Working on flashing my router. I see OpenWRT is recommended on PG, but not DD-WRT. Just wondering why. Also, if anybody wants to chime in with experiences with either, I’d appreciate it.
Im just guessing as I don’t see an official answer but I would assume its either the relatively low amount of supported devices or the slower update schedule or a combination of those that would be the issue.
I have had a wonderful time using openwrt. Their forum is extremly nice to beginners which made the process relatively easy.
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I highly recommend the OpenWrt One device if you don’t want to go through the trouble of finding a compatible device and flashing it.
I believe an OpenWrt Two is in the making if the One does not cut it. Then of course you have purely DIY setups running OpnSense or Linux.
OpenWRT is fully open-source, unlike DD-WRT.
Also, I think that community-wise you have a better ecosystem where you can join the forum and ask for help/recommend ideas. While DD would probably not give a crap about you since you’re not bringing in any money to them.
I can recommend this amazing website and quote a section of it
Suggested secure routers - RouterSecurity.org.
If you want to know more about the topic.
But yes, not everything is black and white and security doesn’t always equal privacy, you need to find the balance. For example, Ubiquiti is probably your above-average secure software yet it is not very conscious of privacy.
You could also go further and get into the weeds of comparing small details where people complain about some not having feature X or Y or Z not working with W but hey, you might never need them.
Flash OpenWRT, setup your WiFi and move from there so that you can see if it suits your needs or not. Might be faster to make yourself an opinion on the one you prefer. 
I think OP already have their router purchased but yes, the OpenWRT One or the MT-6000 (Flint 2) are well known good hardware to start with for a bump-less experience. 
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What do you mean by that? DD-WRT is fully GPL afaik.
This website isn’t amazing, it’s misleading. TP-Link and other consumer hardware is as good as any other enterprise gear that cheaped out on a generic MediaTek SoC as long as you can reflash the bootloader and firmware. Enterprise routers are as vulnerable as “consumer” gear when it comes to hardware, i.e MediaTek.
Not sure how true Wikipedia might be, but here is my source
Maybe it’s not perfect on everything and I do agree on the points your mentioned.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of good advices there for routers in general IMO.
Also, it’s hard to measure/have objective supporting facts on those topics because how do you even benchmark security on a router? Hence why I think that this website still does a great job at explaining things in simple terms.
Buy the cheapest Wifi 6 or WiFi 6e capable router that allows firmware as well as bootloader reflashing. The latter isn’t necessary if you trust the vendor, and there aren’t any historical backdoors in TP-Link bootloaders, but using an up-to-date uboot may save you a couple Mb.
Pay attention to the MIMO capabilities of a router, not the number of antennas. Cudy travel routers such as TR3000 will outperform the typically recommended GL Inets while costing pennies. When it comes to OpenWRT, it doesn’t really matter what OEM produced your router.
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So MT7981 from the ToH OpenWRT list if you’re on a cheaper side or Filogic 830, so something like MT7986. The SoC doesn’t really matter for WiFi 6 devices if you’re not running a VPN on a router itself and have a >500 mbit WAN connection. Even Filogic 820 devices are capable of using the whole 160 MHz WiFi 6 range, which is plenty for the typical household.
The TR3000 looks quite similar to the MT3000[1], specs wise indeed while being cheaper.
Then I guess it comes down to availability or other concerns.
Some recognized brand name might be worth 20€ sometimes but it’s not like it matters a lot anyway.
If you want to search by yourself, here is the official TOH from OpenWRT.
There is also a wide range of cheaper alternatives if you want to go quite DIY but potentially squeeze out some more performance from the hardware
Mostly a balance of stable known brand VS bleeding-edge/cheap at this point.
which is also a warm recommendation from the community ↩︎
Is this AI? If you’re referring to the fact dd-wrt can use broadcom’s drivers - ask your chatbot about the firmware blobs in the Linux kernel.
Hm? Not sure to fully understand how proprietary drivers are a relevant topic here.
I mostly found out their source code but not sure if that’s enough to be flashed on a router to have a working DD-WRT instance. But, it’s not like I care investigating that topic either.
Honestly, it’s just like pfSense VS OPNsense kind of situation here.
One is FOSS, the other is not so I lose interest quite quickly investigating the other one in that situation.
Why even bothering with a closed/proprietary approach if the community is backing up the same amount of features in the open with millions of eyes on it + actual open discussions around the topic?
FOSS is not always the best, but I am far more likely to pick it up over (half-)proprietary anytime.
Besides that, then it goes into politics and I am very much not interested into Stallman/GNU/Linux kind of bikeshedding situation.
I also sometimes never care about the entire LORE/implementation details of a project and the drama around it.
I use a tool to get the job done if it’s not 400% evil. Here, OpenWRT just sounds like the far superior solution if we omit the potential akshually that some might come up with on deep-rabbit-hole-y forums.
If I’m wrong, feel free to correct me regarding how it would matter to someone just trying to be an enthusiast and fiddle around with their router at home to regain some privacy.
I don’t have a strong professional networking background and might be wrong on my beliefs but I consider having done enough research on the topic so far.
OPNSense doesn’t provide feature, performance, security parity with PfSense. Just take a look at their months long security patches lags. They barely contribute to the BSD kernel and cannot even keep up with living off pfsense’s work.
Point being, FOSS vs walled garden isn’t all black and white, and pfsense actually provides more value after taking a closer look at the actual state of affairs 
Coming back to ddwrt, i think it still has its place but probably shouldn’t be recommended to the regular folks. I just think people should be offered more nuanced positions and grounded opinions
Many popular routers that use DD-WRT use older kernels which have reached EOL. As per this thread Most all devices running older kernels will likely never see a kernel version update.
OpenWRT on the other hand uses the latest LTS kernel making it much more secure and updated.
The developer of DD-WRT signed an NDA with broadcom so some routers not supported by OpenWRT are supported by DD-WRT. OpenWRT’s documentation is much better, whilst a lot of knowledge in the DD-WRT community is still in their forums which requires some digging to get through. I would go with OpenWRT for devices that support it and fallback to DD-WRT if that’s the only one that’s supported by the router at hand.
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