Hi all,
Quick and easy questions for the pros.

Looking to buy some new HW and was thinking about hEX + CSS326-24G-2S+RM. Or is it more logic to just buy CRS326-24G-2S+RM ?
Only specific request I have is firewall + 24 ports. Rackmountable is certainly a plus (I know the hEX isn't).
Feel free to give your advise.

Sorry for the newbie question.
Grtz!

What is your connection speed? Are you planning to use VPN ?

L009 is rack mountable, RB5009 also.

Connection speed not more than 100mbps.
VPN maybe at a certain point when I get more used to all the options.
VLANs are a plus but not a necessity for the moment.

Thanks for the reply.

For that speed L009 is more than adequate.

So if I understand it correctly.
L009
SFP connection towards CSS or CRS switch ? Does it have an added value to have CRS on a switch ?
Advantage of the L009 is that I can run my Pihole in it

You don't have to use SFP to connect switch and router, you can use normal ethernet cable.

CRS have dual boot option, so ROS or swOS but with only single core 800MHz CPU im not sure how well it will handle routing at higher speeds, especially if you start to add firewall rules etc.

I would give swOS a try, i personally use mikrotik switches with sw os and swos lite at work and home and im happy with them.

One minus is that you can't configure swos from winbox, only webfig. But winbox can discover them.

CRS326-24G-2S+RM will handle 100 Mbps fine (routing, nat, filtering). No need to buy additional router for these tasks.

Still... If you want something more future proof I would still reconsider buying separate router. If OP is on a tight budget okay, CRS would be a way to go, but if he is planning to run some containers etc... L009 or even RB5009 is a much better choice.

Or maybe ax3

A little bit future proof is certainly an advantage. Seen that you get at least support for 5 years for updates I think it will become a L009 and a CSS 24 switch. I like to keep it separated to be honest. RB5009 is for my utilization overkill and the price is already a lot more compared to the L009. Or can you run something on the RB5009 that is a must. I’m still a noob on Mikrotik level and all information is goed to have. I’ll use a Cat6a cable to connect both devices.

I think that in your case L009 and CSS326 would fit nice and you will learn ROS and swOS.

Thanks for the followup and replies. I know what to buy