Ubiquiti EdgeRouter 4

The Ubiquiti EdgeRouter4 (ER4) falls somewhere in between a consumer grade SOHO router (NetGear, Linksys, etc.) and enterprise class (Cisco, Juniper). It supplies many of the features of enterprise grade hardware, such as a robust CLI, and is packaged in a durable, fanless metal box that is easily wall mounted. The SFP port is a nice plus when you need it.I purchased this product for two reasons: to better segment my home network and because it can handle Cox Gigablast's 1Gb downstream connectivity. I no longer have the time to build and maintain my own Linux or *BSD based router and this is the next best thing. The TL;DR version of below is: if you need 1 Gb symmetric (TX & RX) performance, the ER4 has you covered. If your upstream connectivity is limited to hundreds of Mb or less, you should consider the Unifi Security Gateway (USG) instead.The pros: great web GUI that doesn't hide technical complexity from the user; it does not force coddle you or obfuscate capability behind a boring interface. While wizards are available to walk you through common setup scenarios, they are optional, and you have the ability to make changes after the fact. Pretty, interactive, and live graphs on the dashboard and DPI for client IPs are nicely, albeit mostly cosmetic, features. Performance is great and you can setup almost everything from VLANs to firewalls to various services (VPN, DHCP) in the GUI. If you are a native Linux user and are already familiar with how most networking concepts (including iptables firewalls) are implemented, you will find setup intuitive and clean. If you are coming from other enterprise grade hardware companies, such as Cisco, you're going to have a slight learning curve while you translate concepts and technology implementations. The device also integrates with Ubiquiti's network management system, UNMS, a godsend if you are trying to manage multiple networks/sites/etc., less useful if you're just a home user.The cons: Apparently, Ubiquiti for some reason maintains two separate management systems, UNMS and Unifi, both with overlapping features, but nearly independent ecosystems. You cannot manage Edge devices in Unifi and vice versa. it escapes me why this makes sense, rather than have a "step up" market strategy where you hook small businesses into your equipment and offer them an upgrade path as they grow. Apparently, the benefit of the Edge series is you don't require it to be centrally managed (UNMS), while the Unifi hardware requires a unifi controller to do so. I can see the value in some situations of stand alone management interfaces, but why the central management system can't manage both types of devices makes no sense to me.So why the ER4? I couldn't find good documentation on performance for the various Edge class (UNMS) and USG (Unifi) hardware, although I heard many reports that the USG could not switch gigabit Ethernet at full duplex (meaning symmetric) on its WAN interface, while the ER4 could. This was a show stopper for me. The ER4 is fully capable of switching 1 Gb of symmetric traffic.

It is a mini server, not just a routerWARNING! This review has been written over several weeks, it will be long and comprehensive as it might be.By no mean, I'm to be called a networking expert, although i know something or two around Linux and software development.My review is based on one year of extensive usage and i have not used all the features available in the router, so your experience might be different.1- Target audience of this router____________________________________Ubiquity may say that this is a professional level routers line, after one year of owning and running this router, I can confirm that this router can be installed and configured by any person who ever dealt with any router before.The user web interface is as simple as it gets, add that to a wizard based configurations, it makes it even easier to fire and forget.2- Why a wired router and not the all-in-one router?__________________________________________________________basically, every wireless/all-in-one routers consist of:- router- switch- access point (usually bridged with the switch)and in regard to software, at minimum:- NAT (for routing traffic)- DHCP (for automatically assigning IP addresses to devices)- DNS (for translating domain names into IP addresses)- VLAN (packet tagging)- access point software (to configure your SSID, encryption, passphrase, etc.)Now, we must understand that one device to do all that perfectly is nearly impossible.Not to mention updating hardware is impossible, for example, to support WIFI6.Separating these roles and responsibilities will ensure upgrade-ability and stabilityexactly like HI-FI equipments, separates is always the best way to go.3- a brief on my internet connection(s)________________________________________I have two internet connection:- VDSL maxing @ 30Mbps up and 5Mbps down- 4G maxing @ 50Mbps up and 20Mbps downmy VDSL connection is not stable at all (that is the reason I have a 4G connection).Knowing little about networking, I had an all-on-one router that I would physically go and change its WAN connection to either VDSL or 4G :)that started my search for dual LAN router and thus, I knew about Ubiquity, in particular, the EdgeRouter X.For my situation, the EdgeRouter X was enough for where i wanted to load balance two internet connection, yet, has a decent switching chip that is capable of Gigabit routing when hardware offloading is activated and it runs the same firmware as its big brothers.The only thing EdgeRouter X falls short is hardware capacity it is nearly impossible to run additional programs/software due to this limitation, if all you want is routing, load-balancing, and simple switch, you are good to go with EdgeRouter X.4- Why the EdgeRouter 4(or 6P):________________________________in comparison to ERX, ER4 specifications clearly says that it is not just a router but a full single board computer.With 1 GHz 4 core CPU, 1 Gbyte Ram, and 4Gbyte of storage, the ER4 is able to crunch billions of packets with ease.Unlike ERX, the ER4 (or ER6P) doesn't have a switching chip, although you can still bridge ethernet ports, but it will be done by the CPU not a dedicated chip, so it should be avoided.Worth mentioning that the ER4 has an SFP port as well and doesn't have/provide any Power-Over-Ethernet capabilities.So, the ER4 is a dedicated router only machine that its functionalities can be extended due to very good hardware specifications.Coupled with ES8-150W POE switch, both can give a very robust and pleasant experience.Stability of the hardware and software is phenomenal, i don't remember ever restarting the router, only restarts due to software updates or power outages.5- Initial setup and software installation___________________________________________using the wizards, you should be able to get going, i used load-balancing wizard which was really easy to get the router going and all i can say is WOW! i don't have to physically switch the WAN link.but this is just scratching the surface, the software is good enough for day to day activities, backups, restore, monitor devices usages using DPI (Deep Packet Inspection, which is not and will not be %100 accurate).because the software is based on older version of Debian Linux, the sky is the limit, you can install software from Debian repo, or, like i did, install python pip and then install python packages to fit your need.also, i externalized the DHCP and DNS services off the router to a server running on the LAN to offload the router and let it only focus on the one thing it should be focusing on, routing and load balancing.the grayscale interface reflects the seriousness this line of routers represents, however, it can control 20% of the router configurations, the other 80% can be configured using the command line interface (logging in via SSH or Telnet).6- Network Automation______________________being obsessed with IOT and Automation, i always wanted to control the router remotely, for example, to allow or deny devices using a mobile app.as said in point 5, i installed pip on the router, then installed python flask package which allowed my to create my own python HTTP server to control the router behavior using MQTT and Node-Red.also, i was able to receive mobile notifications once the VDSL or the 4G line goes down or up, also collecting usage statistics to graph it on Grafana.by the end of the day i would know how much internet was consumed (per ISP) and which devices consumed the most.the statistics are stored in a database for later usage.7- Things that i love______________________- excellent hardware specification- reasonably priced- great routing capabilities- advanced load balancing and monitoring options- function extensibility via Debian software repo- robust and stable no matter how many users8- Things that i would like to be improved___________________________________________- Dedicated screen for monitoring the Load balancing feature (for now it can be only tracked via CLI)- although it lacks dedicated switching chip, it would be nice to have port mirroring feature which can ease usage monitoring, currently i have a Netgear 5 port smart switch dedicated only for WAN to LAN port mirroring.- more frequent updates9- Conclusion______________no matter you are experienced network engineer or a (wo)man that just wants things to work, you can't go wrong with ER4.Highly recommended!

For me, speed is secondary to rock solid reliability, if a router drops connections or has inconsistent reliability that requires reboots, I really don't care how fast it is theoretically. I have typically used Netgear products in the past which meet the previous description, they are theoretically fast, but have horrible reliability over time. So, I did lots of research and it all pointed back to Ubiquiti products and this Edgerouter 4. For me the Edgerouter 4 was the perfect balance of having the horsepower of the more expensive routers in their line, but without the extra jacks that are semi useless in a home environment because most of the routers in this line do not have network switches built in.It is very true that this route has many features intended for a network professions and you can easily get blown away by the number of options. HOWEVER, the router includes a setup wizard that gets you up and running in about 10 minutes with very little effort if you follow the instructions and maybe watch the 10 minute YouTube video that explains what you're doing. For most consumers, that wizard may be all you ever need to do to configure the router. The only other important thing to understand is you need wireless access point(s) for wifi (I used my old routers and set them up as access points) and a network switch. In summary, my network is much faster than its ever been (and the router isn't even breaking a sweat at about 2% cpu utilization), and it is rock solid reliable...it just works, which is perhaps the best complement.