AC3200 - What to replace it with?

[Carnbroe]

Its looking more and more likely that my AC3200 is destined either sooner or later to end up in the not supported category so its now time to consider a replacement for when the inevitable happens. The big question is what to replace it with ? I can see that there is a list of supported routers on https://www.asuswrt-merlin.net/about but I'm wondering if the list is in a particular order i.e. are the newer models are at the bottom so I should start there and head up the list to get something suitable ?

My 'must have' features are OpenVPN server, DOT for DNS, dual band, Smart Connect and the ability to send the router logs to set an external syslog server.

My previous router was an AC66U so I really don't want to buy another one and find that it becomes unsupported in 9 months time. Any suggestions ?

 

[Val D.]

Any suggestions ?

RT-AX88U is the best newer model router supported by Asuswrt-Merlin. It has a quad-core CPU with AES support and 1GB RAM. Good for OpenVPN with speeds >200Mbps. I've seen up to 275Mbps through OpenVPN on the same type CPU core. Smart Connect is there, DoT and Remote Log server come with Asuswrt-Merlin. WiFi is one of the best for an AIO consumer router. WIFI 6 support with some missing functions, but ASUS is working on it. It's a newer model and will be supported for years. The price is high though.

My ... AC66U so I really don't want to buy another one and find that it becomes unsupported in 9 months time.

RT-AC66U is a router from Jun 2012. The last Asuswrt-Merlin release is from Apr 2018, the last Asuswrt official firmware is from Nov 2019. When you purchased RT-AC66U it was already years old model. It was supported for 6+ years, actually.