Any Benefit to using a AX88U for Main Router?

[twodose25]

Any benefit or advantage to using Asus ax88u for main router and using ax86u for access point’s, or just use 86u throughout, besides the cost?

 

[jksmurf]

AX88U or AX88U Pro; AX86U or AX86U Pro (and there are multiple combinations)
The response you get will depend on which pairing as the FW available for each is different.

 

[twodose25]

88U ax6000 and 86u ax5400.
or even the pro models on both.

 

[jksmurf]

OK, so a brief summary from me would be:

• The Pro Models set up as a Primary Router give you GNP (Guest Network Pro) capabilities with customisable VLANs for IoT, Guest Networks etc.
• If you're not into any of that (non-Pro still has 3 'Guest' Networks) then you will need to look at differences between non-Pro and Pro. There are many threads on Pro vs non-Pro RT-AX88U/RT-AX86U you on this forum, I will let you search for those. Watch out for the number of 2.4G LAN Ports on one vs the other, if that is improtant to you (wired LANs).
• The FW available on non-Pro variants as a main router propagate only the primary LAN and the Guest Network GN1 to Nodes.
• The non-Pro FW only propagates one Guest Network (GN1) to nodes (in addition to the main network), but with the GN Pro FW VLANs propogation to nodes differs (for the Router combinations you are considering) depending on if you use nodes with Pro (3006 branch FW) or non-Pro (3004 branch FW) nodes (see rest of thread too).
• Whether you go for RT-AX88U or RT-AX86U variants I would recommend the Pro Version of either, for the main router at least (and the nodes if you can swing the cost, but not a must). The reason for this is if at some stage you upgrade to a Wifi7 (BE Class) main router, then that Pro main Router you get now, can later be used as a Node to which all network interfaces will propogate from the BE Router
• e.g. my RT-AX88U Pro propogates the main SSID (both bands) and my IoT VLAN (2.4Ghz only) plus my Guest VLAN (5Ghz only) to my RT-AX3000 Node (3004 Branch FW). See attachments. Those limitations are not apparent with Nodes on 3006 FW (Pro Models).
• The RT-AX88U Pro has pretty good coverage (slightly better than the RT-AX86U Pro) so you might find your node requirements in terms of numbers can be fewer.

Hopefully that will give you a start, there's a huge amount of information underlying that brief summary, you will have to dig into it in more detail, but I didn't want to swamp you with it here; your eyes will just glaze over.