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Comment by meomatic | Hacker News Reader

I don't know, how much they cost in US, but here are couple of solutions:

1. EdgeRouter X (ER-X) or EdgeRouter Lite (ERLite-3).

2. more userfriendly UniFi Security Gateway (USG) with controller (UCK) or UniFi Dream Machine (UDM)

- it propose creating cloud account, but __do not__ require it.

3. use devices capable to run OpenWRT or buy some hardware like Supermicro Embedded Solutions (later I can share models list) to run pfSense/OPNSense or VyOS.

4. other MikroTik soulutions (but I don't like them so my knowledge is not up to date; I don't know which solutions are good for you).

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Be aware that Unifi's products sometimes require cloud accounts, depending on which update is installed. ALso, the dashboard is full of ads.

I definitely would recommend MikroTik, sold my Unifi stuff for MikroTik and would never go back.

I haven't seen ads in my Unifi dashboard at all, except possibly for some of their other products (they are so minor I struggled to recognize them as ads).

Personally, I do not classify that as minor: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzgB7QFX0AEAQIs?format=jpg&name=...

I probably don't see that because I have those devices, but yeah I can see that being annoying.

Any reason you don't like MikroTik? I've been a little turned off by Ubiquiti's latest moves so I was eyeing MikroTik for my next upgrade.

I think that MikroTik does everything to make managing their devices unclear as it's possible. WinBox for example, in some places looks okay (e.g. presenting data in tables or drawing charts) but filling forms or editing settings is terrible. It's not about Ubiquiti, but even pfSense does great job when it comes to presenting data and help to understand presented data (e.g. hide/show advanced options, providing comments and documentation to each option in forms, using padding and margins even help to understand visually your options).

But in the same hand I need to say I am impressed with MikroTik CLI. It colorize each typed word! Even enterprise class Cisco devices don't do it. It's super useful for me and help me with understanding what's going on. Do you even imagine programming in notepad with note type of font and color today, like it was in the past with Windows Notepad? I don't think so. UX/UI is not only about pretty buttons. It's about usability, repeatability, predictability, stability, confidence and ease of access. A software with best features is useless when it doesn't provide any convenient and trusted way to reach this features.

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