context": "Runs a home setup on an ex-lease DL380 G7", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50052238", "date": "2026-10-12"}, {"by": "alexnewman", "context": "home network with 25 gbps across 5 ISPs in Puerto Rico", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50050279", "date": "2026-10-12"}, {"by": "ssl-3", "context": "home networking hobbyist", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049828", "date": "2026-10-12"}, {"by": "fitblipper", "context": "self-hosts WireGuard", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826562", "date": "2026-09-24"}, {"by": "tapper", "context": "screen reader user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48810928", "date": "2026-07-06"}, {"by": "exiguus", "context": "runs homelab", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48746086", "date": "2026-07-01"}, {"by": "dhrm1k", "context": "contributes to OpenWrt packages", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48536423", "date": "2026-06-14"}, {"by": "acidburnNSA", "context": "homelab owner", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299376", "date": "2026-03-08"}, {"by": "petiepooo", "context": "built edge gateway solution", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46824410", "date": "2026-01-30"}, {"by": "madduci", "context": "Telekom FTTH customer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46752625", "date": "2026-01-25"}], "tags": ["for home networks", "for homelabs", "for WireGuard VPNs", "for repurposing old routers", "for screen reader users"], "use_cases": ["router firmware", "home router firmware", "home router", "split horizon dns", "travel router firmware", "virtual router and access points"], "compared": [{"slug": "pfsense", "name": "pfSense", "co": 4, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "opnsense", "name": "OPNsense", "co": 4, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "wireguard", "name": "WireGuard", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "mikrotik-routeros", "name": "MikroTik RouterOS", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "proxmox", "name": "Proxmox", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "pi-hole", "name": "Pi-hole", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50039291", "title": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?", "mentions": 7}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48808482", "title": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50007353", "title": "New gTLD Application for .lan", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970772", "title": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081188", "title": "Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50109715", "title": "What I self-host", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 2}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 8, "neutral": 2, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 3, "warn": 1, "recommend": 6}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801812801, "item_id": 50113300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50113300", "by": "theoreticalmal", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Pfsense and maybe openwrt allow split horizon DNS", "excerpt": "Pfsense and maybe openwrt allow split horizon DNS that allows Wireguard tunnels to work seamlessly whether you\u2019re on or off your home network. Took me years to figure out but it\u2019s what I use now", "context": "", "use_case": "split horizon DNS", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 801627488, "item_id": 50101718, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50101718", "by": "mrlonglong", "date": "2026-10-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is why I use openwrt where supported.", "excerpt": "This is why I use openwrt where supported.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wanted to download an ISO, ended up writing a kernel exploit"}, {"id": 800911536, "item_id": 50056971, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056971", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I wouldn't buy any of their stuff if not for OpenWRT\u2014 that's the killer feature for me.", "excerpt": "I have an old Flint and a newer Flint 2, plus a handful of travel routers that I use as wireless Ethernet bridges to get reliable pseudo-wired connections in my house without running cables. (Those can be really handy for devices that are a pain to configure even if they do have wifi, like printers.) I wouldn't buy any of their stuff if not for OpenWRT\u2014 that's the killer feature for me. But I'm quite happy with quali", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800907632, "item_id": 50056727, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056727", "by": "isityettime", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT", "excerpt": "I generally prefer vanilla OpwnWRT or maaaaaaybe one of the nicer Tomato forks. There's a Hong Kong company called GL-iNet which makes routers whose OEM firmware is just OpenWRT plus their own web interface, but they actually also have the stock one from upstream pre-installed as well. I've bought routers from them for years. I usually make sure that they're fully supported in a stable upstream release of OpenWRT, th", "context": "has bought GL-iNet routers for years and replaces the firmware", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800903153, "item_id": 50056447, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50056447", "by": "jonhohle", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The OpenWRT version is relatively old", "excerpt": "I use a GL.inet travel router and their UI on top of OpenWRT is actually pretty good and makes connecting to strange hotel and other captive portal networks pretty straightforward. Luci is still available, or SSH. The OpenWRT version is relatively old, and unfortunately the latest firmware requires reconfiguring family permissions, but I\u2019ve otherwise been happy with the device. I use it for all kind of strange things", "context": "travels with family devices", "use_case": "travel router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800864736, "item_id": 50054046, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50054046", "by": "wl", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "cURL was broken in this application with some inscrutable error that went away when I used stock openwrt.", "excerpt": "I was running a shell script that invoked cURL on a GL.iNet router at $DAYJOB. cURL was broken in this application with some inscrutable error that went away when I used stock openwrt.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "GL.iNet firmware", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800835808, "item_id": 50052238, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50052238", "by": "Leonard_of_Q", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything is built around OpenWRT", "excerpt": "While it is good to have choice in commercial routers I haven't used one for a long time, instead running a virtual router on the same machine (an ex-lease DL380 G7, these have 4 ethernet ports) which hosts all services. I use a number of commercial Wifi-equipped routers as access points, these all have OpenWRT installed and all routing functionality is disabled. There's a managed 24-port switch in between the DL380 ", "context": "Runs a home setup on an ex-lease DL380 G7", "use_case": "virtual router and access points", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800804465, "item_id": 50050279, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50050279", "by": "alexnewman", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use pfsense and openwrt and stuff but now with Claude I just use a custom Linux distribution", "excerpt": "I used to use pfsense and openwrt and stuff but now with Claude I just use a custom Linux distribution running on a dell 2u. That being said I have 25 gbps of internet across 5 internet providers (puerto Rico) and that plugs into my internal home network running at 2x 25 gbps . So for savings it\u2019s like two quad 10 gbps cards. I\u2019ve found substantial speed advantages via consumer hardware considering the cross sectiona", "context": "home network with 25 gbps across 5 ISPs in Puerto Rico", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800797248, "item_id": 50049828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50049828", "by": "ssl-3", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it presents a very usable GUI straight away these days and it has a ton of flexibility for getting creative later.", "excerpt": "I used to use DD-WRT, and Tomato, and Shibby's mod of Tomato, and Advanced Tomato, and other stuff. Somewhere, I'm sure I still have a WRT54GS that I hacked ~20 years ago to accept SD cards. It was a fun time in using inexpensive hardware in unintended ways. At one point, and I don't remember exactly when, I just started using OpenWRT instead. It wasn't always the case, but it presents a very usable GUI straight away", "context": "home networking hobbyist", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "DD-WRT", "story": "Ask HN: Do you want a router that has DD-WRT pre-installed?"}, {"id": 800495632, "item_id": 50030977, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50030977", "by": "ButlerianJihad", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "OpenWRT isn't supposed to be using \".lan\". That's a ridiculous non-compliant behavior.", "excerpt": "I used to do consulting for companies that weren't connected to the Internet yet. This was the early-mid-1990s and \"Private IP Network\" assignments literally did not exist until 1996. Therefore, people who weren't on the Internet yet, or didn't expect to be connected to any particular WAN, or even had their own intranet WAN without public access, they improvised like crazy. Like, whatever IP address ranges worked for", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "New gTLD Application for .lan"}, {"id": 800117680, "item_id": 50007355, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50007355", "by": "mzajc", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "OpenWRT, possibly others as well, assign .lan names to devices on the LAN by default.", "excerpt": "Posting because OpenWRT, possibly others as well, assign .lan names to devices on the LAN by default. People who make use of this might want to follow the application, and, if it goes through, either change the name or make sure queries can't get incorrectly get sent to upstream resolvers. Regarding that last point, I've had issues with dnsmasq in the past where it was remotely resolving domains even when they were c", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "New gTLD Application for .lan"}, {"id": 797224992, "item_id": 49826562, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49826562", "by": "fitblipper", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have an openwrt router running wireguard.", "excerpt": "I have an openwrt router running wireguard. I use it to provision the peer keys and routes. I also use openwrts cloudflare ddns which is super simple to setup. Any new client I want to add I jump into the wireguard interface in the GUI, go to the peer tab, and it does everything for me there.", "context": "self-hosts WireGuard", "use_case": "router firmware with WireGuard", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Tailscale Faster"}, {"id": 788376432, "item_id": 49273527, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49273527", "by": "binaryturtle", "date": "2026-08-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "With OpenWRT I use something like this", "excerpt": "On average about 100 (TCP) requests hit my home router per minute doing various probing and scanning. Lots of checking for the telnet port obviously. Sometimes you can see a swarm of entirely different IPs scanning the full port range (probing the ports one-by-one). You'll see a lot of deepfield, censys-scanner, visionheight.com, shadowserver.io, etc., but also the usual suspects of Chinese or Russian IPs. With OpenW", "context": "", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "", "story": "Someone is running mass vulnerability scans, spoofing AI bots like ClaudeBot"}, {"id": 784062080, "item_id": 49003880, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49003880", "by": "regexorcist", "date": "2026-07-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "You need a firewall in front of the pihole intercepting that traffic, I use OpenWrt.", "excerpt": "They hardcode DNS servers into the TV. You need a firewall in front of the pihole intercepting that traffic, I use OpenWrt.", "context": "", "use_case": "firewall intercepting TV DNS", "switched_from": "", "story": "LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps"}, {"id": 783656113, "item_id": 48978507, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48978507", "by": "Saris", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "One thing that frustrates me about MikroTik and OpenWRT too, is a lot of things require multiple steps to set up", "excerpt": "One thing that frustrates me about MikroTik and OpenWRT too, is a lot of things require multiple steps to set up, like adding a port forward with hairpin isn't just one click, adding a VLAN requires adding stuff in like 5+ different places. I really liked using Opnsense before I switched to Openwrt and I always want to go back, because it was just so much more streamlined and easy to configure from a 'geek but not a ", "context": "", "use_case": "home router", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router"}, {"id": 783580304, "item_id": 48973769, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48973769", "by": "briHass", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I switched from Mikrotik to OWRT because I wanted actual Linux, not a nerfed version of it that made scripting miserable.", "excerpt": "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.", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "MikroTik RouterOS", "story": "HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router"}, {"id": 781323376, "item_id": 48832711, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48832711", "by": "pbasista", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "And it runs OpenWRT.", "excerpt": "> do you ever go over 1gbit No. None of the local ISPs offer speeds above 1 Gbps. However, I use FriendlyElec NanoPi R5C as the main entrypoint router. It has two 2.5G ethernet ports. It costs less than 100 euros. And it runs OpenWRT. It is not a multiport, multi-gigabit device though. And I have not tested it above 1 Gbps so I am unsure about its real world performance.", "context": "", "use_case": "home router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tenda firmware (multiple versions) contains hidden authentication backdoor"}, {"id": 781040032, "item_id": 48815002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815002", "by": "Abishek_Muthian", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware)", "excerpt": "OpenWrt is a great piece of software(firmware) to prevent ISPs selling your browsing data to the advertisers. Although by now most ISPs are probably doing packet inspection. It's easy to customize, I have a script to notify me when a new device connects to my router[1] and I also have a script to notify me when someone logins into my router[2]. Earlier I used to connect my openwrt router directly to the ISP's switch ", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware, privacy and alerts", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 781027664, "item_id": 48814229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814229", "by": "VorpalWay", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend you flash stock openwrt instead, I did on mine", "excerpt": "That is interesting (and I recommend you flash stock openwrt instead, I did on mine). But no, the parent comment I replied to claimed Israeli / IDF connections.", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 781002576, "item_id": 48812661, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48812661", "by": "alaudet", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Just excellent, some pretty smart people in the Openwrt forum as well if you have problems.", "excerpt": "Been using Openwrt for years, router and access points. Any new AP I buy has to has to be supported by Openwrt. I have probably bought 7 or 8 old AP's at yard sales over the years for $5/$10 and turned them into decent wifi access points back to an Openwrt router running vlans, bandwidth monitoring, QoS, tcpdump for ssh dump with wireshark. Just excellent, some pretty smart people in the Openwrt forum as well if you ", "context": "", "use_case": "router and access point firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 780974849, "item_id": 48810928, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48810928", "by": "tapper", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWRT has bin good with a screen reader since the start", "excerpt": "Hi I tried with OPNSense, but I use a screen reader they made a big song and dance about fixing 11y on there web interface. In the end they did fuck all. OpenWRT has bin good with a screen reader since the start and the few times I have pointed out things to be fixed they have bin fixed with in days. So yeah go OpenWRT.", "context": "screen reader user", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "OPNsense", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 780955856, "item_id": 48809741, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48809741", "by": "woodrowbarlow", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "having openwrt with all features working and no tinkering out of the box", "excerpt": "another happy user here too. having openwrt with all features working and no tinkering out of the box (since it's their reference target) is a dream. this, plus the warm fuzzies of buying open-source, makes it worth it to me even with the 1GBps limitation and outdated WiFi (i use a separate AP anyway, like you).", "context": "", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 780946048, "item_id": 48809128, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48809128", "by": "magicalhippo", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense.", "excerpt": "I agree on the upgrade story, though supposedly the recent move to apk will help in that regard. I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense. I don't use the AP capability either. How are things in OPNSense these days? Particular pain points from pfSense was that it published global IP as DNS address to LAN clients and no way around it, so connectivity broke every time prefix change", "context": "", "use_case": "home router with IPv6", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "OpenWrt One \u2013 Open Hardware Router"}, {"id": 779937378, "item_id": 48746086, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48746086", "by": "exiguus", "date": "2026-07-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "build modern hardware for OpenWRT with some additions", "excerpt": "This is a fantastic article! I completely agree with the author's philosophy. Simple automation can reduce maintenance to nearly zero, and it's incredible how much can be achieved with just a few well-crafted scripts. I use a nearly identical alias for docker pull to keep my containers updated. To ensure everything stays running smoothly, I've built a lightweight watchdog (a mix of bash scripting and Uptime Kuma/Besz", "context": "runs homelab", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "pfSense", "story": "I Don't Maintain My Homelab"}, {"id": 778807792, "item_id": 48675487, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48675487", "by": "saltcured", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm in control of the firewall/NAT router itself, deployed OpenWRT, and setup the port-forwarding rules there", "excerpt": "Oh, I think I misunderstood your description. I just jumped to the conclusion of a bastion host being used via the old proxy command method (what we did before the \"jump\" feature got added). But, you're saying all these remote devices individually connect \"back\" to the central host to keep a tunnel open? Honestly, I've never had this problem at large scale. When I did have it, I used one of these methods rather than ", "context": "", "use_case": "router port forwarding", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Practical Guide to SSH Tunnels: Local and Remote Port Forwarding"}, {"id": 776582768, "item_id": 48536423, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48536423", "by": "dhrm1k", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "i contribute to a lot of openwrt packages", "excerpt": "are there any related to networking? i contribute to a lot of openwrt packages (well mainly, only the ones i use and would love to find a few fun tools around that domain.)", "context": "contributes to OpenWrt packages", "use_case": "router firmware packages", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 764788784, "item_id": 47799299, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47799299", "by": "cyberax", "date": "2026-04-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I really was not able to make it work cleanly with either Mikrotik or OpenWRT routers.", "excerpt": "> Announce the Prefix of the currently active connection, invalidate the other one And this doesn't actually work. Prefix deprecation is a best-effort feature that is not implemented correctly in tons of devices, including such rarely used niche operating systems as macOS. It even technically violates RFC4862 (section 5.5.3). As usual, IETF only recently woke up to that reality: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/", "context": "", "use_case": "IPv6 prefix handling on routers", "switched_from": "", "story": "IPv6 Traffic Crosses the 50% Mark for the First Time"}, {"id": 763117026, "item_id": 47694814, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47694814", "by": "TheIPW", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the second is on a Raspberry Pi running OpenWrt", "excerpt": "I wrote this because I got tired of my home DNS being a single point of failure. The setup is a mix of hardware: one local instance runs on Proxmox/Docker, and the second is on a Raspberry Pi running OpenWrt. Having that split across different host OSs ensures that a single hypervisor update doesn't take out the whole network. The third instance is on a Debian VPS for mobile filtering. To avoid the battery drain of a", "context": "", "use_case": "second AdGuard host", "switched_from": "", "story": "I run three AdGuard Home instances (two local, one on a VPS)"}, {"id": 763071664, "item_id": 47691979, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47691979", "by": "ebiederm", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box.", "excerpt": "For everyone getting into the details about how all of this should work please look at RFC7084: Basic Requirements for IPv6 Customer Edge Routers https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7084 It describes in detail what a home router needs to be doing to make all of this work seamlessly. Things work so well that half the world has working IPv6 already. Openwrt pretty much implements all of this out of the box. If you are st", "context": "", "use_case": "home router IPv6", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why IPv6 is the only way forward"}, {"id": 757187168, "item_id": 47324198, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47324198", "by": "lpcvoid", "date": "2026-03-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use OpenWRT, which has great support for this", "excerpt": "Sure, first you check if your TV is rootable: https://cani.rootmy.tv/ If not, you can try and find one on Ebay or local classifieds that is. That's the hardest part. Then you setup a VLAN (I use OpenWRT, which has great support for this) and some firewall rules that forbid all traffic that isn't port 80 or 443. Then you create a dnsmasq blacklist for all the LG domains (good list is [1]). Then you install this: https", "context": "", "use_case": "VLAN and firewall for TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hisense TVs add unskippable startup ads before live TV"}, {"id": 756790029, "item_id": 47299376, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47299376", "by": "acidburnNSA", "date": "2026-03-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "my two openwrt routers", "excerpt": "I have something like this, in the same case. I have beefier specs b/c I use it as a daily workstation in addition to running all my stuff. * nginx with letsencrypt wildcard so I have lots of subdomains * No tailscale, just pure wireguard between a few family houses and for remote access * Jellyfin for movies and TV, serving to my Samsung TV via the Tizen jellyfin app * Mopidy holding my music collection, serving to ", "context": "homelab owner", "use_case": "router firmware", "switched_from": "", "story": "My Homelab Setup"}, {"id": 749190560, "item_id": 46824410, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46824410", "by": "petiepooo", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "running OpenWRT as our edge gateways", "excerpt": "We implemented a very similar solution more than five years ago. The NanoPi R3S was not available then, so we used the GL.iNet GL-MT300N-v2 (aka Mango) running OpenWRT as our edge gateways. It's slow and only has two 100Mb ports, but that was never the bottleneck. At that time, I was able to assemble a batch of 10 including cables and power supplies for only $300, which was ridiculously cheap for such a flexible solu", "context": "built edge gateway solution", "use_case": "edge gateways", "switched_from": "", "story": "When Every Network is 192.168.1.x"}, {"id": 748042000, "item_id": 46752625, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46752625", "by": "madduci", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have always used my own device and I maintain a GitHub Snippet in how to connect OpenWRT modem", "excerpt": "I own a FTTH connection to Telekom since 2018, as the only provider in my street, allowed to install an internet connection (only glass fiber). Since then, I have always used my own device and I maintain a GitHub Snippet in how to connect OpenWRT modem (and by extension, any other modem that supports pppoe), rather than their Huawei SpeedPort crap or the more expensive Fritz Box). Link to Gist : https://gist.github.c", "context": "Telekom FTTH customer", "use_case": "home router on fiber", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deutsche Telekom is violating Net Neutrality"}, {"id": 738686785, "item_id": 46167924, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46167924", "by": "drnick1", "date": "2025-12-05", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "TP-Link boxes flashed with OpenWrt are also considerably better value", "excerpt": "Why are people paying what seems obscene prices for UniFi stuff? You probably all have spare hardware lying around that can be repurposed as a router; it does not need to be modern. I use a Ryzen 5 as a general purpose home server/router/firewall running Linux and no ISP plastic box or expensive \"prosumer\" gear can't touch its performance. I can push 25Gbps through it (saturating my SFP28 LAN), or north of 4Gbps thro", "context": "runs a Ryzen 5 Linux home server/router", "use_case": "access points", "switched_from": "", "story": "UniFi 5G"}, {"id": 737431680, "item_id": 46089480, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46089480", "by": "ndsipa_pomu", "date": "2025-11-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've got OpenWRT (technically FriendlyWRT, but it's the same) running on it", "excerpt": "Also not the OP, but I use a NanoPi M5 for my home router. I've got OpenWRT (technically FriendlyWRT, but it's the same) running on it with Docker for running NgINX and PiHole. https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=69&product_id=309", "context": "", "use_case": "home router OS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network"}, {"id": 737309216, "item_id": 46081826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46081826", "by": "oliwarner", "date": "2025-11-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is quite easy with OpenWRT.", "excerpt": "This is quite easy with OpenWRT. Install the Wireguard packages, create a connection to your VPN of choice in a nearby country (I chose Sweden). Then I used the \"vpn-policy-routing\" package to route Imgur IPs (199.232.196.193 199.232.192.193) through the VPN. Works for websites that keep nagging you for age verification too. But seriously, it's been more emotional than I'd expected to get my cat memes back.", "context": "", "use_case": "router VPN routing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Imgur geo-blocked the UK, so I geo-unblocked my network"}, {"id": 734018448, "item_id": 45876153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876153", "by": "stonecharioteer", "date": "2025-11-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I run openwrt, adguard, unbound, proxmox, jellyfin, samba, qbittorrent and syncthing", "excerpt": "Location: Bangalore, India Remote: Yes, any timezone will do. Willing to Relocate: No Technologies: Rust (5 years), Python (12 years), PostgreSQL (7 years), Distributed Systems (5 years), Linux (19 years and counting as my daily driver) and I can learn anything I put my mind to. Email: You'll find it on my about page, along with a meeting link. I build a lot of my own tools using Rust and Python, I'd love to talk abo", "context": "homelabber", "use_case": "homelab router", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2025)"}, {"id": 732791168, "item_id": 45799448, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45799448", "by": "bArray", "date": "2025-11-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The OS was OpenWRT and was very limited, but just about good enough.", "excerpt": "Wayback-when, I used the Arduino Yun [1] for a project successfully. It took a USB web camera and streamed it via a browser with a button overlay to remotely control a robot. The OS was OpenWRT and was very limited, but just about good enough. The Arduino side was doing the tight control of the motors and reading the sensor data. Why was the Arduino Yun cool? It allowed me to use WiFi easily in an embedded project (t", "context": "", "use_case": "OS on Arduino Yun", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Arduino Uno Q is a weird hybrid SBC"}]}