So far, I am able to find Ubiquiti Edgelite which is 512 MB RAM & 500 MHz dual core processor. Is there anything better out there ?

I am asking this question as I intend to deploy Openwrt devices at an alternative to expensive cisco router & enterprise grade firewall at a few startup office setup that houses 50-300 employees. The max internet speed they looking to support is 250 Mbps.

I have a feeling that there is a mapping between - RAM, processor speed, internet speed v/s number of people the router can support without much issue. But I am not able to figure it out. I understand its not a straight forward mapping & depends a lot on internet usage pattern.

Since I do not have the number, I am sure the question would be thrown around comparing the Edgelite with other enterprise router that are lot beefier ( 4GB RAM, couple of GHz processor etc). So I thought I better look out for the best alternative that I have got for Openwrt.

Advance thanks for your help.

Maybe some routerboard? Openwrt also supports x86, so you can run it on core i7 ITX machine with 2 network cards ;-) But for intel machne it would be probably better to pick some full linux distro like ubuntu server.

As noted, a PC will give the best performance, and there are some small ITX based boxes with multi core CPUs like this http://www.ebay.com/itm/2016-New-4-inte … SwCQNWgkUS  The J1900 mobo (J Micron if I recall) seems well suited.

If you want to look at something more "routerish" look at the PC-Engines APU2.  http://pcengines.ch/apu2b4.htm Probably low $200s with a 1 GHz quad Jaguar core with 64 bit, AES-NI support and 2-4GB memory and m-sata support.

While you can run this hardware with OpenWrt, you will probably need to build your own.  You also open your self up to other products that may be better suited for the load (pfSense, IPFire), though I really do not know what the numbers are.

Wouldn't a TP-Link Archer C2600 do it, once the kinks are sorted out?

After all, you need a case and a power supply anyway. Or are the other suggested devices many times more powerful?

I think I forgot to mention 2 limitations

1. There is this Openwrt package called griggi that let wifi owner put a cap on the data usage at user level. All the places want something like this & hence need to stick to Openwrt. The package is not yet publicly available in Openwrt repo though.

2. I am still not sure about the people a router support v/s router resource data. None of these places need to run any fancy softwares like proxy server or anything else that takes too much of resource. They just need basic routing, load balance & probably a VPN server. Can anybody help me if the Ubiquiti Edgelite with 512 MB RAM & 500 MHz dual core processor is capable of doing the above for an internet speed < 250 Mbps ? If yes, then I think I am good hands. If not, thats when I would probably have to look for a beefier router & probably other alternatives but point 1 kind of makes me stick to Openwrt.