What are the recommended 5ghz routers for OpenWRT? WAN isn't that fast, about 25 / 40 mbit/s but there are a lot of other networks on 2.4ghz (and maybe also on 5ghz)..
Is AC recommended over N even if I don't need the additional performance?

You could take a look at this: http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr7500 - I have a C5 v1.20, and I'm really happy with it. The hardware in it seems well supported, and it has worked really well for me so far. YMMV, of course, I'm not a heavy WiFi user, I bought it because it was cheap, has GigE, runs all the third-party firmwares I'm interested in, and has hardware support for everything I need and might get in the foreseeable future.

Just my 2 cents.

AC probably won't help you that much at this point in time. Really, it mostly helps with local LAN/WLAN transfers. If you aren't worried about that, or your devices don't support AC, then just get an 802.11n TP-Link WDR3600 or WDR4300. These older models are slightly better supported in Barrier Breaker 14.07 and most of the bugs are worked out. Then again, the TP-Link Archer C5/C7 is not that much more and does give you AC support for a bit of future proofing.

Wouldn't AC beamforming help?

help with what? range? speed?
(I think beamforming is proprietary to each chipset vendor and is probably not supported in OpenWrt, just speculating though).

Try TP-Link 4300 as 5ghz router n.

I think AC (ath10k driver) isn't support yet by OpenWRT.

http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/tl-wdr4300

Works perfectly with OpenWRT including all LEDs and wireless features. No 802.11ac, but I really don't know of any well-supported .11ac models. This is also fairly inexpensive.

Not proprietary according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac
Could help when other networks are present.

TP-Link is inexpensive but I read that it's also cheap / low-quality. Are you sure this is one of the best for 5ghz support?

TP-Link quality is fine. Never had an issue with them.

802.11ac is supported with ath10k in Barrier Breaker, although AC speeds must be turned on via command line (no support in the web GUI basically). Chaos Calmer, which should have a release candidate soonish, fixes this issue.

(Last edited by drawz on 12 May 2015, 15:24)

I agree, there is nothing inherently wrong with TP-Link quality. Can you get higher-quality routers? Yeah, sure, but you pay for it. TP-Link tends to give you plenty of bang for your buck, which was what I was looking for when I bought mine. The performance/price ratio is reasonable.

Their support isn't the best I've encountered, and they've made some choices in the default firmware that I weren't happy with, but those are not problems if you run OpenWRT.

What sort of quality concerns do you have, XTF? Hardware reliability? I doubt that's anything to worry about, the hardware will probably become outdated and irrelevant before it breaks down.

There is so much happening in the world of wireless tech anyway, that IMHO the best approach is to buy something that's reasonably priced, so that I can then justify upgrading more frequently.

Reliability and wireless performance (with OpenWRT).

BTW, is the WDR3600 end-of-life? Only a few shops in the Netherlands still carry it.

I'm not a big WiFi user by any measure, but I've had zero problems with reliability on my Archer C5. (*touches wood*) I read quite a few reviews of it before buying it, and they pretty much all said it had great performance for the price - but of course those tests were mostly done using the stock firmware. I'm quite happy with the performance I'm getting with OpenWRT, but I don't have any ac clients right now, so there's little I can tell you about that. In the coming week I'll probably be buying a new phone, so it's possible I'll have a chance to test it out then.

To be quite frank, I'm not using OpenWRT to get maximum performance, I want the flexibility, control and security that comes with it. If performance is the most important thing to you, there seems to be some debate as to whether running anything other than stock firmware is the best choice. Reliability has been absolutely rock solid for me with Barrier Breaker, but of course you lose the ability to yell at the manufacturer if/when something breaks or doesn't work well.

It might seem like the WDR3600 is EOL (or close to it), as I have trouble finding one here in Norway also. I can't find anything conclusive on the TP-Link website, but there is a fairly recent firmware update for it. If you want 5GHz and don't care about ac, then it still seems like a good choice if you can find it.

If you want both in case you might need ac later on, then all I can tell you is that the Archer C5 is cheap and cheerful When I was looking for a router at the time I bought mine, I couldn't find anything else that worked well with OpenWRT that would give me similar specs at a similar price point. It is certainly a world apart from the piece of shit D-Link I had before - I will never again buy one of their products.

Plenty of WDR3600's in the US. Clearly the manufacturers are moving more and more to AC routers though. I wouldn't be surprised if TP-Link decides to simplify their 802.11n line-up by reducing the number of models for sale or migrates to lower cost hardware for 802.11n devices.

Using Archer C5 V1.20 without a single hiccup since it was added to OpenWRT trunk back in August 2014. The router has been under heavy use 24/7 not only as a router but also as a NAS for both wired and wireless HTPC purpose, transparent proxy, OpenVPN and torrent client. Not only the speed and stability is great the range is outstanding too thanks to powerful amplifiers churning out 30dbm @ 5G and 24dbm @ 2.4G making 5g range nearly as good as 2.4g. I think this is the best and practical router for the money right now until upcoming QCA based Tp-link Archer 2600 gets OpenWRT support.

The initial thread on this:  https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=52351

If you have any of these routers:

* Netgear WNDR3700/WNDR3800/WNDRMAC (wndr3x00)
* Netgear WNDR3700V4/4300 (wndrnand)
* TP-Link WDR4900
* TP-Link Archer C5/C7

I would suggest this awesome custom firmware with lots of additional features:
https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=50914