Review: ASUS ROG Rapture GT-AC5300 router (+AIMesh)

Another long time lurker, first time poster.

Here in Australia, the ROG Rapture is AU$659.

If you go ubiquiti for a "simple" setup. I would suggest:
USG $169
Cloud Key $119
UAP-nanoHD $299
Unifi 8-port switch (60w PoE) $175

Total = AU$762
You could drop the Cloud Key and run the Unifi Controller software on a computer, but the Cloud Key is a lot simpler for most people and doesn't require an always on computer.

Some will say "but the EdgeMAX EdgeRouter-x/4/whatever is cheaper/more powerful/etc"
Yes. But the USG integrates seamlessly with the cloud key, making management a breeze. You also get all the really pretty graphs and DPI stats when you use all Unifi gear.
The version 5.9.x series of the Unifi controller software is looking to be very user friendly. Its in beta right now, but isn't all ubiquity software?

 

Thats the point, having 3 specialized devices at least for me is better. Each of them is better in its own area, for example routing capabilities of ER what ever version from unify is way higher than what this asus or any other all in one wifi router can do and it also allows more advanced and complicated configurations.

Yes Asus may have theoreticaly speed advantage on paper how ever in reality according to benchmarks it goes around 400mbps on 2.4GHz and 900mbit on 5GHz and looking at specs, it still seems to be older AC wave 1 specs according to product pages as they mention only 80Mhz channel whre UBNT HD line already supports AC wave 2 with 160MHz channel.

I dont say this router might not be good, how ever after last 10 years experience with Asus, Cisco(Linksys), Netgear and microtic based all in ones I prefer separate components due to more functionality and performance wise.

 

Main difference between USG and edge router is that USG have quite limited configuration option as routing goes compard to edge router, for me it lacks few things I am using on edge router.

In datacenter ussage Edge routers should be used for connecting all vlans and then USG to connect more edgerouters and connection between sites.

 

For €400 = Pfsense + UniFi access points and you have the ability to control all your network, plus coverage way better and you can set up how you like!

 

This is my setup. Works really well for me. Granted I have pfSense as a VM on an ESXi 6.7 box with a Linux VM for the Unifi Controller as well as.... "other" duties.

Very much aware of this. But for the consumer who is looking at this price range, but doesn't have a lot of networking knowledge, the USG is the better option. In saying that, I believe you still can do everything you would on the CLI of the EdgeRouter on the USG, but you just need to modify a config.json file as an additional step. What I would love to see is the ER-4 hardware with the USG software, that way it could do DPI on high bandwidth connections. The USG is a bit underpowered for that.

All things said and done, the Asus router here seems like a really nice bit of kit. Its looks are a bit polarising.

One thing that should be tested is OpenVPN client throughput. A lot of people are using VPNs as an extra layer of privacy and having it on your router protects the entire network. The Asus routers have OpenVPN clients built into them now.

 

Guys you are going overboard on trying to build a Ubiquiti setup for home, this already exist by them - https://www.amplifi.com/ it's dead easy and works great with up to 1Gbit WAN.

 

You can run UniFi controller on Amazon AWS no problemo