UbiQuiti ER-6P

I bought the ER this to replace some Asus routers I was running (Merlin firmware) as I noticed the parental controls were being bypassed by some devices. I converted the Asus to access points and a little reading/Youtube was able to get Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) running and write some firewall rules to not only mediate the times of access but block the kids on Youtube on their smartphones (or just see how much they were using it) as one of them would go thru 10-20GB on that while simultaneously playing Xbox with his chums all day. The technology helped me be a better bad parent :) and introduce add blocking etc on my network which pleased the missus as websites load much faster. Pros Slightly reduced latency over the high end consumer routers I was using from Asus Granular control over the firewall rules and use DPI etc Cheap price for the capability on offer POE Excellent support on offer from the vendor and wider community including other non commercial users. Cons Expensive for the home user, no wifi etc (the EdgerRouter X may be more appropriate for home) Too tempting to become a Ubiquiti convert and start buying more of their kit Need some basic knowledge and patience to get the best out of the device Easy to mess up fire wall rules (see above) VPN client to likes of NordVPN currently can't be configured except via OpenVPN (which doesn't offload to hardware). All in all its definitely convinced me to re-engineer/segment my home network (enthusiast with about 50 devices), I will be buying more Ubiquiti devices :) but not telling the missus :( ££££

Since I upgraded to 1Gb fibre I needed a new router - my little Raspberry Pi had served me well but it just didn't have the grunt to deal with that sort of bandwidth. I was going to order the Ubuquiti Dream Machine Pro as the natural partner to my existing Unifi network but I was put off by the reviews and the heat and fan noise. The Edgerouter does not integrate directly with the Unifi network but it can of course work along side it, as any router could. It's a fantastic bit of kit and since I configured it, I've not needed to touch it again. This is not a device for beginners or non-techies though. The configuration UI is certainly lacking and there are many things you will not be able to configure without delving in to the Config Tree or connecting remotely via SSH. But if you are a techy and familiar with Linux then this is certainly a very good choice. I'm very happy I picked this router.

Purchased one of these to replace my aged Juniper SSG-20 Firewall, as I needed the Gigabit capabilities. Everything seem to be there Lag support, SPI Firewall, Vlans, Dynamic routing etc. While building it, there were some sticking points I encountered - lack of clear logging of Firewall traffic, ok there's an option to view live logs - but this is a monolithic log which you have to try to filter down, to "find" the specific traffic you're interested in. Annoying, but I can live with that. Next, Firewall rules do not allow nested objects and mixing of different service types - udp,tcp. Ok, I can live with that too. I eventually built and deployed mine into the live environment. Unit worked for a couple hours, then mysteriously stopped passing traffic - eh? OK, trying to view the live logs and notice they're not running. OK, rebooting the device fixed it, could see live logs and traffic being passed ... but then the same issue again an hour later. What followed was 48 hours spent trying to figure out why the device wasn't passing traffic, including adding allow all rules and trawling the help and support/communities. Device also updated to latest software release - no explanation or joy. After the second day, I gave up and ripped it out, putting back in my aged SSG-20. Its slower but its robust, reliable and easy to manage. Conclusion - not for me, I will be splash out on a Juniper SRX device instead.