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wmvare would have better networking performance compared to XEN.
Also, XEN is lacking driver in RouterOS. you have to use some “legacy hardware” to be able to have netowrk communication.
RouterOS license indeed is assigned to hard drive, no other arbitrary limitations outside of what is listed in license section on wiki.mikrotik.com
we usually suggest using RouterBOARD hardware if possible as they incur hardware costs and license level is to steer router use in the setup. So you can have RouterBOARD with RouterOS that costs less than a license it has (like mAP 2n)
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