For a lot of the UK, the network provider's interface to customer equipment is an ONT delivering the fibre to ethernet conversion so an SFP LAN port leaves me cold. An advantage of the ONT arrangement is that the router can then be sited wherever, using ethernet
I prefer to have further freedom to situate wireless access points separately, so wifi7 or 8 or anything goes in a separate box
For me, 1 WAN plus 7 LAN ports at 2.5G ethernet would be good enough. I don't want premises fibre.
POE probably makes the thermal design more demanding. I would like to pair this device with a 2.5g or 10G POE switch for POE
I can understand the option of premises fibre but please drop the assumption a SOHO user wants WiFi integrated. I would NOT buy such a device but would buy either component independently. Currently my hAP ax3 has precisely one wire, into the 2.5Gb port. It is an AP, not the edge firewall which sits in an inconvenient cupboard elsewhere.
1 or 2 x SFP+ for future-proofing with 4 or 5 x 2.5Gb suits me, in fact given our position here is like @DuctView described for UK, I can do without the SFP+ even though I would prefer one were present.
YesďźI am currently using RB5009 and CRS312. If Mikrotik can release a router with better performance than RB5009, with 2 or more SFP+ports and 8 2.5G ports, then I can replace it. We need powerful version RB5009
The CRS309-1g-8s+in doesnât seem to have the CPU needed for firewalling⌠Canât reach 1gig with 512 packet size; would probably cave with a 100mbit ddos. It excels for a smaller core switch⌠Connecting crs326-24g or css610 POE switches scattered around a building and using something else as a router/firewall. Very easy with the SwitchOS.
I too want something fanless thatâs got more 10g SFP+ than the 5009. Something rackmount option.
I think a CSS610-8p with more CPU and some 2.5g ethernet and routerOS would be an ideal form. Itâs already got 2 SPF+ just needs faster POE and CPU.
Init7 provides PPPoE, and Mikrotik devices are single threaded for PPPoE anyway. Ubiquiti isnât much better, since they donât show actual packets per second performance of their devices (just âgigabitsâ which is a bunk derivative number without the inclusion of both packet size(s) and packets per second used to achieve that.
Single LAN / Single WAN seems dumb to me. Without redundancy, why bother with high end gear at all? On top of that, why would you need a 10GbE LAN port (you know, for connecting to a switch) and 4 x 2.5 GbE ports with PoE onboard? Just run a switch at that point.
No. There are very, VERY few CPU only systems that do line rate, bidirectional 10Gbps (~29.76 million packets per second) when stateful firewalling. Itâs possible with kernel bypass / kernel fast path (e.g., VPP and XDP), but doing it in kernel even with Mikrotikâs version of fast path would require a CPU that would make it no longer desktop sized. Maybe if Mikrotik gets their ASICs to do FastTrack L3HW with PPPoE, this would work.
No. Why have a 10Gbps LAN port for high speed connectivity, just to have WiFi built in?
No, it solves a problem for you, but I would bet money you arenât the norm, otherwise companies would already be making such a product.
Well, this topic is mostly about âthis would be the ideal router for my personal situation, why is it not available yet?â and of course everyone has a different personal situation. The OP probably wanted something for a case (his own home lab) where the cost of multiple ISPs would be prohibitive and the redundancy wasnât really required.
That is why the ideal router doesnât exist: his ideal router would be unusable for you. And when there are too many users like you, MikroTik would not sell his ideal router and it would be a loss generator.
There will be a moment, when the fiber market ISPs will have customers with multi-gig connections. By that time, these customers will not be Mikrotik ones. But that time is not yet there.
Where I live, there are about 8 mil fiber optic connections give or take, from which aprox. 73% have a connection speed between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. Only 15% have a connection of 1Gbps or faster.
You can tell already, that most of the connections could easily do with a RB5009.
To whom to sell RB6xxx? To the 2%?
I have this exact dilemma at this moment, soon I will get my 1st fiber optic connection 2.5Gbps, for which I need at least 1x WAN SFP+ port +LAN 2x SFP+/10Gbe and that product is not there yet, unless I buy the CCR2116, which apparently breaks down sitting on the shelf and/or is noisy as hell in the living room. Simply, Mikrotik does not have the product I need, but also I am not representing the majority of the market. Yet.
Of course not! MikroTik routers are not the best fit for the pain family home internet router, and unless the ISP is giving them out with the connection it is not going to be what the majority is using.
Over here it is customary to have ISP-branded routers or at least routers given out for free with the subscription, and they will be brands like ZyXEL, ZTE, Arcadyan or sometimes AVM (Fritz!Box). They are partly managed by the ISP (TR.069) and what the customer sees is much more simple than what MikroTik offers. The ISP helpdesk would not be able to cope with customers causing issues using the MikroTik user interface. That is really only for âProsumersâ, especially those that donât call that themselves.
Really like all your valid points although I believe 10G line rate PPPoE with firewall can be achieved with x86 hardware and DPDK.
There are some routers that can offload PPPoE like Banana PI (MediaTek MT7988A with Filogic 880) and some Qualcomm equivalent in Ubiquitiâs Gateway Fiber (UCG-Fiber). The latter at the expense of features Neither solution offers line rate with SQM like cake or fq_codel as packets need to be processed by the CPU.
Current conclusion:
Do you need 10Gbps PPPoE or more but donât really require the vast Mikrotik feature set? Get a box with HW-acceleration. I mentioned the 2 best I could find
Do you need more features? Pfsense+ appliances accelerate PPPoE also but wonât get to 10Gbps line rate for the 6100 appliance, which is already a lot more expensive than the options in 1
Wouldnât the level between consumer and professional also be a matter of packaging?
A RB5009 router can be mounted in a 19 inch rack but also in a narrow half-rack. The router is passively cooled which means that it doesnât need to be mounted in a soundproof box.
The step beyond consumer units probably introduces access points. ...with some kind of centralised management to make everything feel like âone networkâ. The possibility to use most of the consumer-lookalike units (like a hAP) as access points allows for lots of flexibility when adapting the network topology to whatever needs that come up.
One missing piece has been a narrow, passively cooled, switch with those 2.5G ports needed to deliver full speed communications between the router and newer access points. That missing link seems to be coming with the S009U units.
The resulting system would be one or more steps up from consumer gear while still being quiet enough to place almost anywhere. Itâs even possible to turn off the brightly blinking LEDs, if necessary, which might increase the Spouse Acceptance Factor. (Most small office setups seem to prefer the blinking for some reason).
A narrow rack like that could be filled with network storage, audio amplifiers, media streamers, smart home hubs and moreâŚ
For home the 10gb must be copper based. SPF is for datacenter.
Who want to mess with receivers, different cable tech, vendor lock, etc in 2026 ?
Realtek prove that 10gb can be super low power if you use decent modern, 2020ish litography not 2000 tech.
ONT device for FIber for home/SMB have copper port LAN side, and the latest router for Home/SoHO move in that direction, only the all-in-one router/ONT from ISP use SPF for simplify the installation.
Here in Switzerland Iâm using CCR2216 with init7 25G routing. Basically itâs the only router from Mikrotik which can handle 25G connection. For sure it can handle far more that 25G routing and âa bitâ overkill for small office, but why not
Iâve also tested CCR2004 with 25G with same init7 connection. I think it can handle a bit more that 10G.
This summer Iâm going to switch my home ISP to init7 25g. Still thinking about which router to take.
An RDS2216 is much less expensive than a CCR2216, has a mix of 1G, 10G (copper + SFP+), 25G, and 100G, as well as more storage options (two M.2 SATA SSDs & 20 NVME SSDs), twice as much RAM, etc.
Personally, thatâs a great converged unit for a home lab.
Neither solution offers line rate with SQM like cake or fq_codel as packets need to be processed by the CPU.