Which router brand update their firmware the most ?

[ng4ever]

Some never update.

 

[L&LD]

I wouldn't say about who updates the most, its who updates as needed. Asus.

 

[FattysGoneWild]

Asus and Netgear. Linksys the worst for not updating firmware. But, to be fair. Simplicity is very high and lacks a lot of features.

 

[SteevieWeevie]

Asus do seem to be the most proactive and have shown a willingness to update old products with new features such as AiMesh for routers that are 5+ years old.

It seems really variable though. TP-Link don’t seem very good to update their firmware either or if they do they don’t make it easy to get your hands on it from region to region.

 

[Trip]

So you're asking a bit of a Pandora's Box of a question, as there are several contexts.

First off, update frequency and potency can and will vary; some brands push updates on products in small amounts fairly often, with less impact on the overall quality of the product at each release (Netgear Orbi, for example), while others only update maybe once per year, but when they do, make more sweeping improvements and fixes, yet they also update for years and years (Cisco RV). I guess it would be six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other in terms of which type of update cycle you'd prefer as a customer. But at least each product is being updated.

Second, each brand's update intensity can vary on a per-model series or even single model basis. For example, Netgear has left certain cheap, low-margin all-in-ones more or less out to dry in comparison to updating Orbi like clockwork. So do we just average out their behavior when we grade them? I'm not quite sure...

Lastly is the quality of the updates themselves. Are they coming in the form of mostly feature fixes, regressions and re-fixes? Or is the focus more on security only, leaving the feature-related updates as secondary? Most users would prefer their stuff be secure, versus feature-filled but riddled with security holes.

So it's not just about who is updating most; it's more about who has the best development quality overall, and judged in what period of time, as security postures fluctuate all the time. I say it's tough to judge overall, but there are better brands than others, historically. For consumer, perhaps Asus, with Netgear in tow. In the SMB segment, Cisco has been good with update longevity. Ubiquiti perhaps more so with frequency. In the enterprise space, the UTM/NGFW makers tend to take the lead, by their very nature, but the accountability of each can change (Ex: Sophos was generally great with their UTM updates and support in their younger years than they have been with XG more recently). So we must continually monitor these brands, and take nothing for granted when it comes to updates.

 

[dosborne]

So you're asking a bit of a Pandora's Box of a question, as there are several contexts.

Although off the original router topic, I find that for other devices your post is even more relevant. In particular, the various NAS servers and streaming devices I've owned have been completely screwed by updates that add functions that few users actually want. They either were extremely poorly implemented thus rendering the device almost useless (no available resources) or broke existing basic functionality. Although I really like their HDD line of products, Western Digital was, IMO, one of the biggest offenders with their wdtv line of products. The last firmware release screwed many core functions, then they dropped the product. Fortunately it was fairly easy to flash previous FW (and I still use this device today)

But, a definite +1 vote for saying frequency does NOT equal "better" in all cases. Yes, you want to pick a vendor that provides product updates (i.e. support) as at a minimum there are likely to be security updates, but you need to watch out for vendors that try and turn a simple device into one that does EVERYTHING, often far exceeding the hardware (QNAP comes to mind as well - but at least you have some control over the apps in this case).

 

[psychopomp1]

"Which router brand update their firmware the most ?"
Asus. That's because their routers are often buggy as hell and need firmware updates every 2 mins. The Asus RT-AC87U and GT-AC5300 being very good examples.

The question you should really have asked is:
"which router brand has the most stable firmware?"
IMHO, the answer is Linksys

 

[Frankflash]

"Which router brand update their firmware the most ?"
Asus. That's because their routers are often buggy as hell and need firmware updates every 2 mins. The Asus RT-AC87U and GT-AC5300 being very good examples.

The question you should really have asked is:
"which router brand has the most stable firmware?"
IMHO, the answer is Linksys

it's because The chipset Manufucturers like broadcom etc put out crappy software it been like that for donkey years

 

[avtella]

"Which router brand update their firmware the most ?"
Asus. That's because their routers are often buggy as hell and need firmware updates every 2 mins. The Asus RT-AC87U and GT-AC5300 being very good examples.

The question you should really have asked is:
"which router brand has the most stable firmware?"
IMHO, the answer is Linksys

Really the AC87U?... Netgear R7500v1 used the exact same problematic Quantenna WiFi chipset, and unlike Asus which worked to fix the issues and leave a fairly stable router, Netgear pretty much abandoned the R7500v1. Also if you compare the core packages on Netgear and Asus units you’ll find NG using more dated software.

The R7800 was a great unit but Netgear made it more unstable with its later stock firmware with an almost useless QoS which once was actually pretty good. I still love it thanks to Voxel and also due to the love it gets from the OpenWRT community as it’s a Qualcomm based device, I’m confident the RAX120 will be decent similar to it in third party support.

Netgear has no GT5300 equivalent, but at least you can count on Asus to fix issues with chipsets and support devices for a long time. The current AX series chipsets from Broadcom have been pretty problematic but Netgear using the same chipset’s has worse firmware that’s less stable and issues like the 500Mbps limit on the Broadcom based units.

Take a look at the R9000 it was a huge mess it used the same WiFi chipset as the earlier R7800 but couldn’t do HT160 till much later in it’s lifecycle. All this aside from the stability issues on stock firmware including the storage side.

With Asus at least you get something more than a dumb device that just connects to the internet, you get proper VPN support, monitoring features etc and somehow still a pretty stable device by mid lifecycle of a device while Netgear even with almost no features somehow can’t. I mean what do you get for $600 on the RAX200 vs the same hardware in the GT-AX11000 which goes for only $450....With the NG you get less features, less warranty at least in the states and possibly a lower shelf life in terms of firmware/security updates. Why does a $600 unit only allow PureVPN as its VPN client option (Which got caught logging even though they claim they don’t) while better and faster VPN options ie ExpressVPN etc are left out.

I really thought they were slowly moving in the right direction but alas I was wrong.