MikroTik Routers hAP ac

You can't really go wrong with Mikrotik. They are affordable and have a lot of powerful features. I have been using the "hAP ac" (2.4/5ghz) model for ~5 years now, and some other 2.4ghz model for another 5 years before that. Whenever I need to upgrade, I'll go with them.

Still using the hAP ac that I ordered 5 years ago and it works great. After some time I needed more ports, so I added Mikrotik switch in the mix that gets powered by hAP ac PoE out port. Great hardware and great software at low prices.

Mikrotik is pretty lacking in aspects that relate to the newest hotness of wifi standards. 802.11ax ("wifi 6") is as good as it gets, with [eg] their wAP AX. They get a lot of stuff right, though. They run RouterOS, which is a custom userland for Linux that is intensely flexible. Approximately any routing-esque function a person can dream up that can work with a Linux kernel can be made to work within RouterOS. The form factor of the wAP AC/AX boxes is really very nice -- they can blend well in on a wall (inside or outside), attached to a pipe, or whatever. I've got a wAP AC on the wall of my living room, for instance. I use another one when "camping" off-grid, zip-tied to the leg of an easy-up awning. It's ostensibly just an access point, but it doesn't have to be. I mean, like: There's two ethernet ports, but they exist without a preconceived function. Want to use it as a router, with hardware WAN and LAN ports? How about with VLANs and a managed switch instead, so it works with just one cable? Eleventy-five different SSIDs? Bridging networks with wifi? Using station mode to leech bandwidth from the cafe across the street, and perform firewalling and NAT and VPN, so you can use it in your apartment -- with only one box? Sure, no problem. Whatever it is, it works. Power is flexible. All of the bits to use passive POE are included; or it can just plug in with the included DC connector; or it can use proper 802.3af PoE. I don't know how it compares to something…

Yeah that's a really good way to put it. I love their kit, there's so much functionality available at a very reasonable price point. One of my favourite things about them is that it's pretty straightforward to move off the beaten path. As an example, I have routinely used their little wireless routers as a wireless client instead of as an access point. One of the places where I regularly do field operations requires us to have 5 or 6 machines connected together with wired Ethernet but only has wifi available for an Internet connection. I use one of the Mikrotik wAP ac units to connect to the on-prem wifi and act as a DHCP server + gateway for the wired network. It took a couple of minutes to figure out how exactly to reconfigure it to do that but it's been absolutely bulletproof since then. That being said, I've also locked myself out of them a fair bit because their configuration tool will certainly let you configure the device in a way that will not work at all and will prevent you from accessing the web interface to fix it.

I have half a dozen Mikrotik hAP AC and wAP AC devices with Openwrt used in various places for work and for home. Rock-solid hardware and muuuch better UX that RouterOS. Don't remember when I setup those, but probably well before Covid. Really fire-and-forget devices.

Mikrotik HAP AC2 as router and wifi, with HAP AC providing extra access point. Fiddly to set up, but solid and trouble-free since. Used to use Ubiquiti Edgerouter, until it failed. The Smart QOS feature was pretty good. Used to use Unifi for wifi, but always struggled with clients getting stuck communicating with the most distant access point. (Edit: In case it's relevant for some, I should also list: a Draytek 130 to adapt perculiar UK PPPoA broadband to PPPoE.)

mikrotik has some pretty good 802.11ac standalone APs, such as this: https://mikrotik.com/product/cap_ac for home use at this point I would also recommend mikrotik routers over anything ubiquiti edgeOS based, since they seem to have abandoned development on their fork of vyatta... the $50 edgerouter-x (ER-X) as a standalone wired gigabit router was a good choice in 2017 but not so much anymore.