MikroTik is a Latvian company with an American CEO, and they specialize in router and WiFi equipment and maintain their own Linux based operating system for their equipment, RouterOS. And the most interesting thing is that all of their equipment supports all the features of their RouterOS and gets support for years into the future, specifically they guarantee 5 years of software updates, and they’re fast in fixing vulnerabilities (and their competition I’m sure incentivizes sensationalized negative media coverage with advertising dollars). And their hardware designs are very inexpensive compared to the megacorp players in the space while for the most part being just as capable. The Heavy Networking Podcast below with a large MikroTik consultant will run through the pros and cons of the devices and why he specializes in using them for large enterprise customers.
My interest in looking into them is that my current small business gigabit Ethernet router is pretty old now and hasn’t been updated since 2020. It only ever had 4 Critical Vulnerabilities or Exposures in 2018 (fixed), CVEs, which had to do with the web interface, but I’m really not sure how well it’s been tested and already replaced with with a new hardware version. So it could be security through obscurity, or because of its limited nature a secure product which I’ve locked down as much as possible. But I came across the MikroTik products which along with running RouterOS also can accommodate OpenWrt firmware. Since you’re dealing with an enterprise level product configuration and software wise there is a bit more to properly configuring it along with what features you might enable or disable. And you need to make sure you lock it down and properly setup the firewall. I don’t really need wireless since I use a dedicated Ubiquity Access Point which is regularly updated, but I’m not keen on Ubiquiti’s new routers which require server activation with Ubiquity nor how they’ve gone direct sales. So a MikroTik looks to be a good option for more regular updates.
A intro video on firewall rules in MikroTik devices: