OpenWrt: A Linux OS targeting embedded devices

I'm a staunch defender of OpenWRT. Having used just about every "router distro" folks care to name (remember SmoothWall?) for the last 20~ years, OpenWRT is built like a tank and just keeps trundling along

I hope their experiments with the "OpenWRT One" keep going. I'd love to see OpenWRT take a (deserved) bite out of the "SMB firewall vendors" like Netgate or OPNsense. Or just undercutting Wi-Fi vendors like Ubiquiti who base their work on OpenWRT anyway

Something I'm excited to try myself in future is running "OpenWISP" [1] to manage a small fleet (three) OpenWRT devices in parallel for a deployment in a shared workshop. This seems to also be something that OpenWRT could be better at integrating, but it's nice to see "a vendor" tackling it

[1] https://openwisp.org/

At home, I built an OPNsense box to evaluate (using Sophos XG135 Rev 3 hardware, along with an OpenWrt nice Netgear WiFi AP on POE), but then went back to a plastic OpenWrt all-in-one box.

OPNsense (and pfSense) are neat, but I personally don't need an IDS/IPS right now, and I like to be able to run the router fanless.

One thing that OpenWrt could use immediately, for basic home WiFi router functionality, is easier ways to add guest-like VLANs from the Luci Web-based admin UI. (I currently have a guest VLAN config that I partly cargo-culted with numerous steps in Luci years ago, largely based on a blog post, and that would be a pain to reconstruct on a new install.)

For techies whose households include non-techies, a little IDS/IPS could help keep some nasty traffic off your home Internet pipe, and I suppose that could now run alongside OpenWrt on some of the more powerful plastic boxes, or on a PC with the right WiFi devices/APs. (In addition to use of VLANs and routing to minimize damage from all the malware-infested devices, and also thinking "zero trust" for the techie stuff you run.)