Wondering : ASUS RT-AX86U or Netgear R9000?

[LeKeiser]

Hello everyone

I own a Netgear R7800. I use the very famous and great Voxel firmware since day 1, with the as great Kamoj add-on
So far, after all these years, my R7800 has been working flawlessly. Very stable. Till I don't know why, I came home a week ago, no more 5GHz. All my 5GHz devices, out of the network. I scratched my head cuz I didn't know what was happening. I figured out what the problem was, and restarted the router. The 5GHz came back, and I thought it was just a hick-up but it happened again yesterday. Same thing : no more 5GHz. The 2.4GHz was still on. Had to reboot the router again. But this is no solution.
So either my router is starting to fail me, or there was something else. I have updated it with the latest Voxel firmware. It might solve this problem. Only time will tell.
But in case it doesn't, I'm considering another router. I have a 1GB/60MB internet connection. I have about 25 WiFi devices. I don't use QOS at all, I have no VPN. Pretty basic configuration. But I need it to be very stable.

The R9000 is more expensive, €480 on Amazon. But I can install Mr Voxel's firmware again, and Mr Kamoj's add-on as well. I read many posts, and it seems it's a very stable and strong router.
The AX86U is way less expensive, €280 on Amazon. I could install Merlin's firmware.

Question : which one would you pick? I guess those two routers would be able to handle all my WiFi devices easily, right? Which one has the best WiFi? Which one is the most stable?

Or do you have another router in mind?

Thanx a lot for your comments

 

[microchip]

The R9000 is dead AD technology. Unless you're willing to put Voxel on it, I'd get the ASUS one and put Merlin on it. The AX standard is well supported compared to AD

 

[bbunge]

The AX86U is one of the most recommended routers on this forum. Either Asus or Merlin firmware work well.

 

[RMerlin]

The R9000 is dead AD technology

Indeed, I would avoid that router. If you want a Wifi 6 router from Netgear, that would be one of their RAX models (like the RAX-70).
I cannot recommend any in particular however, I have no personal experience with them.

 

[Tech Junky]

The R9000 is more expensive, €480 on Amazon. But I can install Mr Voxel's firmware again, and Mr Kamoj's add-on as well. I read many posts, and it seems it's a very stable and strong router.
The AX86U is way less expensive, €280 on Amazon. I could install Merlin's firmware.

For $500 you could build your own out of a SFF PC + AP and blow the doors off anything you can buy premade.

Stability is going to be higher using open source OS vs these various firmware packages. I just updated the OS on my AP and has an uptime of 75 days which around here might seem like a miracle with everyone doing weekly reboots. I do reboot the DIY box weekly though for kernel updates but, u could just leave it alone and have constant uptime until either the power goes out or you choose to update the software.