I am currently running dd-wrt at home. Dd-wrt works pretty well, but I recently started to do some digging to see what other routing / firewall solutions existed. There are a bunch of routing / firewall gateway solutions available, and each one provides a unique experience. Some run on Linux, some on OpenBSD, and others on Linux. Most of the solutions have a GUI of some sorts to assist with configuring the device, but one or two require you to use the good old CLI. A number of solutions provide pretty visuals to review traffic and connectivity information, while others require you do use character-based tools to see what is up with your router. Of the various solutions I’ve look at, the following ones stood out:
There are additional solutions out there, and I suspect the decision on which one to use really comes down to how customizable you need it to be and more importantly how much time do you want to devote to installing and maintaining it. There are also questions like do you want to dedicate a PC to routing and firewalling your networks? Will a cheap $50 router from Fry’s be able to handle your traffic? Maybe you want to fine tune everything about your firewall so rolling your own installation with OpenBSD or Linux is the only solution. I’ve been extremely content with dd-wrt, and about the only thing I could see myself doing is upgrading to a newer router that has a faster CPU, more memory and 802.11N. What routing / firewalling solution do you use? Any other quality firewall / routing gateways you would add to this list?