Do you guys feel any difference between AX86U and Pro?

[L&LD]

I will never consider an 8-port Asus router that bridges two 5-port switches to get to that configuration known to be unreliable (not just the 5-8 ports, but also seemingly affects other aspects of the router's operations too.

The GT-AX6000 with a $20 or $30 8-Port switch is a much better choice today (still).

 

[Smokey613]

The RT-AX88U Pro does NOT have an 8 port LAN switch. It is only a 4 port with 2 additional 2.5g ports that can be configured in different ways.

RT-AX88U、RT-AX88U Pro Product different Compare｜ASUS USA

Comparison between RT-AX88U、RT-AX88U Pro in Network Standard 、Product Segment 、AX technology 、Data Rate 、Antenna 、Transmit/Receive 、Processor 、Memory 、Boosts speed、Operating Frequency 、Ports 、Button 、LED Indicator 、Power Supply 、Product Weight (g)、AiMesh、Router...

www.asus.com

 

[iFrogMac]

I currently have the RT-AX86 plus a Netgear Prosafe (8 port gigabit switch) and a prosafe 5 port gigabit switch (not in use) I also have a TP-Link AX4400 router that I had purchased before the Asus that is still receiving firmware updates. Latest one was from last month. The main reason I purchased the Assus was out of curiosity about the advanced features. After some trial and error, I think any router with a guest network that's on a different subnet from the main network and will isolate the guests from the main network, will work just as well. I'll continue to use my RT-AX86 as long as possible since it's working. But I think I could have saved myself quite a bit of time and money wasted, if I had known a cheaper router would have done everything I needed, even some of the more advanced things. The other point I'll give to TP-Link is, I don't think their firmware updates are such a gamble compared to Asus regarding whether, or not it's going to break something or not. The 2nd Point I would give TP-Link is regarding services such as UPNP. I use GRC's Shields up as a baseline of testing and Asus has the UPNP hole they look for, while TP-Link does not. This means I could keep UPNP on, on the TP-Link and still have the router report as stealth, and with the Asus, if it's on, it's flagged as vulnerable. I'm simply listing my observations from using both brands of router.

With that said though, I typically just turn off UPNP, I would just feel more secure leaving it on, with a TP-Link router, over an Assus based on the shields up results.

 

[L&LD]

Objectively, TP-Link has worse hardware, obsolete packages, and effectively no long-term support to offer vs. Asus (stock), and even looks worse when compared to RMerlin firmware.

Will they appear to work the same in certain environments? Sure, they might.

But the value of the product isn't how unobtrusive it is, it is how the manufacturer responds when issues come up. And they will.

News - Don't use VPN providers - use your own...

Interesting take on things... https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 Personally, I do use VPN (quite a bit) but that is inbound to my router from my clients when I'm outside - I do have a VPS in the cloud (DigitalOcean at present, I was on Oracle Public Cloud for quite some...

www.snbforums.com

 

[iFrogMac]

Objectively, TP-Link has worse hardware, obsolete packages, and effectively no long-term support to offer vs. Asus (stock), and even looks worse when compared to RMerlin firmware.

Will they appear to work the same in certain environments? Sure, they might.

But the value of the product isn't how unobtrusive it is, it is how the manufacturer responds when issues come up. And they will.

News - Don't use VPN providers - use your own...

Interesting take on things... https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 Personally, I do use VPN (quite a bit) but that is inbound to my router from my clients when I'm outside - I do have a VPS in the cloud (DigitalOcean at present, I was on Oracle Public Cloud for quite some...

www.snbforums.com

Well, as I've mentioned before, I would have preferred to stay with Apple AirPort products, but was forced to look for a new solution as far as support going forward when Apple got out of the router market. For the most part Apple covered most of my needs so it was easier to stay with one ecosystem. As apple changed after Steve passed away, they just started making choices as a company I didn't agree with and doing things that no longer targeted people in usage case. So that's when I really started exploring other options. So it's been trial and error while I've tried to find a new sweet spot.

 

[wol-shiver]

I currently have the RT-AX86 plus a Netgear Prosafe (8 port gigabit switch) and a prosafe 5 port gigabit switch (not in use) I also have a TP-Link AX4400 router that I had purchased before the Asus that is still receiving firmware updates. Latest one was from last month. The main reason I purchased the Assus was out of curiosity about the advanced features. After some trial and error, I think any router with a guest network that's on a different subnet from the main network and will isolate the guests from the main network, will work just as well. I'll continue to use my RT-AX86 as long as possible since it's working. But I think I could have saved myself quite a bit of time and money wasted, if I had known a cheaper router would have done everything I needed, even some of the more advanced things. The other point I'll give to TP-Link is, I don't think their firmware updates are such a gamble compared to Asus regarding whether, or not it's going to break something or not. The 2nd Point I would give TP-Link is regarding services such as UPNP. I use GRC's Shields up as a baseline of testing and Asus has the UPNP hole they look for, while TP-Link does not. This means I could keep UPNP on, on the TP-Link and still have the router report as stealth, and with the Asus, if it's on, it's flagged as vulnerable. I'm simply listing my observations from using both brands of router.

With that said though, I typically just turn off UPNP, I would just feel more secure leaving it on, with a TP-Link router, over an Assus based on the shields up results.

Strange, shields up has always told me all good.

 

[iFrogMac]

Strange, shields up has always told me all good.

Well, unless Asus has updated something recently, whenever I ran the tests with UPNP enabled under WAN, it would always be flagged as "at risk". With the TP-Link implantation of UPNP, it either comes back with the connection attempts were blocked, or the equipment didn't respond at all. So, when running the Asus router, I just turn off UPNP to be safe, and if I need a port, I manually do a forward. Which ideally is the best way, but I do like having uPNP on for a few specific things, but at this point aren't important, so I typically just leave it off.

No need to change my setup right now, currently not having issues. If I start having issues, then I'l look into changing things.

 

[TexasFlood]

Well, unless Asus has updated something recently, whenever I ran the tests with UPNP enabled under WAN, it would always be flagged as "at risk". With the TP-Link implantation of UPNP, it either comes back with the connection attempts were blocked, or the equipment didn't respond at all. So, when running the Asus router, I just turn off UPNP to be safe, and if I need a port, I manually do a forward. Which ideally is the best way, but I do like having uPNP on for a few specific things, but at this point aren't important, so I typically just leave it off.

No need to change my setup right now, currently not having issues. If I start having issues, then I'l look into changing things.

I have UPnP disabled and can't really change it to test it right now but I'll try it later when I can.

Update: I enabled UPnP on my AX86U with latest stock firmware and tested with Shields Up which reported "THE EQUIPMENT AT THE TARGET IP ADDRESS DID NOT RESPOND TO OUR UPnP PROBES!"

 

[d5aqoep]

I will never consider an 8-port Asus router that bridges two 5-port switches to get to that configuration known to be unreliable (not just the 5-8 ports, but also seemingly affects other aspects of the router's operations too.

The GT-AX6000 with a $20 or $30 8-Port switch is a much better choice today (still).

The RT-AX88U and the AC88U I had previously, had the same problem. The ports 1-4 were slow AF and 5-8 ports were fast to initialize.

 

[wol-shiver]

The RT-AX88U and the AC88U I had previously, had the same problem. The ports 1-4 were slow AF and 5-8 ports were fast to initialize.

Must have been remedied, the 2 ax88u I have in a mesh are rocking along. Approx 21 clients, 9 rj45, 5 and 4 split on each.

 

[follower]

The worst routers for me are AC88U and AX88U.

 

[d5aqoep]

The worst routers for me are AC88U and AX88U.

The AX88U never achieved stability like ever. My current 2 x GT-AX11000 Pros are running stable in Mesh since 3 weeks (Without a single reboot). This is like a new personal record for uptime. My previous 2x RT-AX88Us used to lock up randomly and even after pressing reboot button inside web gui didn't actually reboot them. Sometimes the node used to drop out for no reason and reset itself. I experienced each and every bug mentioned here on this site with them.

Makes me wonder if the SOC Broadcom BCM4912 has major share in stability compared to earlier Broadcom CPU BCM4908 which is in earlier Non-Pro models !!

 

[follower]

The AX88U never achieved stability like ever. My current 2 x GT-AX11000 Pros are running stable in Mesh since 3 weeks (Without a single reboot). This is like a new personal record for uptime. My previous 2x RT-AX88Us used to lock up randomly and even after pressing reboot button inside web gui didn't actually reboot them. Sometimes the node used to drop out for no reason and reset itself. I experienced each and every bug mentioned here on this site with them.

Makes me wonder if the SOC Broadcom BCM4912 has major share in stability compared to earlier Broadcom CPU BCM4908 which is in earlier Non-Pro models !!

I had to reboot 88U series at least once a week, sometimes more. I have almost same experience like you. AC88U was the worst one. It's a garbage.

 

[MartinF]

Well, unless Asus has updated something recently, whenever I ran the tests with UPNP enabled under WAN, it would always be flagged as "at risk". With the TP-Link implantation of UPNP, it either comes back with the connection attempts were blocked, or the equipment didn't respond at all. So, when running the Asus router, I just turn off UPNP to be safe, and if I need a port, I manually do a forward. Which ideally is the best way, but I do like having uPNP on for a few specific things, but at this point aren't important, so I typically just leave it off.

No need to change my setup right now, currently not having issues. If I start having issues, then I'l look into changing things.

I always thought of those flags as more of a informational warning, in case you're unaware of possible problems; if I know what it is and why, I ignore them. I would never consider not doing something just because of a warning - like open ports, for example.

Is there a reason to really worry about it? I don't actually know anything about UPNP, so maybe I'm missing something.

 

[TexasFlood]

I always thought of those flags as more of a informational warning, in case you're unaware of possible problems; if I know what it is and why, I ignore them. I would never consider not doing something just because of a warning - like open ports, for example.

Is there a reason to really worry about it? I don't actually know anything about UPNP, so maybe I'm missing something.

Earlier I enabled UPnP on my AX86U with latest stock firmware and tested with Shields Up which reported "THE EQUIPMENT AT THE TARGET IP ADDRESS DID NOT RESPOND TO OUR UPnP PROBES!" I normally keep UPnP turned off out of an abundance of caution.

 

[iFrogMac]

Thank you @TexasFlood I haven't used UPNP on the new 88 firmware, so Asus may have made changes since 86 xx. I just remember that when it was enabled under WAN settings the router would always respond to the probes which isn't the most secure, based on what they probe for. I'm not so much concerned about UPNP itself, it's how people can miss use bad implementations for it, and then it because a doorway for maleware and other things.

The only reason I would use UPNP over a static port forward would be for applications like Transmission, that can open a random port each use, which would also improve security as the port is always changing. Stuff like Plex, I've just decided I don't need outside my network anymore, so I confine it to LAN only now.

 

[wol-shiver]

The AX88U never achieved stability like ever. My current 2 x GT-AX11000 Pros are running stable in Mesh since 3 weeks (Without a single reboot). This is like a new personal record for uptime. My previous 2x RT-AX88Us used to lock up randomly and even after pressing reboot button inside web gui didn't actually reboot them. Sometimes the node used to drop out for no reason and reset itself. I experienced each and every bug mentioned here on this site with them.

Makes me wonder if the SOC Broadcom BCM4912 has major share in stability compared to earlier Broadcom CPU BCM4908 which is in earlier Non-Pro models !!

Crazy how different strokes for different folks.

My 2 ax88u are humming along no problem in a mesh with wired backhaul.

21+ total clients, IoT etc. 9 wired.

They are super stable and I'm new to the Asus game.

Super pleased this far.

 

[d5aqoep]

Crazy how different strokes for different folks.

My 2 ax88u are humming along no problem in a mesh with wired backhaul.

21+ total clients, IoT etc. 9 wired.

They are super stable and I'm new to the Asus game.

Super pleased this far.

My friend has 3 of them in Mesh and he says they have been stable for him since 3 years and he only rebooted them after firmware upgrade. Maybe it's one's own personal setup which certain models don't like.

 

[wol-shiver]

My friend has 3 of them in Mesh and he says they have been stable for him since 3 years and he only rebooted them after firmware upgrade. Maybe it's one's own personal setup which certain models don't like.

I wonder what in particular use case could cause it.

 

[iFrogMac]

OK, turned on UPNP this morning in WAN settings, and ran ShieldsUP!, good news, I was not alerted to the router responding to the probes. Heads up to Asus on fixing this. Going to leave it enabled for a bit to see how overall Network performance is.

Curious if I have anything running that has wanted to open ports and culdn't due to UPNP being disabled. Either way, I feel better about leaving it on knowing a trusted resource which scans for vulnerabilities no longer find them says that even though, I may not use any particular things that would do something bad specifically, says that leaving the service enabled for things that may genuinely need it should be safer now.

Thanks to those who also ran the test and have confirmed.