Hi all,

I got a CCR-2004 from my provider and tried to change some of the config. This ended up in one day downtime for the rest of the family and now I wondered what cheaper MT router I should use to build me some test environment to learn/test config changes without impacting the internet connection for the whole family. Which Mikrotik router would you recommend to use to practice RouterOS config in combination with non-Mikrotik switches, VLANs etc.. ? Ideally I'd like to not spend the money on a second CCR-2004...

Thanks in advance
Dirk

The answer is very simple: Any model of router with proper set of interfaces.
All devices use same version of ROS so set of funcionalities is the same at home scale. CCR-2004 is a "beast".
But if you want to explore options available only for particular built-in switch chip you should buy model with same technology to mimic the 2004

I personally learned on two Mikrotik hAP ac lite

But in your case , if you don't need / want Wireless-Interfaces
Maybe a hEX S would be more adequate

yup the hex is a good candidate.
I attache my MT router to various switches, dlink, mt, netgear, tplink .........
all following this guide...... and whatever the vendor requires.........

viewtopic.php?t=143620

I'm not trying to ruin MikroTik's sales or anything, but I'd recommend to start with virtualization and free CHR. If you don't need wireless, you can test anything you want with it. Even physical connection to other devices is possible, if you give usb ethernet adapter to virtual machine (not all work, but some do; wireless ones don't). Or you can add another virtual router(s) and test everything there.

Thank you all! I looked at CHR before but I rather go with physical hardware for the moment. I'll give the hEX S a try.

I learned primarily on the hEX, with some additional wlan stuff on a couple of hAP lites which I bought from Amazon configured with some VPN provider's setup. A couple of Netinstalls later, 2 perfect lab APs.

Remember that hAP lite and hAP mini are "inferior" devices that are limited by RAM size, they have issues that a slightly more expensive model like hAP AC or hEX (S) does not have.

Remember that hAP lite and hAP mini are "inferior" devices that are limited by RAM size, they have issues that a slightly more expensive model like hAP AC or hEX (S) does not have.

Yep, I'd not advocate using them as the main routers, but for learning about capsman and such they are pretty good as straight APs.

Well, they sort of work. But I have used a hAP mini as a bedroom AP for a while and it never worked completely satisfactorily.
The network connection has "hickups" which is a nuisance when listing to streaming audio. It also is 2.5 GHz only.
I replaced it with a hAP ac2 and that works much, much better. Still a 16MB flash device unfortunately, but at least it has enough RAM.

Well when i want to do some emulations i use GNS3, which is a network simulator , where you can run MikroTIK CHRs, create your networks and do your tests...
Of corse you can't test everything, for example WiFi or Switch Rules but you can create from simple to complex network topologies...